At the beginning of every new year, many people are obsessed with New Year Resolutions, goal setting, and striving to build new good habits, which by the way, is a good thing. However, I think that avoiding bad habits and harmful behaviors can have much more effective and powerful outcomes than adding new routines to our lives.
Therefore, this year I decided that before I make my New Year’s resolutions, I must first reflect on the bad habits that stuck with me from 2021. My conclusion was that I am actually in need to break existing and damaging habits than build new beneficial ones.
The reason I paid so much attention to my habits is that our habits are what lay the foundation for future results. Philosopher Aristotle has a great quote that said:
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit”
In this newsletter, I am going to share the habits that “I” want to entirely quit or at least limit in 2022. Some of these habits might ring a bell to you, and others might not. So, this is just an example to give you some inspiration so that you can reflect on your own bad habits and eliminate them from your life.
Using my phone before going to bed and after waking up
This is one of the worst and most common habits that ruined my life in 2021. I guess that you also might have this habit of having the urge to check your phone before you go to bed or directly after you wake up. The weird thing is that we would scroll our phones for a long time for no reason, which indicates that we have become slaves to our phones. Honestly, I’m getting much better at controlling this habit by applying the ways and techniques that we’ve mentioned in the previous newsletter regarding how to limit your phone addiction.
Waiting to be comfortable before acting
As humans, we tend to want to know the unknowable, and we want to change the unchangeable. Many of us are unwilling to move forward to jump into situations without specific information that we might never have access to.
Over the past few years, I have had the habit of not starting to do something without having enough experiences, data, and tools, which in many cases caused me to miss out on many valuable opportunities just waiting to be an “expert” first as I thought that people would judge me for being an amateur. In fact, no one cares about you and your set of skills.
Striving for perfectionism in everything I do
Striving to be perfect and flawless is one of the most energy-draining habits. I consider myself a perfectionist where I used to set excessively high goals for myself, and when I don’t accomplish these goals, I end up with major self-doubt thinking that the whole endeavor was just a failure. The idea of “could’ve done better” is such a toxic idea that shaped my life.
Additionally, I want to stop being so obsessed with ranking top grades in school that I forget to enjoy my learning journey. The journey is the thing that should be my priority and not the destination because my studying career is going to happen only once, and it would be a shame if I’m not enjoying it just for the sake of “letters on paper”
Being a consumer instead of being a producer
In our today’s world, many of us are wasting so much time and effort on meaningless things such as Social Media, Tv, watching videos, etc. And that is the type of consumption that I want to reduce apart from the good consumption such as driving more ideas and learning new stuff. The goal is to produce and to leave a footprint by giving out the values that are inside of me and sharing them with other people who would benefit from it.
The only way to cut through the noise is to become the signal_ Yiann Girard
Beating myself up when my day did not go well as planned
I love making to-do lists for all of the tasks that I want to get done at the end of the day. The problem with that is most of my to-do lists are unrealistic. I am used to setting high expectations and tasks to complete in a quite short time, and in most of the cases I’d end up just kicking myself over the tasks that I haven't managed to complete in the expected time. The goal is here to just have one thing on my to-do list that would make me feel satisfied when it’s checked.
Always being self-reliance and not asking for help
You might say that being self-reliant is a good thing, but too much of it hurts and leads to burnouts and depressions. I find myself sometimes not asking for help when I need something because I have the idea of “figuring things out on my own” and I end up just feeling depressed because no one gives me the support I need, simply because no one knows what I need.
It is a good thing to be a self-learner and to strive to figure things out on your own, but not asking for help just because I don’t want to hurt my ego is such a harmful habit that I must eliminate.
Ask for help. Not because you are weak. But because you want to remain strong - Les Brown
Not checking my finances
One of the habits that I want to quit in 2022 is not checking my finances regularly and not having a budget. Sometimes, I end up spending more than I earn which is one of the most damaging financial habits. The goal is to check my financial accounts at least once a week
Conclusion
Breaking bad habits takes time and effort, but mostly it takes perseverance. Most people who end up breaking bad habits try and fail multiple times before they make it work. You might not have success right away, but that doesn't mean you can't have it at all. We all have different bad habits and it’s your job to find yours.
In order to break a bad habit, you need to have the reason why you want to quit this habit how it can benefit you in the long term. Feel free to share with our community down in the comments the habits that you want to dump in 2022 and beyond.
📚 My 3 top books about habits
Atomic Habits _ by James Clear
The Power of Habit _ by Charles Duhigg
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People _ by Stephen Covey
My picks of the week 🙌
🎧Podcast: 9 Powerful Reflection Questions for 2021 By Jay Shetty
📺Videos: How To Get Rich Without Being Lucky
📚Book: The 4-Hour Work Week By Tim Ferriss
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📧Email: medoamericanenglish@gmail.com
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