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I am the queen of bad habits. This is how to live your best life by ditching those toxic habits.
If you’ve ever searched for a downside to that routine life, this is it. I thrive on routines. Most of the time routines are great for making sure everything gets done in an orderly fashion, just how I like it. Unfortunately, sometimes we get so comfortable in our routines that we don’t notice they aren’t actually serving us anymore. Or maybe they never did in the first place.
These toxic habits were all born out of routines with the best intentions. All I wanted was to get more done in a day, to do more in life, and to be more “productive” person, whatever that even means anymore. This is what happens when you allow your quest for business perfection go too far. It took me a while, but I eventually realized that these 10 toxic habits weren’t doing me any favors, and I promised myself I’d make a change.
Do you recognize any of these behaviors in your life?
the “all or nothing” mindset
Have you ever had those days when one thing goes wrong, and so the whole day ends up being a bust? Or maybe you think just because you aren’t making huge moves today, you never will, so you might as well give up now. I fell into this trap all the time. Don’t be like me; it won’t get you anywhere. All is great, but some is always better than nothing. You can’t give it all all of the time. You’ll get burnt out, just like me when I decided I wanted to become a marathon runner right now. That didn’t last long.
treating sleep as a luxury
Sleep is a biological necessity, duh. But when you have something you desperately want to accomplish, sleep is often the first time-suck to go. I basically tried to replace sleep with caffeine, which we will discuss more later. I know, I know, telling yourself that it’s time to sleep when you have a million things you need to do is frustrating. but you’ll be more frustrated when you are trying to exercise and you can’t lift that damn 5 pound dumbbell over your head because you’re so tired. Been there.
running on empty
You wouldn’t neglect to fill up your car with gas and expect it to drive. Yet I often neglected to eat or drink for long periods of time, and then I wondered why I was feeling so unfocused and cranky. I know it’s hard sometimes, but please, just drink some water. (Don’t mind me, talking to myself here…)
focusing on the past or the future
I have moments in my past that I am NOT proud of. I have learned some very valuable life lessons from those times, the most important being that I can’t take back all the stupid and rude things I’ve done. (Embarrassingly, I have even tried to telepathically apologize, but that’s a not-in-my-right-mind story for another day.) Reflect on your past and absorb all the lessons it has taught you, but don’t dwell on it like I do sometimes.
letting clutter pile up
Cleaning isn’t my favorite activity, and so I used to put off all the cleaning until the weekend. I’d then spend all of Saturday scrubbing and being grouchy. If that wasn’t bad enough, in the meantime I’d be living amongst a mess that just kept multiplying like Helga Hufflepuff’s cup in the Malfoy’s Gringotts vault.
Instead of letting clutter pile up, now I clean a little every day. It takes me 15 minutes to put things away and vacuum and mop a section of the house. There’s something about having a clean environment that makes you want to get things done.
watching other people live
Movies. TV. The dreaded Social Media. I, once upon a time, used the “inspiration” excuse to explain why I parked myself on the couch, eyeballs glued to various screens for hours. Let me tell you, there is nothing inspiring about sitting still and watching other people live their lives. Especially if those people are fictional characters with superpowers, because you’ll never do that anyway.
setting impossible goals
People tell you to dream “big.” Not one person has told me to dream “realistic.” Through trying to build something of my own, I’ve realized that while telling your parents about your achievable goals doesn’t provoke the most enthused reaction, I have actually achieved more that way. Big goals are just that: big. So big that You don’t know where to start and it all seems so far away anyway, why even bother working right now?
depending on caffeine
It’s a truly coffee-obsessed culture we live in. So much that I thought consuming 4 cups of coffee per day just to keep my eyes open and body upright was perfectly normal. It is not. I still sip one cup of coffee in the morning to get me going, but I don’t rely on it like I did before.
multitasking just to get through the day
If you have so many items on your list that you have to do several at once just to get through them all, I gotta tell you this, none of those are your finest work. I would add the littlest thing to my to-do list
buying material objects because I deserve it
Handbags. Yoga pants. Nail polish. Oooh Old Navy is 40% off! Does this sound like you? I’m not saying you don’t deserve nice things, but do you need that things, like right now? Start a wishlist and add all the items you want to the list. It sounds too easy, and you might think your list would end up three miles long, but it probably won’t. When you have to literally write it down and look at all the random things you want in one place, it’s gets overwhelming. You won’t like it, so you’ll begin thinking really hard about what goes on that list. If an item makes it on the list, I allow myself to buy it, but not today. At some point.
That’s all for today!
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Till next time ♥︎
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