6 Bad Habits You Need To Break

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Maybe you think you don’t have any bad habits. You show up for work on time. You don’t smoke or drink. You are in the clear. Maybe not. There are less impactful habits, or at least they seem less impactful. These are bad habits that don’t seem so bad, but can actually have a big impact on your life.

Habits are not easy to break. They are created through a process of action and reward. You do a behavior and get a reward. This causes a dopamine release in your brain that reinforces the reward with the behavior and the cue.  The cue is what lets you know to do the behavior. The more times you complete the process of seeing the cue executing the behavior and getting the reward, the more ingrained the habit becomes in your brain. 

The good news is you can change your habits. You can break bad habits and create new ones. The trick is identifying what your cues are. What are you seeing, hearing or feeling that initiates the response. If you can identify that, you can either remove it from your life, see it for what it is and make a conscious change or work to make the reward less attractive. 

Putting things off to the last minute

We are all probably a little of this one. Parkinson’s law states that “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” If we know that we have a week to put together a report for work, we will wait until the day before to start on it. If we have to clean out the garage because winter is coming and we need to park outside, we’ll be out there in a hat and gloves when the snow starts falling. This is human nature. 

To break this one try to give yourself shorter deadlines. Your boss wants that report next week. Act like it’s due in two days. You need to get the garage cleaned out. You need it done by the start of autumn. I also like to use waypoints. These are stops along your journey to completion of your task. For the garage, maybe you’re throwing out junk today. Tomorrow, you’re putting all of your tools back. The day after you’re putting away the kids toys. The last day you’re sweeping the floor.  What was a gargantuan task is now broken down into small easy tasks that will only take you a few minutes.

Complaining

Misery loves company. We’ve all heard that statement before. It means that if you are unhappy you want to complain and get others to jump in with you. This is not a good way to live. Your misery can induce unhappiness in others. Someone that might otherwise be satisfied in work or a relationship is suddenly unhappy because they feel negative emotions thanks to your words. This works the other way too of course. Someone else complains and you’re quick to jump in. It’s human nature to want to console and commiserate with a friend. At work this can be especially dangerous. You and a peer are complaining about something and are overheard by someone who tells your boss. Or worse, the other person is cross with you and tells your boss.  Now you have the label of a complainer and trouble maker.

The next time you feel like complaining, don’t. Stop yourself and instead think about why you are in the situation you are in. What might the other person be feeling and thinking? They may have a different perspective. Sometimes when you walk a mile in another person’s shoes you can come away with a different point of view. Don’t be quick to judge until you’ve examined something from all angles. Even then, keep your negative comments to yourself, they only serve to make you look bad to other people. 

Saying “Yes” to everything

I’ve talked about this before. You cannot afford to say yes to everything. It seems like the right thing to do if you have the ability to help other people out, but it can often lead to you becoming overwhelmed and quickly burned out. You have enough on your plate without having to worry about helping other people tackle all of their responsibilities. When you board a flight they tell you that if the oxygen masks drop down you should always put your own mask on first. Why?  You have to secure your own oxygen first, so you can help others. The same is true outside of that scenario. Pay yourself first. Then if you have time left over, feel free to say yes to helping others.

Multitasking during meetings

We have all been in a meeting where people are not paying attention. In the in-hypersonic days, you could look and physically see them glancing at their phones around the conference table. Texting back and forth or playing a game. In the zoom days it’s a little more subtle but the signs are there too.  Someone is looking down instead of up at the screen. Or worse, you hear them off mute typing away. Don’t be that person. If you are in a meeting, put your phone on mute, turn your notifications off and be there in the moment. Your texts, emails and other notifications will all be waiting for you when you get out. 

Worrying about what others think

This is a big one. I’m certainly guilty of this one myself. I sometimes worry so much about what other people might be thinking. In fact, it can lead to me creating negative scenarios in my head about how they don’t like this or that and how I need to do better. It’s self destructive and most likely wrong.  In my most recent performance review I got a great score and feedback. I had felt nervous and anxious leading up to the review. What are all the things that I’ve done wrong? How is my boss going to tell me about them?  

The truth is that I had been doing a great job and had nothing to worry about.  This was a moment where I had to stop and look back at my work and realize all that I had accomplished. I saw that the stress I was under was of my own making and it was time to make a change. I needed to be my biggest cheerleader and let other people worry about themselves and stop worrying about myself.  I feel so much better now. Sometimes those feelings start to creep back in and I just remind myself of my last review and that I have nothing to worry about. 

Gossiping

If you go on social media, watch the news or any reality show, you’ll know that people seem to really love to gossip. Who doesn’t love to hear a juicy or scandalous story? Who doesn’t want to hear about how someone is doing something awful and they’re going to get exposed? We all do, its human nature. What is also human nature is for things to get around. Things that you say about other people have a habit of getting back to the person you’re talking about. Then you may find yourself in the unenviable position of having to apologize for talking about someone behind their backs. It just isn’t worth it.

When people around you are starting to gossip, just simply ask “Do you think they’d like us talking about them like this?” That will stop the conversation in its tracks. No one can answer that question and not feel immediately guilty about what they were doing. On the off chance that they ignore you and continue to gossip, just excuse yourself. Be the bigger person and say “Hey I don’t think you’d like people talking about you behind your back and neither will they. I’m not going to be a part of this.”  Then walk away. You’ll feel better and the only thing that can come back on you is how you refused to participate. 

These are a few of the bad habits that I’ve had to break in my life. What about yours? Do you share these or are there other habits that you’re working to break.  Tell me about it. Post below or contact me!