3 Bad Habits To Wipe Out Of Your Life
Do you find it frustrating trying to accomplish all your tasks before the end of the week? Is the world constantly finding new and creative ways to pressurize you?
I know the feeling and it’s taken some time to sort out strategies that work for me.
Wiping out these 3 bad habits can go a long way towards keeping everything in balance as you move forward.
Overworking
Sometimes it feels like working non-stop from sun up to sun down, and beyond, is the only way to stay productive. You might even feel like it’s working for a few days but eventually you will come crashing back to Earth. We’ve all tried it. We’ve all failed.
Every extra hour you push onto the end of your working day will take little bit of quality away from your results. Maybe it works once in a while when you’re in a pinch but it can’t become part of your standard routine. In the long run every task will become more of a struggle as your energy levels steadily go down.
The real trick is to be mindful of when you’re most productive and use that time to your advantage. Be thoughtful about doing your most important tasks during that time.
Over the years I’ve become less of a night owl and more of an early bird and it turns out my most productive time is in the morning. The rest of the house is usually in bed when I get started and I can carry good momentum until lunch time but it’s all down hill after that. It doesn’t matter how hard I try.
Piling more hours into your day is not the key.
Ignoring Health
It’s easy to get so focused on the task at hand that you forget take care of yourself, you forget about doing the little things. You need to be aware of your body, your feelings, and your energy levels. No task is so important that you should ruin your health to accomplish it.
Sometimes you need to pack it in and go to bed when you’re tired. Sometimes you need to pack a lunch and skip the fast food. At all times you need some down time to rest, recuperate, and enjoy your life.
You need to avoid getting run down because that’s when your health changes for the worse. When I’m feeling run down or over tired I pull back to recuperate rather than power through it.
During each day I make sure to get up and walk around at least once an hour, even if it’s only for a few moments, and I always stop for food to avoid an energy drop. Both of those things give me a little sanity break and help me stay focused.
Most importantly I make the time to enjoy activities that have nothing to with work so I stay interested and motivated.
When you make the time for your health everything else in life will pick itself up a notch.
Saying Yes
It’s easy to fall into the trap of saying yes to everybody in order to avoid disappointment or hurt feelings. However, every time you say yes to something it means you’re also saying no to something else.
You can only do so many things when your days and weeks are already jammed up. You need to ask yourself what you’re going to set aside to make room for this new thing. If you can’t figure that out then you need to consider saying no.
Keep in mind that we can be our own worst enemy and we need to say no to ourselves and our exciting ideas as well as others.
When you don’t have time to properly commit you’re only pushing the disappointment to the day when you get poor results.
I’m not opposed to saying yes, in fact I feel it’s important to say yes to new experiences and helping others when I can. However it’s equally important to stay focused on the tasks I’ve already begun.
The key is to be honest about why you need to decline and do it in a way that doesn’t brush people off or sound like you can’t be bothered with them.
Conclusion
You may have noticed these habits can, and will, work together to keep you from moving forward. Saying yes too often can lead to being over committed which can lead to becoming run down and affecting your health.
It turns out you don’t need to accomplish every task or idea that presents itself. It’s more important to direct your energy toward the people and tasks that need you to be at your best to achieve success.
A little control over these habits will give you a sense of balance as the frustration melts away.
Do you have any strategies to prevent over committing yourself? Have you been affected by over commitment by somebody else? Leave a comment below.
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