Do you have bad habits?

According to Wikipedia, habits are routines that we repeat regularly and they tend to occur subconsciously. They are formed through the process of repetition and they generally provide some form of reward to the person that has them. You can read more about it here.

A habit can be formed out of any action, or lack of action.We get many of them from our parents, family and friends. Others we get  from role-models and mentors. Some habits, we develop on our own.

The way we conduct our daily lives is a consequence of our habits. They govern the way we think, the way we eat, the friends that we have, the work that we do and define our path to riches or to poverty.

In order to be successful in life, you must develop the good habits and suppress the bad ones to the best of your ability. The biggest obstacle in the path of your own success lies within your own mind.

Top 5 bad habits

So, what are some of the most destructive bad habits you should be careful to avoid? Or better yet, if you already have them, what are the habits you should destroy immediately? I am only listing a few below, but there are many others. Here is my top 5 list of bad habits, the ones I think are causing the most damage, to either your emotional or your financial bank account:

1. Procrastination (postponing stuff with petty excuses) – stop wasting time! Time is the greatest asset you have and the only asset you can never recover! Money comes and goes and you can always make more. Time is the only luxury that can never be recovered, once lost.
2. Lack of self-discipline (no control over one’s emotions) – there are many ways in which you can destroy your chances of success. One particularly good way to do it is being careless about what you look like, say or do.
3. Drifting through life without a specific purpose in mind – this habit pins you down, with no chance of getting up. Why not start setting some goals for yourself?
4. Lack of ambition to aim above mediocrity – without ambition, you can never be great. All you can be is average. History does not remember average people. If you want to leave a legacy, you need to achieve greatness.
5. The habit of over-cautiousness (worrying too much) – worry paralyzes you, it makes you unable to act towards your goals. You must start realizing that you are missing out on life’s gifts because of it.

In future posts I will analyze each of these in depth and give you ways how you can escape them. For now, it is important that you acknowledge that you have any such habits and develop the will to overcome them.

Top 5 good habits

There are a many good habits that will bring many benefits to your life. You should start developing your good habits right away, as they will help you in all aspects of life. Some of the most important of these are:

1. Always having a definite purpose in life, know what you want
2. The habit of “going the extra mile” (provide more value than what you are paid for)
3. Mastering emotions, both the positive and the negative
4. Learning from failures
5. Having faith that you can accomplish your goals

These are important habits to develop. I will write about the benefits they bring and how to go about developing them, and other important ones as well.

Please let me know what you think in the comments below. Also, if you’d like to find out more about a particular topic, please mention it in the comments and I will try to write about it.