7 Bad Habits That Are Preventing You From Having the Life You Want

These habits are sabotaging your success.

You have the power and ability to create a high-impact, meaningful life.

But you’re getting in your own way. You’re letting bad habits hold you back from reaching your true potential and impacting the world. Fortunately, by bringing awareness to these bad habits, you can start to overcome them.

Here are 7 bad habits that are preventing you from having the life you want.

1. Giving in to cheap dopamine

How you get your dopamine hits will determine whether you succeed or fail in life.

Dopamine is the molecule of more — it makes you want to continue doing something. This is why it’s so powerful.

Keep doing something that will help you grow, and you will succeed.

Keep doing something that will prevent you from growing, and you will fail.

This latter situation comes from giving in to cheap sources of dopamine, rather than leveraging good dopamine that will help you grow and create a meaningful and successful life.

There are 3 simple ways to leverage your dopamine to build a good life and reach your highest potential:

Step 1: Limit Sources of Cheap Dopamine

When I say “cheap” here, I mean dopamine that’s easy to get and will do nothing to improve your life. You need to limit these sources of dopamine as much as possible.

If you’re sabotaging yourself by chasing cheap hits, it’ll be physically impossible to use your dopamine productively.

Start small. Remove the smallest and easiest dopamine sources from your life. Things like notifications and TikTok. You’ll live without these. You can also remove:

• Junk food
• Video games
• Drugs and alcohol

Step 2: Use Your Dopamine Productively

Now that you’re building momentum, you need somewhere to use this dopamine. You need a project. This could be

• A hobby
• Your body
• A business
• Relationships

Step 3: Leverage Your Dopamine

Now that you’re using your dopamine on something that will accelerate your growth, you can start intentionally tapping into this system to maximize the benefits. The best way to do this is by tracking your progress.

When you can see you’ve made progress (made money online, decreased your body fat, increased your max squat) you’ll get a hit of dopamine. This will motivate you to keep chasing this result. This makes things like exercising and eating well much easier.

Another way is to pursue your curiosities. Consume content related to your interests. Naturally, certain bits of information will spark dopamine. Lean into these. Follow the map that dopamine reveals.

2. Lack of movement

Movement is key to good health, mental clarity, and a fulfilling life.

As a society, we spend way too much time being sedentary. Think about it. Most people wake up, sit in a car for an hour or so, get to work to sit all day, get back in the car to sit some more, and then sit on the couch all evening.

This is destroying your health. You need to move more.

“A large study involving Over 100,000 US adults found that those who sit for more than six hours a day had up to a 40% greater risk of death over the next 15 years than those who sit for less than three hours a day regardless of whether the participants exercised.” — Chris Kresser, Your Personal Paleo Code

Movement also creates energy. If you find yourself feeling fatigued most days, there’s a good chance you’re not moving enough. Energy begets energy. Use energy to build energy.

3. No goal-setting process

If you don’t set goals, you’re going to struggle to create your ideal life.

You need to know what you want and where you’re headed. And this starts with an effective goal setting process.

You should be setting goals on a regular basis and reflecting on them often (see next point).

If you’re new to goal setting, you can use this simple template:

4. Lack of regular reflection

“I will keep constant watch over myself and — most usefully — will put each day up for review. For this is what makes us evil — that none of us looks back upon our own lives. We reflect upon only that which we are about to do. And yet our plans for the future descend from the past.” — Seneca

Building on the last point, you need to reflect regularly. Ideally every day.

You need to know if you’re taking steps in the right direction.

If you don’t have a regular reflective practice, try this one out:

5. Not questioning anything

Most people go through the motions in life — blindly following what everyone else is doing.

They never stop to question where they’re headed (here’s the importance of goals again) or if they could be on a different path.

For example, most people follow the general path of going to university, getting a degree, and then getting a job for the next 30 or so years before retiring.

People don’t pause to think about whether there is a different way to live life. I want to tell you that there is a different option. You don’t have to work your whole life. You can create freedom in your life, if you only pause to question.

In just 9 months I went from doing my MSc thesis on the path to a regular 9–5 to working completely for myself.

Here’s more on how I did this:

6. Lack of focus

We live in a society that is constantly distracted.

We have emails, notifications, and cheap dopamine sources all around us.

The people that will do great things are the ones that can block these out and stay focused.

Focus is arguably the most important skill one could have today.

Focus. Take your goals, question your path, and start building your dream life.

In a matter of months, you can be in a completely different situation from where you are now.

7. Inaction

After focus, taking action is the most important habit to cultivate if you want to create a meaningful and high-impact life.

So many people are paralyzed into inaction. They’re scared to take risks. They are overwhelmed with options. They have no energy. They’re plagued by procrastination.

If you can overcome all of this and always choose action, you will rapidly improve in every area of your life.

Don’t be afraid to fail. People fail all the time. The key is to reflect (see above) and improve.

Life is iteration.

But you can’t improve if you don’t first take action. Start, then optimize. Don’t try to optimize from nothing.

You can see that all of these ideas flow into each other.

You need a direction, you need to reflect, you need to question, you need to have focus, and you need to take action. If you can overcome each of these 7 bad habits, you are guaranteed to live a meaningful, enjoyable, and high-impact life. But you need to start.

So stop waiting. Go out there and create your dream life.

Want to transform your health, one habit at a time?

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