If you think about your daily life a vast majority of what you do is defined by the habits you have developed over time. It stands to reason then, your habits have a crucial role to play in whether your succeed or struggle through your life. From the moment we get out of bed we are already to a large extent living out the habits we have programmed into our subconscious, from the morning routine right through to how we get ourselves ready for work. The journey to work and our work day is largely already defined into a routine. We may catch the same train, even standing at the same spot on the platform. Or we might drive to work taking the same route every morning. Whilst the little details of the day changes the vast majority of it in the background was controlled by your habits.
So if habits play a big part of your day and therefore could have a great influence in making your day productive and successful then if you don't already live the life you want then you might well have destructive habits holding you back.
Here a the top 10 most destructive habits that people have.
1. They are negative from the moment they get out of bed. Have you ever woke up and just felt drained and tired. We have all had bad starts to our day but if you focus on why today is going to be a bad day chances are you are going to live a pretty average day. The attitude you have from the moment you get out of bed can have a lasting influence on the way your day eventuates. Starting your day on a positive and uplifting way will certainly get you focusing on the good things you have in life.
2. They quit too easily. Our society has largely evolved into a instant gratification kind of world. We expect our food instantly, we don't like to wait in line and we certainly don't want to have to wait to have what we want. The instant gratification habit has instilled in us a sense of ease. We find easy credit, we look for easy work and we want easy ways to have fun. The cost of buying into the notion of instant gratification is that we don't stick to things till completion. As soon as things starts to get hard or obstacles presents themselves we quit. By quitting too easily we never have a chance of gaining mastery over anything and therefore never truly reaping anything of value for ourselves.
3. They are dream stealers. The most destructive habit you could possibly have that holds you back is being the person that is perceived to be a dream stealer. There are really two types of people in this world. Those who lift you when you are around them or those who lean on you. The people who lift you are those who encourage you, inspire you and praise you to become the person you ought to be. You enjoy their company and you generally feel better for being around them. On the other hand those who lean on people are focused on the negative side of life, they are cynical, they always find the negative in everything and because their life is imperfect that are more than happy to point out how your living an imperfect existence too. No one wants to be around negative people.
4. They waste their time. One of the great equalizers of humanity is time. No matter who you are, how powerful you are or how much influence you have the one thing you cannot control is time. We are all allocated the same amount of hours each day and how we utilize them will determine the amount of joy and fulfillment we have in our lives. By making wise choices with our time we can better focus on doing the things that we want and less of the things that we don't want.
5. They don't think things through. Instead of taking in advice and making careful consideration before making a decision destructive people tend to have a habit of doing things with haste. They give everything a try and their constant need to follow their impulse or instinct means they never really get anywhere in life. Because they are always jumping from one impulse to the next they are often scattered and lack any real focus towards any useful attainment or life progress.
12 Bad Habits That Hold Good People Back
Stalls are bad habits that delay progress in accomplishing 20 times as much through the 2,000 percent solution process for making breakthroughs. Stalls are harmful because they drain time and attention away from more productive activities and also set up barriers to improvements. In this article, you'll ask seven questions that will help you identify and overcome your stalls.
You will be more successful in this activity if you prepare yourself. If you are not familiar with all of the current steps involved in the performance area or activity you want to improve, be sure to take the time to observe and participate in that performance area so your thinking is influenced by the facts rather than by opinions or out-of-date information. If possible, have those who work in the area share their observations independently of your own thinking. In addition, check your answers with those who are involved in the performance area.
1. What are the avoidable causes of delays?
A good starting point is to assume that you are personally going to do all of the steps involved in the performance area or activity you want to improve. Next, find the resources, knowledge, skill and information to do that work in the fastest, most effective way. After you have identified how you would do the activity yourself with the right resources, see what current delays can be eliminated. Then, determine what would have to change in order to eliminate those delays.
Here's an example. Let's look at the sales process of finding and attracting a new customer. Many organizations provide leads to help sales people focus their initial contacts. In some organizations, these leads are only provided every month or so. In between, the sales people can follow up on old leads ? but have no new ones to focus on. Changing the lead generation process to provide leads more often would allow salespeople the ability to make new contacts daily. Additionally, if the leads are received more often, the leads are probably based on more recent expressions of interest by potential customers. Sales results are bound to improve in such a circumstance. If the lead generation source is already adding leads daily, all that has to change is to transmit those leads daily to your company rather than less frequently. In many cases, the cost of doing so will be lower because a report may be eliminated in the process change.
2. Why haven't these avoidable delays been eliminated in the past?
You need to know the historical reason for the delays continuing because otherwise you won't know how to address the change process.
In some cases, the source of a delay may relate to some existing process that has not been changed recently. In those instances, the delay may simply be a function of no one having looked lately at how to make faster progress. In other cases, your computer systems may be the source of the delay, and no one wants to put in the time and effort to change them except for a very good reason. Elsewhere in your organization, you may find that there are differences of opinion about what should be done, and no one wants to take on the political challenges of advocating and leading a change. In some other circumstances, you may find that the delay is actually a defense mechanism that some people use to diffuse pressure for higher performance. Be sure to keep looking until you find some unconscious habits that are reinforcing the continued delays.
3. How will customers, employees, suppliers, distributors, partners, shareholders, lenders and the communities you serve be helped or hurt by eliminating the delays?
You will find that solutions which obviously benefit each stakeholder will be those that will be easiest to implement. If eliminating delays is harmful to some of these stockholder groups while being positive for others, rethink the subject to consider how the delays could be eliminated so that everyone would benefit. In some cases, that may mean providing some of the economic benefit of the change to those who will be somewhat harmed by it to more than offset any harm.
4. Are there ways of eliminating delays that help with more than one kind of delay?
Most organizations have a limited capacity for change that is always being exceeded. In such circumstances, people may just spin their wheels and feel frustrated. If you can find ways to eliminate the delays that require fewer or easier changes, you will be more likely to succeed in this and other important initiatives that the organization is pursuing.
5. What harm could come from eliminating delays?
Productivity often falls when an organization puts in a productivity improving change. A common reason for such a perverse result is that not enough preparation has been done so that everyone knows what he or she needs to do. With time, appropriate learning usually develops and results improve. But with careful thinking in advance about the downside risk, you can often eliminate these painful, temporary setbacks that sap enthusiasm for the new direction.
6. What are the least demanding ways to avoid the delays?
As you know from applying the 2,000 percent solution process, great progress occurs each time you repeat the eight step process. If you pursue these changes in less demanding ways, you will finish putting this 2,000 percent solution into practice sooner so that you can begin repeating the process faster as well.
7. What other gains will you enjoy from making these changes?
When you aim to make a 2,000 percent solution, you will often create improvements in other activities and areas that you were not considering. As you begin to focus on creating a 2,000 percent solution, the perspectives you gain from this question will help point you in the most effective direction.
Copyright 2007 Donald W. Mitchell, All Rights Reserved
Both Terence Young & Donald Mitchell are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Donald Mitchell has sinced written about articles on various topics from Education, Insurance and Internet Marketing. Donald Mitchell is chairman of Mitchell and Company, a strategy and financial consulting firm in Weston, MA. He is coauthor of six books including The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution, The 2,000 Percent Solution, The Portable 2,000 Percent Solution, and The. Donald Mitchell's top article generates over 33100 views. Bookmark Donald Mitchell to your Favourites.
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