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Habits that sabotage your success

By Bayo Ogunmupe
24 August 2019   |   3:09 am
When you eliminate those habits, you will be successful. Thus, the smarter way to find success to focus on removing those things that impede your progress. As an economics analyst, which forces me to read up matters on entrepreneurship, I know people on a uniquely intimate level so that I can help them solve their problems.

success. Photo: PIXABAY

When you eliminate those habits, you will be successful. Thus, the smarter way to find success to focus on removing those things that impede your progress. As an economics analyst, which forces me to read up matters on entrepreneurship, I know people on a uniquely intimate level so that I can help them solve their problems.

And the more I encounter these solution seekers, the more I discover the things that make people miserable and the best way to eliminate them. More often, those things that make us miserable are habits with powerful patterns we’ve fallen into. These habits, maybe from childhood; gnaw away at our happiness and creativity, day by day, month by month and year after year. Here are some common habits that sabotage your creativity and my thoughts on how to eliminate them.

Worrying about the future and other people’s opinions of you. Worrying is the mental habit of problem-solving which is never necessary. It only staves off the feeling of helplessness. Worry gives you the illusion of control; it is a denial of reality. Worrying won’t change anything, it would only lead you to anxiety and sickness. Learn to accept the pain of failure and accept reality. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”- Reinhold Niebuhr.

Isolating yourself when you are feeling weak is the second habit sabotaging your success. You don’t ever need to cry when you are disappointed or sad. It is unseemly to do this both in private and in public, except at a funeral. You don’t need coping strategies when you are sad or helpless. You need the support of friends and loved ones to give you a hug and share your pain. When we hide our pain by isolating ourselves; we throw away the most powerful antidepressant known to man- the love and support from people who care for us.

“We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep,”- William James. The third habit that is keeping you from success is: Keeping quiet and going with the flow.

Truly, most people dislike conflict. That is because most people don’t know how to handle conflict. But you can tread the middle road of being a passive doormat and an aggressive bully: By becoming assertive. Assertiveness means standing up for your own wants, needs, and values. It means asking for what you want without equivocation.

The road to genuine self-esteem, self- confidence and self-respect is assertiveness- through aligning your actions with your values no matter the circumstance. Staying silent is like slow-growing cancer.

There is nothing intelligent in refusing to stand up for yourself. You may not win every battle in your life’s journey. Everyone will, at least, know that you stood for yourself.

Four: Talking garbage to yourself in your head undermines your progress. Your self-talks- that running commentary in your head about everything from the shoes you wear to what the secretary in your office thinks of your new haircut. That your inner narrator who constantly describes the story of your life as it unfolds is the culprit. You are doing untold damage to yourself when you have a brutally negative, judgmental style of self-talk. If you talked to other people the way you talked to yourself, you’d have no friends, no job and multiple warrants out there for your arrest. Such a negative narrator isn’t a good source of motivation.

“He who would be useful, strong, and happy must cease to be a passive receptacle for the negative, beggarly, and impure streams of thought,”- James Allen. Finally, believing in your own thoughts unconditionally is erroneous. No one is infallible, so acknowledge that you could be wrong with your observations. It is toward the end of your life you will know whether you are special and very wise.

It was toward the end of the lives of Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, and Nikola Tesla that they and everybody knew they are geniuses.

The idea jumped into your head that your co-worker thinks you are lazy. Does that mean anything? It means nothing. It shows you have low self-esteem. Maybe they think you are lazy, but you just had a thought about it doesn’t make it true. The solution is that any time such
thoughts intrude into your mind you should discard it. Cultivate a healthy skepticism of your own thoughts. Ignore all thoughts without foundation in reality. The primary cause of unhappiness in life is never the situation. It is the thought you fabricated about it. Be aware of what you think, it might come true.

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