Many people want to stop being lazy and believe that bad habits prevent you from achieving your goals and reduce your productivity but that’s not always the case. Some of these habits can help you achieve them even earlier than the most disciplined person.
According to various studies, some of these ‘bad habits’ are not as terrible as we tend to think they are.
Read on to find out the benefits you can get from having these bad habits and how to turn them into your strong points.
‘Bad habits’ that can be good for you
1. You don’t have to stop being lazy -Laziness makes you efficient
Good news for all lazy people! Research indicates that lazy people tend to be very adept in their jobs. If you are looking for someone to find a way to perform a challenging task in no time, get a lazy person to do it. Such a person will not want to waste motions and will find the easiest way to do the job because they do not want to use any more energy than is required.
You are lazy, but so were those people who invented the bicycle and the wheel. They just got tired of having to walk and carry things from one place to the other. Even the billionaire, Bill Gates, said that he will always choose to hire a lazy person to do a difficult job because such a person finds the easiest way to do it.
2. Being lazy boost creativity
Laziness is associated with higher levels of intelligence; who knew! Many people have gotten their ‘aha’ moment while lounging around.
When you are not thinking about any specific thing, in particular, that’s when you get your best ideas. When you concentrate too much on piecing things together, you might get the opposite effect. Allowing yourself to let go and let your brain wander, you might find the solution faster.
Lazy people are said to have the best problem-solving skills. Walking outdoors without any purpose is considered one of the best brain training exercises which helps the brain to recover and increases creativity.
3. Procrastinating makes you focus on a task
Do you have that chair in your bedroom where you put all those clothes that you are yet to fold? Do you do your homework with time to spare? If you can do all your tasks on time, you just might possess superpowers because very few people can resist the temptation to procrastinate.
It’s not uncommon to find that many lazy people are also procrastinators. You delay performing the task until the very last minute. However, this helps you focus on the most important bits.
Have you noticed that most of the time when you choose to do an assignment earlier than the deadline you end up adding unnecessary details and have to throw away most of it? Well, that’s why procrastinating can be beneficial for you.
Working at the last minute is fueled by the adrenaline that helps you focus only on what is needed, and you won’t have to throw anything away. You also do not have enough time and will work faster with no time to add any extra details. You will hear some people say that procrastination taught them to do 30 minutes of work in 8 hours, or do 8 hours of work in only 30 minutes.
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4. Sarcastic people are smart
Although it is a skill that is not appreciated by everyone, and especially not by those who are sensitive, being sarcastic has its benefits. It challenges the creativity of those in both the giving and receiving ends.
One must identify the intended meaning by recognizing the difference between both the literal and actual meanings. Does it have a mean side? Yes. But does it challenge your brain? Absolutely.
When used with moderation and care, it can trigger creative thinking. For instance, if you are speaking with your sarcastic friend, you have to be ready with a matching response. The brain works harder to understand sarcasm hence those people you consider sarcastic jerks might possess sharper minds than you.
5. Swearing reduces stress and pain
Your attitude towards swearing or ‘cursing’ is dependent on the people you associate with or the neighborhood you were raised. Although swearing is thought to be inappropriate, when used in limited doses it can be good for you.
A foul-mouthed individual is better able to deal with emotions and in doing so accomplish significant stress reduction. It’s is okay to curse when you are stuck in traffic and getting late to an appointment or when you are feeling frustrated.
As long as your words aren’t directed towards a specific person as an insult, swearing is okay. A study by the Keele University indicated that swearing is natural pain relief. People who swear have also shown to be more honest.
6. Gossiping gains you more social connections
If gossip were food we would all be overweight. We all love gossip and always like to share or listen some more. Gossiping gets a bad rap because people always assume it has negative effects. It does have its positive side.
Conversing with your friends releases the hormone oxytocin which is also known as the ‘cuddle’ hormone. Gossip strengthens your relationship with your friends and improves your trust and generosity.
After all, whenever you have some juicy story, you always want to share it. Just, once again, make sure that you won’t hurt anyone by your stories!! Be kind and make laugh from positive things.
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7. Napping and daydreaming can boost your brain activity
Very many people look down upon those who nap during the day. Why sleep when there is so much more to do? money to make or any of the other reasons they come up with. But like with many others habits in this list, taking a power nap is good for your health.
Taking downtime is essential to maintain brain health, boost your mood, alertness as well as your creativity. Research shows that people who daydream also tend to have more efficient brains than those who don’t. Napping and daydreaming can help improve the quality of life as you never get burnt out. You are healthier, happier and can now focus on the important things in life. Go on and take that much-needed nap.
8. You are not at risk of allergy reactions from dust mites
Your parents might have some apologizing to do if they ever made you make your bed when you were younger. According to recent news reports, making your bed can be a hazard to your health.
A well-made bed provides the perfect moist atmosphere for the breeding of dust mites and other allergens. These feed on dead skin cells or sweat shed during your tossing and turning when sleeping.
The presence of dust mites can cause allergic reactions or even asthma. Leaving your bed unmade exposes them to the air and light making them become dehydrated and die. Good riddance you little things! Don’t put pressure on yourself that you need to stop being lazy, and continue chilling if that’s what you want.
9. Fidgeting boosts your metabolism
Can’t stay still even after being admonished for decades? Although many times your fidgeting will drive your friends and coworkers crazy, it does have a positive effect on your body. Here’s why you should not worry if you are a fidgeter. It helps to boost your metabolism and also prevents some cardiovascular conditions such as arterial diseases.
Various studies have shown that people who tap their feet reap the benefit of ensuring blood circulation in the arteries in their legs. Sitting still for too long exposes you to the risk of getting an arterial disease in your legs. We spend so much time sitting behind a desk and hardly get time to walk or exercise, fidgeting works as an exercise to improve blood flow.
10. Binge-watching makes your body relax
On your lazy day, you may decide to binge-watch the TV shows and comedies you never have time to watch anymore. People often told to stop being lazy and get judged harshly for ‘wasting their time watching but what those who do the judging don’t know is that binging on a show is good for you. It helps you escape into the unreal world of movies and TV shows giving you a break away from all the stress of your daily life.
Movies, especially comedies keep you entertained and help you stay relaxed allowing you to get rid of anxiety and stress. Laughter is said to be the best medicine, and it will have positive effects on your immunity, as well as reducing your risk of getting heart disease. The next time you feel like binge-watching all the seasons of Game of Thrones, go ahead.
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What if you actually want to break your bad habits and stop being lazy?
Let’s face it, there will be days when you’re absolutely lazy and unable to concentrate on anything and end up wasting the whole day on meaningless tasks.
What is important is not to develop that into a pattern and lower your overall productivity. On days like those when you’d rather just count the tiles on your office floor than get to work, it’s important to know what you can do to try and get something more out of your day.
When it comes to personal productivity, it can mean different things to different people. Some people think that in order to be productive you need to stop being lazy and start doing as many things possible in as little time, other people think it’s about setting reasonable goals and finishing them on time.
What is for sure is that personal productivity is about getting tasks done that bring you closer to your goals without causing an imbalance in your life.
And here comes the Pareto Principle – the best scientific proof why you don’t have to stop being lazy:
Just 20% of Your Effort Gives You 80% of the Result
Despite its simplicity, the importance of the Pareto Principle should not be underestimated. Its name comes from the surname of the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto who was the one to make such a conclusion after realizing that 80% of Italian land is in fact owned by 20% of the population. Since then, the rule became popular.
What is the 80/20 rule?
To put it simply, the Pareto Principle means that 20% of input creates 80% of the result. The remaining 80% of input will only give you 20% of the result. Knowing this, you can use the 80/20 rule to manage your time better as well as achieve both personal and career goals faster.
For instance, you can build your business in a way that prevents you from wasting time, effort and resources. Students can adhere to this principle by asking for academic writing help when they realize they are out of ideas.
How does the Pareto Principle work
What is important to keep in mind is that the numbers don’t necessarily have to be 20% and 80%. For example, 20% of input can create only 10% of the result. So, it is significant to remember that these numbers do not often represent the actual state of affairs. The idea behind the concept is that nothing is distributed evenly in life.
No matter how much effort you put into something, some aspects will turn out to be more contributing than others. Take into consideration the following stats:
- 20% of customers create 80% of revenue
- 20% of features generate 80% of usage
- and, no surprise, 20% of employees produce 80% of results
What you need to do before you get down to starting your own business, creating a new startup or even texting someone is to figure out what your vital few aspects are and to focus on them.
How The 20/80 Rule Can Change Your Life
The most significant insight is this: positive result often comes from a minority of inputs. The faster you realize this, the more productive you will become. What is more, it will also help you figure out how to get the most out of something even if you cannot put 100% of effort.
The whole point is to figure out which aspects are of major importance to you and to concentrate on making sure that 20% of the effort helps you get 80% of the result every single time you start something.
If you are a student who requires academic writing help or assistance from academic experts, the 20% of effort you should put into is to find reliable academic writing help services, especially when you are pressed for time and the task is really difficult. This way, what you will do is find one of the trustworthy academic writing help services the academic experts of which will provide you with tips on how to deal with an assignment in the fastest way possible.
Using the Pareto Principle to achieve success
If you want to get a clear understanding of how you can use the Pareto Principle to achieve success and to increase your efficiency, here are a few examples to take into account. If you have a company where 20% of employees bring 80% of the result, what you should do is focus on rewarding those workers. This way, they will be even more motivated to deliver impressive results. No matter what you do, learn how to concentrate on the 20% that helps you make a difference. The remaining 80% won’t add much. Thus, there is no need to prioritize it in the first place.
If you are a blogger, stop being lazy at least to spend an hour coming up with ideas instead of writing a post on a topic pretty much everyone has already covered. Once you have that unique idea, crafting the actual blog post will not take long. Trust us, it really works. When you manage to come up with a killer issue to dwell upon, it does not matter whether you start your introduction with a quote or a personal story. What matters is the essence. Focus on that. Telling unique stories will help you gain a loyal audience that will enjoy reading your blog posts.
If you are a designer, make sure you have created a few layouts at the end of that one hour you have allocated on this process. Even if they look horrible at the beginning, simply ignore it. You will have time to make as many edits as required. What you need the most at this stage is to have a few options to choose from. Besides, it is always beneficial to have a couple of design ideas you can choose from rather than to have one and suddenly realize that it sucks.
If you are a student who has to cover tons of materials but has very little time to do that, spend the amount of time you have glancing a few articles and familiarizing yourself with the materials rather than focusing on one huge article.
Here’s why this option is going to work
You don’t need to stop being lazy. By glancing through all necessary materials you will know for sure what each of them is about. Thus, it will be easier for you to figure out which ones will contribute to the research study you are currently conducting. So, choose those that you find most useful and spend the rest of your time studying them in detail.
All the examples mentioned above illustrate how the 80/20 rule works in detail. To use it to your own benefit, you need to figure out what can bring you 80% of the result and to focus on that activity.
But first remove the obstacles which actually only reinforce your laziness and killing your motivation
8 Things That are Killing Your Motivation
As a wise man once said, “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.” Motivation is what pushes people to continue working hard through tough times in order to get to the other side of success.
Top motivational speakers, such as Zig Ziglar, who said that motivation is like bathing, show that it’s something very difficult to maintain. It’s not just a case of getting yourself motivated once and then you’re motivated for life.
You don’t have to stop being lazy totally. What you need is to focus only on these things you care about and find the motivation to accomplish them. There are a lot of things that can kill even the strongest-willed man’s motivation, so what are they? And how can you stop them from killing your motivation?
1. No Results
Probably the number one reason people give up on their dreams is that they don’t see any results in the first few months, and that’s the soul reason why the term we call “Average” is a lot lower than it actually could be.
It’s incredibly difficult to keep putting the same amount of effort into something, that hasn’t gotten you any results yet. Anybody who we would ever regard as being successful is someone who has had no results for a certain length of time but kept ongoing.
Which is exactly why they are successful. So, is that what you want too? Then keep on going!
2. Surrounded by Negative People
For those that are surrounded by people constantly doubting your goals and dreams, who themselves have nothing really happening in their life, then there’s no doubt this will be killing your motivation.
People get upset if they can’t do something because they expect it to be easy and so when they can’t do it they want to go ahead and tell you that you can’t.
After all, it’s easy for them to put you down and it’ll make them feel better about their own failures. It’s a horrible thing to do, we all know that, but they do it anyway because they think that they were in the same position as you.
Don’t let these people put you off, and if they are killing your motivation, then find people that actually support you to hang out with.
3. Being Afraid of Failure
Fear of failing is something that hits a lot of us. Similar to having no results for the first few months of starting out; people are also afraid of just failing in general before they’ve even started.
“What if I spend all this time, energy, and money on something that in the end doesn’t even work?”
It’s a scary question, right? The only thing you need to remember when it comes down to this is that there’s nothing worse than not trying. Failure is far better than not trying because it’s a step in the right direction. At least you will have learned something from it.
Would you rather go through life wondering what could have been, or actually finding out for yourself how far you’re able to go? And as I said, you don’t have to stop being lazy. Just push it a little bit. Baby steps.
4. Not Loving What You’re Doing
You should be happy with the job you’re in, and if you’re not then it’s probably the wrong career for you. It’s not just about being financially stable, it’s about living a life that you love. Enjoying life is one important point I made when I wrote about ‘waking up in the morning feeling unstoppable‘
“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” – Seth Godin
There’s no point throwing all your energy and time into something that you hate because no amount of money you earn will make up for those years that you wasted being miserable. Of course, it is hard to stop being lazy if what you are doing is not nearly your passion. Find something you love and go after it as your life depends on it!
5. Lack of Energy
Feeling tired, slightly exhausted? Get some rest. If you’re striving towards achieving something at the moment, then just relax a little bit. If this is a goal worth having, then you can’t complete it in one day, no matter how much work you do.
The more exhausted you get, the less motivated you become. Have a rest, let the batteries recharge and be better unleash your power on the world tomorrow.
6. Little Faith in Yourself
I mention this time and time again on my own blog, and it’s very important for keeping yourself motivated and ready for what life throws at you. You need to be able to believe in all your ideas and everything that you’re doing.
It’s like I always say, if you don’t believe in yourself and your dreams, then how do you expect others to? They won’t be able to give you their full support if you don’t even believe in what you’re striving for.
7. Working in the Wrong Environment
Have you ever sat down and tried to work in a room, and you just find that your mind will go blank and you just don’t seem to be doing anything productive? It could be the room you’re trying to work in.
Right now, I’m writing on my laptop in a pretty neutral room, sitting on a wooden chair and leaning on a wooden table stood at a decent height. If I go into any other room, my productivity drops almost automatically. I want to stop being lazy and regain my focus but it simply doesn’t work that way. In this room there are no distractions and nothing ridiculously crazy going on that would cause my attention to wonder.
It also manages to keep me in a good mood, since I’m sitting upright and the room has a lot of light hitting it. So I’m more motivated in here than anywhere else. Pick the room that you work in wisely, or if you work in an office do your best to make it work well for you.
If you’re really not motivated in your environment no matter what you do, then something is wrong. Maybe you’re working with the wrong people, in the wrong job role, or just the wrong sort of company altogether.
8. No Clear Goals
Nothing is more guilty of killing your motivation than not having any goals in the first place. If you have no actual goal you’re striving to achieve, then you have no real reason to be motivated. Nothing’s driving you, nothing’s pushing you. There must be something in life that you really want, or a dream that you have.
No dream is too big, so don’t be embarrassed by it. Find out what your overall goal is and then you’ll have something to be motivated for.
Sometimes you just want to have some things done, cause life is short and we all want to live it to the fullest. Here is my ultimate guide:
Stop Being Lazy – The Easiest Productivity Guide From a Recovering Expert Level Procrastinator
If you’re wondering how to do that, we’re here to explain it to you but be aware that it’s going to take a lot more than buying a fancy planner.
1. Set realistic goals
You can’t be as productive as you want to if the goals that you set up for yourself are literally impossible to achieve in that period. This is one of the biggest problems that people have when it comes to managing their responsibilities.
I, for example, am a dreamer. I will set up goals that I honestly could do if I was 100% focused, however, that almost never happens. Usually, I start to work and then I either have to eat or take a scroll through my social media which often turns into hours of procrastination. You don’t have to stop being lazy totally. The biggest problem with setting realistic goals is that we are often not including realistic distractions.
A good tip for setting realistic goals that include the realistic distractions is to try the “worst case scenario” planning. If you give more time for your tasks that you initially think that they will need, finishing earlier than planned can only be a good thing! And it will also give you some wiggle room for unforeseen events or tasks that you need to take care of.
2. Prioritize
We have all been there—trying to do 100 things all at once and ending up very overwhelmed with nothing to show for. That is why you need to master the process of prioritizing tasks that are more important than the others. The simple thing to do this is to know what you need to do in the upcoming day or week, break it down into smaller tasks, and put the most important of those first.
You don’t need to stop being lazy. A good way to do this is to take one hour before each week starts and to write down a thorough schedule for the whole week. You can do the planning by an hour, by a daily list of tasks, or however, you see fit. See what works best for you personally and roll with it. Planning your week ahead of time will give you an overview and mental preparation of the things that you have to do and allow more time for sweet hours when you choose not to stop being lazy.
You can also integrate small prizes in between your tasks to reward yourself for the hard work. This way, you can also have things to look forward to and the stress of the upcoming week will be way lower. You don’t need to stop being lazy. A great technique that you can use for this is the 25/5 rule.
It works like this: you write down 25 of the goals that you want to accomplish either by the end of the week, month, or year, and then you circle the five goals that are the most important to you. Start working on your top 5 list immediately, and leave the other goals for later.
3. Break it down
Having huge goals or tasks is not helping you to focus easily. In fact, if you’re dreading to start that huge project you’re more likely to keep pushing it as much as you can. That is why breaking down the tasks into the smallest tasks possible can be very helpful in increasing your productivity.
There are many tools out there that can help you achieve just that which are based on Kanban principle. Kanban principle is all about visualizing your progress in your planning, and it is usually used to organize projects in which multiple people are a part of. However, it can also be used by individuals as a way to be more organized, break down tasks into smaller ones, and visualize their progress.
4. Finally: Take a rest
The stress of the day and age we live today can be very overwhelming and can really impact our motivation and our willingness to work on ourselves and our goals harder.
If you want to stop being lazy and be successful and start working on recovering from procrastination, you will need to have the energy to take on that challenge. And that won’t be possible if you’re constantly over-stressed and overwhelmed. We have all faced stress in the workplace or in college and it’s important to know how to deal with it.
If you’re left feeling absolutely drained after the first task, and you know that you have a long way to go still- make sure that you find a way to de-stress. Now, this is an individual thing. There are many tips and tricks on how to relax in between tasks and don’t let the stress ruin your plans for the day. Maybe grab a coffee and go outside for a 10-minute break, or do some light meditation at your desk.
Other methods include deep breathing exercises, solving puzzles, reading a chapter of a nice book, and many, many others. Just find what feels right and helps you to de-stress.
5. Get to know yourself
Now, let’s face it. You can read thousands of online articles and books on productivity and still be your old self in the end and I didn’t choose to stop being lazy. The point is that you have to know what type of person you are and what motivates you the most and use that in your advantage.
For example, I do my best work under pressure. I have proven that to myself times and times again. I just get extremely creative and motivated by that rush of adrenaline that deadlines bring. So, I use that.
Although to be fair, there were times where I miscalculated. But most of the time, I leave the most important things for the end because I know that that’s how I will do the best job I can. And this might be a lethal choice for somebody else, so the point is to be aware of what your character dictates.
You don’t need to stop being lazy – how to break bad habits in a chill way
As previously stated, there are many methods and techniques for increasing productivity and organizing tasks more successfully. You are encouraged to try them all and experiment with what works specifically for you.
Eat the Frog First
Eat the Frog First—this term comes from Mark Twain as he stated once “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” Before you go ahead and snack on some poor frogs, let me explain. This method is all about getting rid of the worst task that you have planned for the upcoming day/week. Start with the thing that is stressing you out the most and then you can relax. Makes sense right?
The Action Method
The Action Method—this method is for organizing the creative processes like brainstorming. For those types of tasks, there is a little or no tidiness since creativity can be a messy process.
However, afterward, you do want to figure things out and organize them so you can execute the plan. This method is about breaking down your ideas into three sections: action items (steps you need to take for the project to be done), backburner items (ideas that are good but don’t fit this project), and reference items (resources and information needed for the completion of the project).
Must, Should, Want
Must, Should, Want is about prioritizing tasks by urgency. The “must” tasks are non-negotiable and can’t be delayed. “Should” tasks are things that you want to do but can be delayed. “Want” tasks are things that you want to do by are not necessary.
This is a pretty simple method that will give you general guidelines on how to organize your tasks. Organization of your time allows you more time for when you don’t want to stop being lazy.
There are many more methods out there that vary a lot in complexity, visualization, and purpose of usage but with a little bit of research and experimentation, you can begin your journey to higher productivity.
It is impossible to be motivated all the time since motivation is something that has to be constantly re-encouraged. However, it is your job to keep lighting up that fire.
Here Is How To Finally Do It: 5 Effective Ways To Break The Bad Habits You Hate
Everyone has a bad habit. You don’t have to stop being lazy be brilliant, but some habits are too harmful to keep them. Whether it’s smoking, eating junk food, fidgeting, chewing gum, oversharing on social media or tapping your fingers, a bad habit can harm your happiness, health or relationships.
Most people are aware of their poor habits and they are often desperately trying to kick them. However, this doesn’t always go as planned and the vast majority falls right back into their old ways.
While some of the bad habits are pretty harmless in every way – tapping feet or fingers or fidgeting – there are those habits that are harmful to our health, relationships and happiness – smoking and eating poorly come to mind.
At the very core of kicking bad habits is understanding their origins and how they form. Then, you should understand your triggers, and then you can move on to learning how to beat those bad habits.
Here are some ways to let go of your bad habits and move on to a new and better life.
Understand how and why a habit forms
As mentioned, one of the first things you should do is understand how bad habits – or any habits for that matter – form. For one, this is just what our mind does. Our brains are built to form these neural pathways that give us the best results. When a desire triggers a reaction that satisfies the urge, the brain remembers this. The next time you have a desire, the brain just uses the system that worked before. This is in part, neurochemistry.
When your urge is satisfied – for hunger, soothing or anything else – we experience a rush of dopamine which is related to feeling good. After you get a few of those dopamine doses, you start wanting more. This drives you to indulge in harmful behaviour whether it’s smoking, chewing gum or simply being on your phone.
“Why is this important? How can it help me? “, are some questions that you might ask.
In truth, when you understand what causes a habit to form, you have a better chance of noticing it and taking steps that lead to better choices. So, the next time you feel the urge to fulfil your needs and continue with a habit, retrace your steps and see how the habit reinforces itself and what causes it to form.
Change your mindset
Now, recognizing the problem, the triggers, the causes and the brain’s learned way to deal with problems is just the beginning of learning to let go of them. You should also start with a determination to do things differently. This determination should also be connected with something that has a deep meaning for you. This, in other words, means that you need to find the force of ‘I won’t’ powerful enough to beat the force of ‘I want’.
This willpower is your ability to connect with your brain system in terms of thinking about long-term results and goals instead of thinking about short-term desires and needs. You will still feel the emotion, the craving but at the same time, you will be aware of it enough to stop and think before fulfilling your urges. Over time, you develop mechanisms that allow you to stop going for the same old habits.
The HALT method
When you understand what you want – the reason behind the change – you begin to work on being stronger in your ability to choose differently. However, as anyone who has ever tried to kick a bad habit knows, this willpower is often not enough when it comes to changing. Especially if you really don’t want to stop being lazy. This is why scientists developed an acronym HALT that can help you understand and overcome the challenges.
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Hungry
If you feel the need to fulfill your bad habits, think first if you have this feeling. Impulse control is complex and it’s really a battle between the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. If you have a shortage of calories this will change the battle and it will be difficult to activate your willpower.
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Angry/Anxious
Feelings of anger or anxiousness can often put our bodies and minds into a fight or flight mode. This is when we start operating with our most primitive parts of the brain and in this mode our rational brain parts shut down. This decreases our ability to resist the urges we have or even consider the long-term results and consequences. So, the next time you feel an urge to fall into bad habits, think about your emotions, take a few deep breaths and take a beat before you make a decision.
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Lonely
When we share our commitment with other people we often follow through. Every person has to make a balance between their solitude and social life in order to kick habits successfully.
When depressing thoughts such us asking yourself ‘why am I so lonely‘ stop you from forming better habits, cut them off. Solitude is a virtue, forgotten in western countries. A healthy amount of alone helping to get in peace and get to know yourself better.
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Tired
When we are tired, our willpower tends to die down. Establish healthy sleep habits in order to be in a good position to kick your bad habits.
First, set reasonable goals
The next step is actually diving deep into your issues and starting with the process of avoiding your old habits. In order to do this, you need some goals. Start with small victories – smoke one less cigarette a day, avoid one junk meal, drink one less glass of wine and so on. As you move on, you can increase your goals but only when you are ready. This way, your mind and body will get used to the change in a calm, healthy way and you’ll be far less likely to fall off the wagon.
Measure your success and don’t give up
When you set your goals, it might be a good idea to write them down in order to measure your success, especially if you don’t want to stop being lazy while still achieving great results. Take your previous habits as a base and mark all the changes you make.
Also, never give up, especially not if you fall off the wagon once in a while. This is not such a big deal as long as it’s a one-time thing and you get right back to the schedule later.
Fine yourself for every offense
People have concluded that attaching monetary value to your offenses can be an effective way to get rid of them. This works like your average swear jar would. For instance, you smoke 5 cigarettes in a day even though you decided that you’ll smoke 4 – fine yourself. And set a specific amount of money it will cost you – a dollar or five and so on.
An even better solution than a swear jar would be to give the money away – to street artists or poor people. You could always take money back from a jar but try taking that same money from someone else’s hands after you’ve already given it to them.
Do it with someone
Everything is much easier when you have someone to share it with. For example, if you make a decision to get up early to run, you’ll have a much easier time doing it with a friend. On the mornings you don’t feel like running or getting up, your friend can push you and on the days your friend doesn’t feel like getting up, you can push him.
You can do things together and push each other further. It’s also useful because there will be less social pressure to go back to your old ways when there is two of you – or more. You’ll have a good support system and you’ll be happier with your decisions, especially if you want to kick bad habits that are strongly associated with social aspect of your life like drinking, smoking, eating junk food and so on.
Change your environment and routine
Once you figure out your triggers, you can commit to avoiding them. For instance, if you are a smoker and social events or drinking trigger more smoking, you should avoid those situations as much as you can. This way, you’ll limit the number of chances to indulge in your bad habit and you’ll be able to get rid of it with ease.
However, adjust yourself to those situations slowly because you don’t want to be triggered again once you get rid of the habit completely. Even after a lot of time, certain events could trigger you to go back. So, avoid these situations for a while but then start adapting yourself and your new habits to that activity. For instance, go out drinking with your friends but don’t smoke. It will be much easier after a while.
Kicking habits has never been easy. But if you are truly committed, you can do it by following these steps and learning how to deal with your bad habits.
Final words – stop being lazy or not?
Possessing these ‘bad habits’ is not always negative, one can take advantage of them and reap the above benefits from them. Most of them enhance your creativity.
Being lazy is natural. Know that your body is made for lounging that’s why many times we tend to want to conserve energy. Whenever anyone tries to judge you for your bad habit, remember these benefits. Some bad habits are good for you.
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