Self Improvement Articles

The Impact of Bad Habits on Your Friends

There are some bad habits that even your good friends will not stick around for. For this reason, you may want to notice if you do any of these bad habits. If you do, you’ll want to apologize for it and stop doing it. You may even be able to get some of your friends to help you manage some of your bad habits.

* Gossiping – The truth is, if you gossip to one friend, the friend you’re gossiping with is going to assume you gossip about them to your other friends. What’s more, most people will not keep secrets so they’re going to tell the friend you gossiped about. This is not a good look. If you find yourself talking about others in a negative way, train yourself to start saying nice things instead until you stop talking about people when they’re not around at all.

* Not Making Time for Friends – We all get busy in our lives but if you don’t set aside time to spend with your friends, you will lose them. People move on relatively fast. Say no to more than three get-togethers and they’ll likely stop asking. Put time with friends as a priority in your calendar. You don’t have to do it every day or even every week, but enough that you still know the person.

* Not Cutting Ties When Needed – Sometimes we maintain bad friendships out of habit too. If you have anyone in your life who makes you feel bad about yourself and does not lift you up or others up, let them go.

* Not Initiating the Contact That You Crave – If you’re an introvert or simply shy, it can be hard to initiate the contacts that you need in your life. If you find yourself not spending time with friends that are important to you, and you haven’t for a long time, try initiating the contact you crave to restart those friendships.

* Not Showing Your Love for Your Friends – If you really care for your friends, make the time to show them. Send them neat articles you think they’ll like, Groupon deals you know they will want to take, and cards for their special days.

* Being Negative – The truth is, some of us are more negative by nature than others. The problem is, negativity is a huge turnoff to most of the population, and it’s not fun to be around. Even negative people don’t like being around other negative people. Try to turn thoughts into positives in your mind, or focus on the positives when you can. Stop voicing negativity unless it’s very important.

* Not Being Open and Vulnerable – Feeling love from your friends and giving love back to your friends requires that you are open and vulnerable to them. The only way to really do this is to focus on spending time with your friends more often so you can truly know each other.

* Not Being Consistent – If you decide to embark on improving your friendships, don’t start and then stop. This is especially true if you’ve been a bad friend lately. Get out your calendar and set up times that you can focus on your friends.

If you can turn this around, you’ll get better at maintaining long-term friendships. Nothing really is better than making new friends and keeping them around long term. If you have ever wondered why you can’t make good friends, check yourself to find out if you have any of these bad habits that impact friendships.

Is Self-Discipline Always a Good Thing?

It doesn’t really matter what you’re talking about, there is always a way to have too much of something. That includes having too much self-discipline. There is a time when that control is not even self-discipline anymore but has become self-abuse. If you’ve gone too far, you may end up having some characteristics about your personality that aren’t beneficial. Let’s look closer into some signs that things may have gone too far.

You Can’t Make Decisions

You’re overly cautious when you try to make choices. You can’t choose what to eat for dinner, you can’t pick which movie to go to, and you can’t figure out what to do with your life. You’re scared of making the wrong decision, so you tend not to make any. Thus, you make no progress in life.

You Have Become a Perfectionist

Some people think the word “perfectionist” makes them sound smart and important. However, the truth is a person who has become a perfectionist is usually not full of self-confidence. Their perfectionism is really an excuse never to do anything or finish anything due to fear of success or failure.

You Are Too Focused on Rules and Regulations

Following the law is good and it’s great to care about rules and regulations. However, you can take this too far if you cannot play a game or do anything without pointing out the rules everyone else is breaking before you can have any fun. Plus, if you nitpick every little thing, you will never get anything done.

You Can’t Take Breaks

While sticking to a schedule is a good thing – especially if you are a manager, a business owner, or a parent, you can take that too far. It’s imperative to set up your day so that you have time for breaks and set up your schedule and task list with breaks in mind. A person who is all work and no play will not end up being successful long term without burning out.

You Feel Lonely

If you’re not taking breaks and you cannot make decisions, you may start to feel lonely and out of touch with others – even if they’re there with you. You feel detached from others because you must be regimented in everything you do.

Has your quest to have more self-discipline crossed over to become a serious problem of being too controlled to the point that you cannot be yourself, feel stressed out all the time, and cannot make decisions due to being so risk-averse? If this happens, it’s time to get back to normal self-discipline. The point is to learn to retrain yourself now so that you can meet long-term goals in work and in life – not to end up miserable.