5 Negative Habits That Sabotage Your Life

Hey Psych2Go-ers! It’s so good to be back! 

Our thoughts are extremely powerful. They not only influence us emotionally, but they also influence our behaviour, and a lot of how we act comes from what we believe and what we feel. An influx of self-limiting beliefs and thoughts manifest into self-fulfilling prophecies that result in you living a life you can’t stand. By allowing cynicism to become a habit, you will limit your potential and ability to succeed. 

By not having control over your mind, you will never be able to achieve the great goals you spend time at night dreaming about. The first step to living your ideal life is to become aware of the thinking habits that rob you of your goals and the mindset that you currently have. A bitter pill to swallow is that we sabotage our own potential with bad habits. Below is a list of a few bad habits that can do serious damage that you might recognize in your life. 

1. Living Distracted

Do you spend the last few minutes or hours before drifting off to sleep ruminating over something that happened in the past? Do you even do this during your waking hours, having flashbacks of memories you’d much rather forget? If it’s happening more often than not, you may be living a distracted life. 

As a person who gets distracted easily, it’s a constant effort to redirect myself to the present moment or task. I can be genuinely interested and my brain will wander off and bring up forgotten events from the memories vault and separate me from the present moment. Stewing over what happened in the past isn’t fun or productive. You find it difficult to experience joy and to appreciate the present because your mind is in many different moments in time and you struggle with grounding yourself back in the current reality. 

2. Externalizing Blame

Unfortunate outside circumstances are horrible . We hate experiencing all that pain and damage that comes from them. We can’t escape them as they are a fact of life and some of them are definitely out of our control. However, some of us magnify our misery and sabotage ourselves by placing the blame solely on other people and external circumstances, when we were involved in orchestrating the unfortunate event too. 

When we make excuses and blame other people and external circumstances, we give our power and autonomy over ourselves to others. It prevents you from observing what you could do better and learning from the experience. A lack of self awareness robs you from being responsible for yourself and your actions, leaving you feeling stuck and preventing growth. 

3. Constant Self-doubt

We might go about our lives thinking about the things we did or the things that happened in the past, to our detriment. We criticize our actions instead of reflecting on them compassionately and objectively, resulting in us second-guessing ourselves and the things we do or want to do. We doubt our decisions, intuition and our own mind. 

Constantly second-guessing yourself impairs your daily performance because you’re not focusing on doing your best, you’re too busy judging yourself. It wastes a lot of brainpower, with you constantly stressing about what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. It also results in self sabotage as you can say no to great opportunities or a potential partner as you don’t feel that you are good enough for it. 

4. Having “Some Day” Thinking

“Someday, I’ll start that vegetable garden.” “Someday, I’ll read that finance book.” “Someday, I will open up my own store.” Thinking about the future we desire in fantastical ways gives us a rush of happiness and hope. The future is bright for that moment…until it’s not, because “someday” seems to not come. It remains only a lovely fantasy.

This model of thinking is closely akin to procrastinating. It satisfies you in the short-term but it doesn’t do anything for you in the long term because you remain trapped in your fantasy, not taking the actionable steps to make it a reality. It robs you of the ability to dive deep and question if this is what you truly want. 

5. Being Afraid To Ask For Help

If you’re one of the HyperIndependence Bunch, (or just the shy, scared bunch) you will have a certain mindset and maybe physical reaction to the term “asking for help.” You can deny assistance because you feel like you’re inconveniencing people; you don’t want to look stupid or you’re scared that you will be ridiculed and you’ll be denied the help you absolutely need because you never would have asked if you didn’t need it, would you? 

Whether you’re in the bunch or not, you might be the type of person who tries to fix everything yourself. And while wanting to take care of things yourself is a good trait instead of feeling helpless, you sometimes have to ask for help. It’s not in your best interests long term to carry everything on your own. Regardless of the size of your problem, it’s okay to ask for help when you need it. 

FINAL THOUGHTS 

I hope that you have found these post to be illuminating. When changing our habits, a change in mindset is of vital importance. Practicing reducing negative self-talk that interferes with your performance and self-confidence will do wonders for your self-esteem and will help you no longer act in your opposing interests. If you think that you can’t control your actions or your life, you can because if you can subconsciously self sabotage, you can control what you do and eventually, get out of your own way so you can get on your way. 

Good luck. 😊

REFERENCES 

* Chuula, T. (2022, April 1). 15 bad habits you didn’t know were sabotaging you. A Point of Light. Retrieved April 20, 2022, from https://apointoflight.co/bad-habits-that-are-ruining-your-life/  

*Daskal, L. (2018, June 11). Breaking these 11 bad habits will make you a lot happier – lolly daskal: Leadership. Lolly Daskal. Retrieved April 20, 2022, from https://www.lollydaskal.com/leadership/breaking-these-11-bad-habits-will-make-you-a-lot-happier/ 

*Denning , T. (2020, March 2). 7 bad habits you must break to stop sabotaging your potential. Google. Retrieved April 20, 2022, from https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theladders.com/career-advice/7-bad-habits-you-must-break-to-stop-sabotaging-your-potential/amp 

*Morin, A. (2016, February 18). Inc.Africa. IncAfrica.com – Everything You Need to Start, Run and Grow Your Business in Africa. Retrieved April 20, 2022, from https://incafrica.com/library/amy-morin-6-bad-mental-habits-that-sabotage-your-success 

*psych_today. (2022, April 4). 4 Negative Behaviors That Make It Harder To Be Happy. Www.Instagram.com. Retrieved April 14, 2022, from https://www.instagram.com/p/Cb6rWjyMw7H