Do you track your habits? Both the good and bad. Are you aware of the many different ways our habits may be impacting us? Not just with our goals but also through our mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health as well.
Well if you’re someone who tends to pay more attention to everything that’s going right in your life, and pay less attention to everything that is going wrong, I’ve got news for you. You’re cheating yourself out of reaching your full potential!
When we choose to only acknowledge all the good, we lose sight of all the opportunities to change the bad. When this happens, we become consumed with putting all our energy and focus into everything that is working in our favor. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, choosing to not fix what is wrong can hurt us in the long run.
The scary thing about this is that we never know when or in what way.
This way of thinking, reacting or responding, and way of living are all a part of the habits we have developed as a way to get through our days. In some cases, they can even be used as defense mechanisms. Some can be good and some can be bad. The good habits are what will help us reach our full potential. The bad habits are what will constantly hold us back.
How do we overcome our bad habits so that our good ones can prevail? By replacing the bad life ones with healthy life habits. Here’s are some common bad life habits that we all have that are holding us back in life, as well as some healthier ones we can replace them with.
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5 healthy habits to replace bad habits
1. Bad life habit: Not having a daily routine
If you’ve been a part of the blog for a while then you already know where I’m going with this one. It’s so important to have a daily routine of some sort in place! Why? There are many reasons why but I’ll share with you my top reasons.
For starters having a daily routine helps to get you focused for the day. I don’t know about you but when I wake up in the morning my brain is not awake, I’m not motivated to do anything, and half the time I don’t even want to be awake. What helps to offset this feeling is having a routine that I do daily as soon as I wake up.
For me this routine usually looks like exercising, hygiene, meditation, journaling, and if I’m hungry breakfast. Once I’ve done my routine, I feel ready to start my day.
Another reason this is important is because having a routine gives you the necessary time to ease into your day. If you’re the type of person who just wakes up and immediately starts your day you probably experience a lot of negative emotions during the day.
Emotions such as fatigue, stress, anxiety, general overwhelm, little patience, or maybe you’re easily frustrated.
A consistent routine can help combat all of this because you’re taking the time to check in with yourself. You’re allowing yourself to have time to do little activities that will help you not only have the best day possible, but to also accomplish so much more.
The final reason is because a routine creates positive habits. The bad habit you want to let go of is not having a routine. You replace this with having a routine that promotes healthy habits to help you grow into your full potential. This includes healthy habits such as meditating, journaling, pre-planning, and a ton of other great things.
When you have healthy habits like these in place, you’re more focused, clear, and specific about what you are striving to achieve in life. This alone puts you ten steps closer to living through your full potential.
Healthy life habit: Create a daily routine (day or night) with little activities that focus on bettering yourself.
2. Bad habit: Not being mindful of your eating patterns
This is a huge one! Food is a very central part of our lives. I mean after all we need to eat it in order to survive. However, not everyone has the best relationship with food. Sometimes we tend to consume food because we’re bored, super emotional, because we have access to it, or even because others around us are eating.
Food is a natural and almost instinctual reaction to almost anything and everything we feel. This bad habit can lead to many health problems such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, excessive gas, bloating, and poor health overall.
Nobody wants to have these health problems let alone health problems of any kind. Change this bad habit by simply being more mindful about the relationship you have with food.
When do you tend to eat and how often? Three times a day, more, or less? When you eat what are you eating? Fast food? Junk food? Fruits and vegetables? No meat or only red meat? Also, when you eat what’s the reasoning? Are you sad, angry, hungry, or just bored?
These are the kind of things we need to ask ourselves whenever we are eating. It’s not to stress yourself out about the foods you are eating or how much of it. More so it’s to help you start understanding the why behind when you eat and the food choices you are making.
This is also a great habit that can help you achieve personal and meaningful health and wellness goals. For example, if you want to lose weight one way you can accomplish this is by changing the foods that you are consuming.
All in all, food is essential to our survival so it’s important to know how we a fueling our bodies. After all, we are what we eat.
Healthy life habit: Mindfully plan your meals and eating times to ensure that you are eating for all the right reasons.
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3. Bad life habit: Not engaging in personal development
All too often we let many opportunities to better ourselves pass by. I’m such a big believer in personal development which means that I believe we have many opportunities to engage in it. Personal development is the act of bettering yourself in ways that allow you to live through your full potential.
How do you see yourself? What are your biggest goals? Your wildest dreams and aspirations? What do you truly want out of life and do you know how to get it?
Personal development is so much more than just reading a self-help book, engaging in self-care, or going to therapy. It’s the literal act of doing what needs to be done in order for you to end the day better than you were when you started it.
By no means is it easy but it most certainly is necessary if you want to grow into the best version of yourself.
Healthy life habit: Actively do daily activities that are ideal to what you want to achieve out of life, that will challenge you, and that will put you one step closer to reaching your goals.
4. Bad life habit: Not being honest with yourself and others
This is another big one. I believe all too often we do our best to please others and not much to please ourselves.
For example, the typical image society has of a woman is to take care of the household while the man takes care of the family. The result of this is usually women lacking necessary skills to help them better themselves in the workforce and beyond.
I also think that most of us (women) can agree that, that’s not ideal to what we want for ourselves or how we envision our lives. Sure, it may be a part of it, but it’s not our full truth.
In order to ensure that our message is being communicated every single time we have to be honest with ourselves and others. This not only helps to ensure that we are allowing ourselves to want more out of life, but that we’re also not holding any emotions pent up inside.
That is a very dangerous game to play. Think of pent up emotions like a balloon filled with nothing but hot air. It’ll get bigger and bigger until it can no longer hold any more air before bursting into little pieces. And what’s left of a busted balloon? A bunch of useless little pieces.
Emotions work in the same way. If you hold them in until you can’t no longer eventually, you’ll burst and have nothing left to give. Instead you’ll find yourself in a big pile of mess left alone with the responsibility to pick up all the pieces.
Of course, being emotional and expressing many different emotions is natural. It means you’re human and I promise everyone experiences the same emotions as well. However, the bad habit we want to get rid of is not being honest so that we can fully and unapologetically feel those emotions.
This limits us greatly from growing into our best selves.
Healthy life habit: Be more vocal and truthful about what it is you need, want, and how you’re feeling.
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5. Bad life habit: Not making yourself a priority
Finally make yourself a priority! Don’t just ensure that everyone around you is taken care of, that they have all that they need to survive, and are blissfully happy. Make sure that you have all these things too. I know as women it’s so easy to put ourselves on the back burner.
However, I’m a firm believer in the idea that we are only as good to others as we are to ourselves. If we aren’t in the right frame of mind, we aren’t in our best shape physically, or we don’t care for our emotions effectively, how could we ever expect to be everything someone may need and more?
The reality is that we can’t. We can’t give our all to someone if we can’t even give half of us to ourselves.
While it’s admirable to be selfless, a caretaker, loving to all and so much more, it’s also necessary to be all those things to ourselves. Practice self-care. Engage in personal development. Do the inner work needed in order to function at your best daily.
It’s not an easy task to accomplish but it’s one most certainly worth it.
Healthy life habit: Treat yourself how you treat others and give as much to you as you so willing give to others.
Conclusion
We all have bad life habits that are a part of what makes us who we are. These are habits that we learned to develop early on in life for one reason or another. However, that doesn’t mean they have to remain a part of us.
If you want to grow into your full potential, be the best version of yourself, and live your happiest and most fulfilled life you have to let the bad habits you have go. Let the go and replace them with positive healthy life habits that will help you do just that.
These are just a few of the bad life habits that we all tend to have, as well as some healthy life habits that they can be replaced with. Do you have any more to add to the list?
-Xo
Kimora