9 Toxic Habits That Are Destroying Your Happiness

With the new year right around the corner it is time to shake those habits that are holding you back and stopping you from being the happiest version of yourself. However, in order to get rid of a bad habit you have to know what the habit is and why it is so toxic first. And that is what we are going to be chatting about today. Below are 9 toxic habits that are destroying your happiness and why they are toxic!

Once you have identified what your bad habits are then it is time to learn to shake them. And we talk about how to break a bad habit in one month here so head over to that link next so you can break the toxic habits.

But for now let’s get into the toxic habits that are destroying your happiness.

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9 Toxic Habits That Are Destroying Your Happiness

Habits that are holding you back:

Toxic Habit 1: Too much social media time

We have all fallen down the social media time hole. You jump on Instagram to just check for a couple new posts for a minute and suddenly it’s 2 hours later and you are on a friend of a friends ex-boyfriend’s sisters Instagram. I am far from saying don’t go on social media… I am saying to watch how much time you are spending on it!

Spending hours on social media isn’t a productive use of time. Instead, use social media as your breaks from being productive to reward yourself. Social media can be awesome for growing your business, staying connected, etc. but don’t let it control your entire day. 

Going on your phone in general can be a large time wasting activity that can really hold you back from being more productive. If you are struggling with stopping your social media time and phone usage in general I recommend setting a timer on your phone. And until that timer goes off don’t allow yourself to look at your phone. 

If you have an iPhone you can use the screen time report each week to look at your progress and try to get a better idea of your screen time. As well as getting an idea of what websites/apps are distracting you the most. Knowing that information can be the firs type to stopping this habit that is ruining your productivity. 

I also have a helpful post that you can read here about learning to unplug from your phone every day. Not only does less phone time generally help you with being more productive but it can also have other benefits. Such as helping your relationships and sometimes even bettering your mental wellness. A lot of these habits are not only bad for your productivity but they also can have other negative impacts in your life.

Toxic Habit 2: Always expecting the worst

This is such a bad mindset habit and one that can be holding you back in so many ways.

When you expect the worst you start to look for the worst. And (this is arguably more damaging) you start to overlook and ignore the good that is happening in your life.

If this is a toxic habit that you specifically struggle with then I do recommend starting a gratitude journal (linking an affordable one here) as an initial step to help you start looking for the positives in life rather than the negatives.

Toxic Habit 3: Never accepting failure

Failure happens to everyone. It is a part of the path to becoming your best self and being more successful. When you get stuck on a failure that is often what leads to debilitating overthinking.

You need to embrace the lessons that you have learned when you failed at something. Those lessons are what will help you have the knowledge to succeed at your next attempts and make progress at becoming your most successful self.

So don’t let yourself fall into the trap of thinking that because you didn’t succeed at one thing that you are a failure. That will cause constant self doubt. 

Instead, change your mindset to focusing on each of those as a lesson that will help you grow and become the happiest version of yourself.

Toxic Habit 4: Staying in your comfort zone

Getting out of your comfort zone means a lot more than just traveling to a new place (though travel is important, read about that below). And expanding your mind and getting out of your comfort zone helps you have control of your thoughts as well as helping you prioritize the things that matter the most to you.

It means taking on new projects at work. You could start picking up a hobby you have always wanted to try. Or just trying new restaurants and coffee shops. 

This habit holds you back from growing as a person and becoming the human that you want to be.

If you need more help with getting out of your comfort zone then check this out: How To Step Out Of Your Comfort Zone.

Toxic Habit 5: Comparing yourself to others

Comparison can really destroy your motivation and mental well being. Which can put a sharp stop to your journey to stop overthinking. 

I recommend starting this with social media by reminding yourself that it isn’t a realistic look into others lives and that they have struggles too that you can’t see.

Here are a few more reasons to stop comparing yourself to others: 

• When you compare yourself to others you put a lot of time and energy into that instead of bettering your life. 
• When you start comparing your life to others you forget that you are only seeing parts of their life not all of it. Usually you don’t get to see or know about the negatives. 
• If you get sucked into comparison it can be easy to not see or ignore the challenges and effort they went through to achieve things! When you are on step 1 of a journey you can’t compare to someone else’s step 3.

I have a whole post here on this and how to help you stop comparing yourself to others!

Toxic Habit 6: Being to indecisive

This is a huge and deep habit that probably needs an entire post (stay tuned for that! subscribe to my emails if you haven’t!). But in a nutshell indecisiveness can hold you back in so many ways. It takes up time to debate different decisions but it also wears you out mentally. Decision fatigue is REAL and it’s a huge problem for a lot of people!

Learning to be decisive is not easy at all but anything you can do to move towards being more decisive will help you achieve your goals in the long run.

If you feel that this is a toxic habit that you need to break then try giving yourself short time limits using a timer on your phone to make the decision. This will help you train your brain to weigh options and come to conclusions quicker.

Toxic Habit 7: Saying yes to everything

The last but certainly not least of the habits that ruin your happiness is saying yes to everything. Or at least saying yes to far too many things. Too many things so that you aren’t able to be productive or have the time to work towards your dreams. 

This is more of a big picture habit but if you are guilty of it you are going to need to stop if you want to use your days to accomplish your goals. It’s so easy to say yes to things when they are initially asked but then when the time comes and it’s your day off and you have to spend it working towards other people’s goals you will be kicking yourself.

It takes time but learning what is truly important to you and what isn’t will help you regain your own time and establish a habit of prioritizing what is the most important to you.

Toxic Habit 8: Not giving yourself grace

So many of us are guilty of this as we push ourselves to become the best version of ourselves.

But there quickly becomes a point where this is toxic and stops you from being happy and not growing as a person. You need to give yourself the grace and understanding that you give others.

I find that when I am being too harsh with myself I think about how I would be talking to my sister or friend if they made the same mistake. And then I tell myself the same things. At first it can feel challenging and awkward but in time it will help you learn to speak kinder to yourself and give yourself grace.

Toxic Habit 9: Worrying about what others think

This habit hits close to home for me as I am sure it does for so many others. It is so easy to get caught up in thinking about what others think of you and worrying about their judgement.

But I found that asking these questions can really help to pull me out of that mentality and break this toxic habit:

• Would you bother to think twice if someone else was doing the same thing? Chances are you wouldn’t so remember as kinda strange as it sounds… if you wouldn’t care about it if someone else did it then most people won’t care when you do.
• Would I accept advice from the person who I am concerned what they think?
• Will their judgement or opinions change your idols mind? This is a good way to put into place the person whose judgement you are concerned about!

Korra-Shay

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