Identifying Unproductive Habits

And how you can eradicate them.

Before you can build new habits, we have to figure out what habits you currently have that are holding you back from being the person you claim to be. Typically, we can start with how much time you spend on social media. You’re on social media for hours trying to distract yourself from the realities of life. If you spent that time doing something you loved to do that challenges, you then you would actually start to see change in your life. Most people spend an average of 2 and a half hours on social media a day. So, when you’re done with class or work you steal 2 and a half hours away from something that would actually give you fulfillment. Be honest you know what you shouldn’t be doing, you just can’t keep putting yourself in positions that tempt you to do the thing you know you’re not supposed to do. I want you to take out a piece of paper for this exercise.

A good way to stop a bad habit is to design an environment that makes you favor doing the right thing.

For example, take one of the undesired habits you have and write down two ways to make it inconvenient for you to do it. It’s in our nature to choose the path of least resistance, so instead of letting it cripple us we can use it to our advantage.

If you didn’t write anything down start with putting your phone really far away from you before you go to sleep at night. Prepare to do at least one or two productive tasks before you pick up your phone in the morning. Many highly productive people actually put their phone on airplane mode so they can’t even hear their phone ring. You’ll be amazed at how clouded your mind can get from consuming an hour of probably bad news before you even get out of bed in the morning.

After doing this for a while you’ll eventually want to fill that hour with some- thing else and I’d hope you’d choose something that you feel furthers your goals. Also, if you know that every time you get bored you get the desire to open your phone, write down a list of a few things you can do to fill that void. Your future self will thank you for filling that space with practicing a skill or hobby that you can add to your life resume. Everyone has something they always wanted to learn how to do or miss doing.

Now that you have more time you can do those things; like you’re bored any- ways you might as well do something you’re interested in. If you believe in the saying “practice makes perfect” then you can understand how practicing doing the wrong thing can be detrimental. For example, if you are using your phone as a distraction you are practicing being distracted on average 2 and a half hours a day. For most young adult’s I bet it’s longer.

Practicing doing the wrong thing makes it easier to do the wrong thing when you’re trying to do the right thing. The reason it’s so hard for us to concentrate is because we don’t practice being focused enough. Some people are inherently better at it than others and usually those are the kids who excel in school. They may reinforce distractive behaviors the same as you, but everyone is different, and you may need to cut out distractions completely to excel and that’s ok.

Trevor Moawad said, “most decisions are obvious, we knowingly rationalize choosing the wrong option”. Most of us know what we shouldn’t be doing but stopping seems a lot harder without a plan to make your habit uncomfortable enough for you to eventually stop doing it. This habit-forming practice starts by letting go of the bad ones.

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