10 Habits You Should Break to Become an Awesome Person

Bad habits for your body and mind undermine your chances for living a happy, healthy, fulfilling, and meaningful life.

By bad habits, we don’t mean just smoking cigarettes and abusing drugs and alcohol. Bad habits you should get rid of also include everything from excessive eating to unending pessimism and entertaining toxic people.

Here’s a list of common bad habits you should ditch to become a healthier, happier, awesome person:

1. Making Excuses Always

In case you didn’t know, blaming all and everything for your failures is a bad habit. Your life doesn’t get better since you expect someone from the universe to come and solve a problem.

Constantly whining and looking for excuses prevents you from improving your life. Not all problems disappear on their own, but you should stop always making excuses.

Look at issues objectively and try to get to the bottom of things without blaming and making excuses.

2. Being on Social Media All the Time

If you just can’t let the smartphone out of your hands, you have a problem. Smartphone addition is now a real hazard, fueled by an internet overuse problem.

Being always available on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and others. lowers your productivity and efficiency in the real world, and can lead to mental health issues.

A social media detox ​​can do you a lot of good. ​​​​Unplug from technology to improve your off-line connections, productivity, and engage more meaningfully with the people in the real world. 

3. Criticizing Yourself and Others Overly

Too much criticisms won’t generally help anyone become a better person. This is hardly a good motivation. Why? Because you’re just beating yourself up unnecessarily.

Excessive critics are negative by nature and take up too much energy. It’s much more beneficial to use the “but” trick. Here, you criticize yourself then add “but” and say something positive or inspiring.

For example, “I am overweight, but I’ll become slimmer with my regular workout routine.”

4. Postponing Things and Delaying Life

People find time for everything they want. Suppose you dream about starting your own business. Don’t delay it. You should not always postpone things for later.

The sooner you start things, the sooner you make progress and achieve your dreams. Any laziness and procrastination you may have delays the good things meant for your life.

5. Complaining and Whining All the Time

You have to realize one thing: life is not always fair. Period.

But that does not mean you complain all the time. Life if not always fair for everyone—so there is no point in whining about it all the time. Everyone is dealing with this fact.

Instead, learn to roll with the punches; to adjust and work out plans B, C, D... if necessary. Being strong, resilient, adaptive, and flexible is better than always complaining and sinking in self-pity.

6. Prioritizing Other People at Your Own Expense

This does not mean that you should ignore what others say or advise you. It means you should also be considerate and compassionate about yourself and listen to yourself, too.

You will become a different person when you start to value your own desires, needs, time, feelings, instead of always putting other people’s needs and opinions above your own.

Don’t waste your life trying to only fulfill other people’s dreams or make everyone happy. You don’t have to live the way society tells you to. Live in the best way for you and those you care about.

That means being compassionate with everyone, including yourself. You have to love yourself first so you can love others in a healthy way.

7. Entertaining Toxic People and Relationships

Toxic people, relationships and habits undermine not only your mental health, but also your physical wellbeing. It’s impossible to live a happy life when you are surrounded by toxic people and your relationships are destroying your personality and killing you joy little by little.

Ditch any toxic people in your life. Whether it’s your best friend, boss, or neighbor, you have to minimize your interactions with people who bring negative energy and vibes in your life.

If it’s possible, stop hanging out with them completely. Remember, as motivational speaker Jim Rohn rightly said, “You are the average of the five friends you keep.”

Surround yourself with people who hold you to a higher standard and you will be motivated and have a higher standard of life.

8. Not Saying “No” to Anything

You are allowed to say “No” to anything that’s not a priority in your life, whether it is a dinner invitation, new job offer, or even a mere favor to a close friend.

The inability to say “No” and respectfully decline what you don’t like or want, makes you a slave to other people’s whims. That poisons your mind and soul in that you feel like you have no control of your own actions and life. That damages your mental well-being.

Just learn to say “no” to anything that you feel is not helpful or appropriate for you to do at that time. Hold strong and refuse to budge when you really don’t want to do something.

You will take back control of your life and people will begin to respect your time and take actions more.  And when you do say “Yes” to what others ask, it’ll be more meaningful since they’ll know you don’t say “Yes” to everything.

9. Staying in Your Comfort Zone

Your comfort zone is the worst enemy of all the new horizons that are awaiting you to explore and conquer. Comfort zones are where dreams go to die, since they inhibit your desires, self-drive and passions from pursuing new opportunities and turning them into reality.

In other words, if you don’t abandon the cozy, comfortable spot where you are now, you will never achieve more than what you have. And soon enough your life will stagnate, become depressingly dreary and go stale. Those who are in business know this rule well.

So, to keep growing and expanding your horizons, step out of your comfort zone and take calculated risks. That will create an exciting and always growing life—not a mundane one.

10. Neglecting Your Body's Health

Physical well-being is just as important as mental well-being. You have to stop killing yourself with excessive work without rest, eating poorly, and not getting enough sleep.

Be more mindful of your body and eat a healthy diet that nourishes your body and makes your strong. Avoid excessive drinking of alcohol and smoking. And do regular exercises to stay fit.

Your fitness and health is your ultimate wealth. You cannot enjoy anything you achieve in life if you are in poor health and physically weak. So, never neglect your physical body and health.

Only you are responsible for taking care of your body. Do that and you will thank yourself later.

Tips to Overcoming Bad Habits

While listing specific bad habits you should break is great, it’s equally vital to understand some of the general tactics you can use to tackle any toxic practice and break it.

First of all, you have to realize that a habit is a routine activity that is usually subconscious. This means that we often don’t even notice it. So, the foremost step is to identify the bad habit in your life and get acquainted with it. Then, identify how often you repeat the bad habits and under which circumstances. The circumstances usually contain the answer on how to tackle and break them.

Secondly, a vital thing to understand about the nature of habits is that they happen for a reason. In other words, they are shaped by the context. For example, someone smokes when he/she is stressed out. Another person eats candy only when he has some at home. This means that you have to either eliminate those triggers or find another activity to replace and exchange your bad habit with.

Moreover, there also can be situations when someone doesn’t engage in bad habits because of the context or company. For example, someone won’t smoke when his friends or parents are around, even when stressed. Such situations can help to work out a strategy and stamina to quit bad habits.

Ultimately, everyone can be a victim of bad habits. We mostly only differ according to how we respond to and address the bad habits. Successful people face and eliminate them; while unsuccessful ones surrender to the bad habits and let the habits rule their lives. Don’t be the latter.

End bad habits and it’ll make you an amazing person!