10 Habits to Break Before They Break You

Maher Khan
Jul 25, 2017 · 8 min read
Photo Courtesy of Christian Joudrey on Unsplash

1. Complaining — Complaining is an invitation of negative energy for your mind and for the minds of those around you. A complaint sets a tone that whatever you’re complaining about cannot be solved, and this is almost never the case.

Try this Instead: If you feel you really need to let something out, then ask a friend if you can vent for a minute or two. Not only are you holding yourself accountable to be quick about the complaint, but that friend will also be prepared to handle your complaint as hot air rather than a life-threatening issue.

2. Worrying — Worrying is a plague of the mind. Worry can make you feel trapped, scared and hopeless. There’s a world of difference between dealing with your thoughts in a rational, objective way and the inverse, running around in circles with no solution in sight. There are micro-worries and macro-worries such as:

What if I can’t find parking?

What if that crush doesn’t respond to my text?

What if those bumps on my skin are cancerous?

OR

What if I end up being alone forever?

What if I get laid off and can’t support myself or my family?

What if my mother’s health quickly deteriorates?

Firstly, all of these questions begin with what if. Surprise! Those things haven’t even been determined yet! Cross your bridges when you get to them. You’ll find that these worries will dissipate at their own pace, not when you choose to think about them.

Try this Instead: Train your mind to think about worry differently (see, How I Conquered Worry). Think about the law of averages. What is the likelihood of such an event happening? Odds are, the probability of the event is quite low but your emotional investment is high. Our minds are fickle beasts, they tend to spiral downward at the thought of an extreme event occurring without even analyzing its probability.

Put a stop-loss order on your worries. In investments, a stop-loss order is the point of no return when selling stock. Traders limit their losses by selling stocks if they fall below a certain % of their value. Make a willful effort to discontinue investing time and energy in your worries after a specific period of time. Worried about that interview you had high hopes for but haven’t heard back from after a follow-up? Give yourself a week’s time, then let it go and move on.

3. Hurrying and Indecision — Hurrying and Indecision are usually the product of improper planning. Have you ever caught yourself rushing to finish last minute dinner arrangements? When you’re rushed, you’re far more likely to make mistakes. And when you don’t have at least a loose idea of what you’re going to do with your time, you become stuck in the quagmire of indecision.

Try this Instead: Carry some sort of physical or digital program for each day. You can create this either the night prior or the morning of your day. Write out what you expect to accomplish in 1-hour intervals e.g. “7–8AM Eat breakfast, make coffee and meditate for 5–10 minutes.” You won’t always follow this program to a T, and that’s 100% okay, but you will find a great deal of mental clarity in the process.

4. Procrastinating — In many ways, I believe procrastination can be quite beneficial. Sometimes leaving your weekend plans up in the air can make way for a serendipitous rendezvous with friends. But procrastination takes its toll in the long-run when there are no real repercussions. This is materialized when we fail to determine which direction we’d like to take our careers or when we don’t apply to that job or prestigious school which could introduce us to a wealth of new opportunities.

Try this Instead: Give yourself deadlines and set SMART goals, ones that are Specific, Measurable, Agreed Upon, Realistic and Time-Based. Moreover, never defer something that can be done today, tomorrow. Need to change the oil in your car? Kill two birds with one stone and stop by that gas station that also does oil changes on your way home from work. Also — never defer something that you can handle in 60 seconds or less. Need to RSVP to an event you know you’re going to? Just. Do. It.

5. Entertaining Negative People — Certainly, every one of us can think of that one friend who’s almost always negative. How do you feel about being around them? Their judgements about people are projections of their own insecurities and lack of confidence and trust in themselves. And, frankly, you don’t need that in your life.

Try this Instead: Cast a wide net with your friendships but commit to a solid few. You’ll have the best luck in managing and keeping healthy friendships with those who share common interests. You don’t necessarily have to be similar in personality; in fact, some of the best friends I have met are incredibly different from me. Remember that, no one likes to be around a negative Nancy.

6. Codependency — Codependency is often difficult to detect and even harder to admit. As humans, it’s our nature to want belongingness and attention — we crave it. The desire to feel important is one of the most fundamental human attributes. However, this becomes toxic when we conflate the fulfillment of our needs with what another person can give us. Codependency becomes an addiction and a vicious feedback cycle. Someone stimulates you -> you feel rewarded -> you yearn for that stimulus again.

Try this Instead: Detect the warning signs of codependency in your relationships with others. If you find yourself pouring energy into gaining the validation of others and not improving your own condition, this is a red flag (listen to your intuition!). Cultivate a stronger sense of self through mindfulness and a pursuit of activities which make you happy. Notice how the emphasis is placed on activities, the cause, and not the effect, happiness. Take inventory of the 5–10 things you enjoy doing regularly, and make a commitment to do 80% of those things on a weekly basis. For the mindfulness piece, check out the free app Headspace which reminds you to meditate in 3, 5 or 10 minute intervals daily.

7. Frowning — You’d be surprised at how many of us court an RBF (Resting Bitch Face) on a daily basis. On the surface alone, smiling makes you look more attractive, more agreeable and happier, even if you don’t quite feel that way on the inside. Moreover, smiling makes you feel good on a chemical level, “research shows that a smiling expression sends feedback from your face to your left frontal cortex, which in turn triggers the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine in your brain,” — Forbes, A Smile Can Change Your Brain. Those feel good chemicals stave off depression and make you more resilient to day-to-day challenges. Other research concludes that there’s no neurological difference in a ‘forced’ smile than an organic one. You can actually trick your brain into thinking you’re happy and reap those neural benefits!

Try this Instead: Try smiling in front of at least 10 people a day. Stranger or friend makes little of a difference, but I’ve found that the less I knew someone, the larger the return in ‘feeling good’.

8. Fear of Failure/Rejection — Fear is the mind-killer. There’s no wonder one of the greatest presidents in US history spoke about it with such fervor, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”- Franklin D. Roosevelt. In his first inaugural address, FDR spoke to an anxious, fearful and nearly hopeless nation suffering from the tragedy of a world war and one of the worst economic conditions in history, the Great Depression. Fear is a destructive force that when overcome can be one of the most constructive.

Try this Instead: Know that the most accomplished people are not simply those with peculiar gifts, but those who have failed more than their counterparts. You’ve probably heard it before, but Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team and Steve Jobs was fired from his own company. Challenge yourself to reach out to that guy/gal who you think is out of your league or pursue that new hobby to failure. Be sure to handle the outcome in a positive light, what’s the worst that could come out of it? Ninety-nine percent of the time you can only benefit.

9. Thinking You’re Right about Everything — “You are impossible. Your opinions have a slap in them for everyone who differs with you. They have become so offensive that nobody cares for them. Your friends find they enjoy themselves better when you are not around. You know so much that no man can tell you anything. Indeed, no man is going to try, for the effort would lead only to discomfort and hard work. So you are not likely ever to know any more than you do now, which is very little.” First of all, DAMMMMMN. Can you take a guess at who this scathing rebuke was directed to? It was to the young Benjamin Franklin, whom afterward would go on to become one of the greatest diplomats this country would ever have the gift of appointing.

*Excerpt from Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People

Try this Instead: Be open to others’ ideas and, even if you disagree with them, try to understand their perspective. Win them to your way of thinking through suggestion. From a cognition standpoint, we tend to be wrong more often than we are right. Our cognitive biases, like confirmation bias and self-fulfilling prophecy, only perpetuate this paradoxical ‘rightness’. No one likes a know it all. Know it all’s tend to think they know a disproportionate amount of information than they actually do. Remember that, you can learn at least one thing from every person you meet.

10. Ingratitude — Last but not least in salience, is the concept of gratitude. Can you think of that celebrity who seemingly has everything but is still terribly miserable? Or perhaps the opposite, the Buddhist monk who has no material possessions but carries an unbounded peace? What’s the difference? It lies in one excruciatingly simple idea — gratitude. In discontentment, “You want more and more and more. This, in a sense, is real poverty — always hungry, hungry, hungry with no time to be satisfied.” –The Dalai Lama

Try this Instead: Make a brief list of everything you are grateful for — the fact that you have a roof over your head when millions don’t, the fact that you have your health and millions are dying of sickness or the fact that you have an education when in most of the world this is a grand privilege. Let’s take a minute to be grateful for what we do have and not complain about what we don’t.

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With Love,

Maher


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Maher Khan

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Traveler, rock climber and yogi-ish bringing you nourishment for the soul. Follow my journey here and on Instagram @khanduit | Los Angeles, California

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