You are the
sum of your habits. When you allow bad habits to take over, they dramatically
impede your path to success. The challenge is bad habits are insidious,
creeping up on you slowly until you don’t even notice the damage they’re
causing.
“Chains of
habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.” – Warren
Buffett
Breaking bad
habits requires self-control—and lots of it. Research indicates that it’s worth
the effort, as self-control has huge implications for success.
University of
Pennsylvania psychologists Angela Duckworth and Martin Seligman conducted a
study where they measured college students’ IQ scores and levels of
self-control upon entering university. Four years later, they looked at the
students’ grade point averages (GPA) and found that self-control was twice as
important as IQ in earning a high GPA.
The
self-control required to develop good habits (and stop bad ones) also serves as
the foundation for a strong work ethic and high productivity. Self-control is
like a muscle—to build it up you need to exercise it. Practice flexing your
self-control muscle by breaking the following bad habits:
Using your
phone, tablet, or computer in bed. This is a big one that most people don't
even realize harms their sleep and productivity. Short-wavelength blue light
plays an important role in your mood, energy level, and sleep quality. In the
morning, sunlight contains high concentrations of this blue light. When your
eyes are exposed to it directly, the blue light halts production of the
sleep-inducing hormone melatonin and makes you feel more alert. In the afternoon,
the sun's rays lose their blue light, which allows your body to produce
melatonin and start making you sleepy. By the evening, your brain doesn’t
expect any blue light exposure and is very sensitive to it.
Most of our
favorite evening devices—laptops, tablets, and mobile phones—emit
short-wavelength blue light brightly and right in your face. This exposure
impairs melatonin production and interferes with your ability to fall asleep as
well as with the quality of your sleep once you do nod off. As we’ve all
experienced, a poor night’s sleep has disastrous effects. The best thing you
can do is to avoid these devices after dinner (television is OK for most people
as long as they sit far enough away from the set).
Impulsively
surfing the Internet.It takes you 15 consecutive minutes of focus before you
can fully engage in a task. Once you do, you fall into a euphoric state of
increased productivity called flow. Research shows that people in a flow state
are five times more productive than they otherwise would be. When you click out
of your work because you get an itch to check the news, Facebook, a sport’s
score, or what have you, this pulls you out of flow. This means you have to go
through another 15 minutes of continuous focus to reenter the flow state. Click
in and out of your work enough times, and you can go through an entire day
without experiencing flow.
Checking your
phone during a conversation. Nothing turns people off like a mid-conversation
text message or even a quick glance at your phone. When you commit to a
conversation, focus all your energy on the conversation. You will find that
conversations are more enjoyable and effective when you immerse yourself in
them.
Using multiple
notifications.Multiple notifications are a productivity nightmare. Studies have
shown that hopping on your phone and e-mail every time they ping for your
attention causes your productivity to plummet. Getting notified every time a
message drops onto your phone or an e-mail arrives in your inbox might feel
productive, but it isn’t. Instead of working at the whim of your notifications,
pool all your e-mails/texts and check them at designated times (e.g., respond
to your e-mails every hour). This is a proven, productive way to work.
Saying “yes”
when you should say “no.” Research conducted at the University of California in
San Francisco shows that the more difficulty that you have saying no, the more
likely you are to experience stress, burnout, and even depression, all of which
erode self-control. Saying no is indeed a major self-control challenge for many
people. “No” is a powerful word that you should not be afraid to wield. When
it’s time to say no, emotionally intelligent people avoid phrases like “I don’t
think I can” or “I’m not certain.” Saying no to a new commitment honors your
existing commitments and gives you the opportunity to successfully fulfill
them. Just remind yourself that saying no is an act of self-control now that
will increase your future self-control by preventing the negative effects of
over commitment.
Thinking about
toxic people.There are always going to be toxic people who have a way of
getting under your skin and staying there. Each time you find yourself thinking
about a coworker or person who makes your blood boil, practice being grateful
for someone else in your life instead. There are plenty of people out there who
deserve your attention, and the last thing you want to do is think about the
people who don’t matter when there are people who do.
Multitasking
during meetings. You should never give anything half of your attention,
especially meetings. If a meeting isn’t worth your full attention, then you
shouldn’t be attending it in the first place; and if the meeting is worth your
full attention, then you need to get everything you can out of it. Multitasking
during meetings hurts you by creating the impression that you believe you are
more important than everyone else.
Gossiping.
Gossipers derive pleasure from other people’s misfortunes. It might be fun to
peer into somebody else’s personal or professional faux pas at first, but over
time, it gets tiring, makes you feel gross, and hurts other people. There are
too many positives out there and too much to learn from interesting people to
waste your time talking about the misfortune of others.
“Great minds
discuss ideas, average ones discuss events, and small minds discuss people.” –
Eleanor Roosevelt
Waiting to act
until you know you’ll succeed. Most writers spend countless hours brainstorming
their characters and plots, and they even write page after page that they know
they’ll never include in the books. They do this because they know that ideas
need time to develop. We tend to freeze up when it’s time to get started
because we know that our ideas aren’t perfect and that what we produce might not
be any good. But how can you ever produce something great if you don’t get
started and give your ideas time to evolve? Author Jodi Picoult summarized the
importance of avoiding perfectionism perfectly: “You can edit a bad page, but
you can’t edit a blank page.”
Comparing
yourself to other people. When your sense of pleasure and satisfaction are
derived from comparing yourself to others, you are no longer the master of your
own happiness. When you feel good about something that you’ve done, don’t allow
anyone’s opinions or accomplishments take that away from you. While it’s
impossible to turn off your reactions to what others think of you, you don’t
have to compare yourself to others, and you can always take people’s opinions
with a grain of salt. That way, no matter what other people are thinking or
doing, your self-worth comes from within. Regardless of what people think of
you at any particular moment, one thing is certain—you’re never as good or bad
as they say you are.
Bringing It
All Together
By practicing
self-control to break these bad habits, you can simultaneously strengthen your
self-control muscle and abolish nasty habits that have the power to bring your
career to a grinding halt.
What other bad
habits should people abolish? Please share your thoughts in the comments
section below, as I learn just as much from you as you do from me.
Dr. Travis
Bradberry
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