If you really want to reach your full potential, say goodbye to these 7 behaviors

Remember when you were a kid, and your lovely teacher told you that you could be anything you wanted in this world if you put your mind to it?

Well, maybe you didn’t grow up in a cheesy TV sitcom, but I’m sure you’ve heard inspiring messages like this before. 

“If you can believe it, you can achieve it!”  “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

But are you sitting there right now thinking that, despite these positive messages, you just haven’t lived up to your potential?

Well, you’re not alone. 

So many of us expected our lives to turn out differently from the way they currently are.

Many also feel like they’re disappointing people like parents, partners, and friends who really believed in them.

But there’s a way to turn things around.

Most of the time, the things that are holding you back in life are simple habits that you might not have even noticed.

But once you recognize them, you can start to change them and make changes to get yourself back on track.

So if you really want to reach your full potential, say goodbye to these seven behaviors ASAP!

1) Procrastinating

Never do today what you can put off ‘till tomorrow, right?

Oops, if that’s your personal mantra, you’ve got things entirely backward. 

Procrastinating is a dangerous and insidious behavior to practice.

Here’s why.

It starts out with you deciding not to finish your entire to-do list today.

You might have just one item left, but you just can’t be bothered to get it done.

No problem, just get to it tomorrow, right?

Except tomorrow’s list is just as full, and you might end up with one thing on that list: you don’t finish as well.

Great, now you have two outstanding things to do, and tomorrow you’ll have three, and so on.

Now you can see how people so quickly and easily get swamped.

You might feel tired now or just really uninspired but don’t forget that you may feel the same way tomorrow.

So what if you just powered through and got things done today?

Tomorrow, future you would feel less pressure, less stress, more accomplished, and prouder for being a person who gets things done.

Doesn’t that sound like a great way to live up to your full potential?

2) Not sleeping enough

I can’t say enough good things about sleep.

It’s good for your body and your brain. It improves your memory and focus.

It prevents diseases like diabetes and heart disease/stroke.

And it improves your mood.

It also just feels wonderful.

So why are you not making sure that you get enough sleep every day?

I’m talking about seven to eight hours of the good stuff – satisfying, uninterrupted, solid ZZZZZZZZ’s.

When you don’t get enough sleep, you’re not going to be mentally or physically as fit as you could be, so of course, you’ll never be able to live up to your potential.

This is a really bad habit that’s holding you back.

So what should you do?

Practice good sleep hygiene.

Turn in at a reasonable time, turn off distracting screens well in advance, sleep in a dark room, and find your mental and physical capacity improving by winks and bounds.

3) Partying too much

Life is wonderful, right!?

So why wouldn’t you spend as much of it as you can living it up, partying, and carrying on?

Well, that’s a pretty good argument (if I do say so myself!), but the counterargument is that if you want to reach your full potential, you may have to focus on more than just having fun.

Sad, right?

Only if you see it that way.

Partying often involves drinking too much, so you’re hungover and ineffective the next day.

It usually puts you in a sleep deficit, and we just talked about how bad that is for you.

Plus, it can stop people from taking you seriously and giving you the professional and personal opportunities that you might otherwise receive.

If you need to be on top of your game tomorrow, partying today might sound like fun, but it’s probably not the best idea.

I’m not suggesting you stop altogether.

I’m just saying that cutting down can help you find more time to excel at other things and get ahead.

4) Being late

There’s not much to say about being chronically late except that it’s a behavior that absolutely no one appreciates.

When you’re late for things constantly, you’re always sending other people signals that you don’t respect them because you’re not respecting their most valuable commodity, their time.

So why does this always happen?

Why are you late so often, even though you know that it annoys people and probably makes you miss out on lots of opportunities?

One reason could be that you’re trying to do too many things at once, and we’ll address that next.

Another could be that you’re not taking the time to prioritize things in your life effectively.

Just taking a few minutes each day to plan out your schedule, look at the time you have available, and choose the activities that you can realistically get through can be a huge help.

That and setting your clock ahead so it runs 10-15 minutes fast!

5) Doing too many things at once

Most people can’t actually multitask. 

I once saw a woman write birthday cards with all four hands and feet all at the same time.

But clearly, that was impressive and unusual enough that it got her national exposure.

The rest of us, though, generally have to flip back and forth between our different appendages when we’re multitasking.

I guess that’s why we also call it juggling.

The real problem with trying to do two things at once is that you usually don’t do either of them all that effectively.

While it feels like you’re saving time, usually you aren’t.

Think about trying to save time by eating lunch at your desk.

This is something I used to do all the time because I thought it was efficient.

But one day, a friend challenged me on it, and I timed myself.

Sure enough, it actually slowed me down.

It took me longer to eat my lunch (how hard is it to wolf down a meal in five minutes, anyway?) and also stretched out how long it took me to complete a piece of work.

While lunch is just minutes, being distracted because you’re constantly flipping from one thing to the next can not only waste a lot of time but it can also reduce the quality of what you’re doing.

So if you want to be more efficient and produce better results, stop juggling and start doing your tasks in a focused way, one at a time, as much as possible.

6) Being negative

Hey, I feel you.

I know that you’re not trying to be negative, just realistic.

But the problem is that realism is really in the eye of the beholder.

If you look at life with a negative slant, what you think is realistic will seem negative to everyone else.

And really, who wants to work with or hang with a negative person?

I bet you don’t!

Seeming like a negative person can make you miss out on opportunities in your career, relationships, friendships, and basically every other aspect of life as well.

So what can you do?

Look at your perspective.

If you feel like people are generally bad and the world is mostly a hostile place, you’re stuck in a negative mindset.

Working on looking for the positives and practicing gratitude can, however, help you turn things around and alter the balance of your life for the better.

7) Letting self-doubt stop you

You hear it all the time.

“I don’t think I can do it.”  “That’s too hard for me.”  I don’t have the skills.”  “That sounds scary.”

This is the sound of self-doubt interfering with people’s success.

It’s one thing to know your limits and your talents and to be honest and reasonable with yourself about what you can accomplish.

But it’s quite another to know practically that you can achieve something but to let fear of failure and those little nagging voices in your head convince you not to try.

This is the exact opposite behavior of unlocking your full potential.

Instead, it’s shackling yourself to your current situation and stopping yourself from pushing the boundaries of what you might achieve.

You need to kick this habit, tell yourself you’re good enough, feel the fear, and do it anyway.

That’s the only way you’re going to reach all that you potentially can in life.

Final thoughts

While talent and knowledge can limit your achievement, most people hold themselves back by practicing self-sabotaging habits.

If you really want to reach your full potential, say goodbye to these seven behaviors.

Only then can you say hello to a life lived to its very fullest.

Feeling Adrift? Pinpointing Your Values Guides You Home

Do you sometimes question what really matters most in life? Feel unclear on the principles that should steer your decisions and path ahead?

It’s so easy to lose sight of our core values. Those essential truths that align our outer world with profound inner purpose.

That’s why life coach Jeanette Brown designed this simple yet illuminating values exercise. To help you define the 5 values most central to who you are.

In just a few minutes, this free download leads you to:

  • Discover what matters to you more than money or status
  • Clarify the ideals your choices should reflect
  • Create a guiding light to inform major life decisions

With your values crystallized, you’ll move through the world with intention, confidence, and meaning.

Stop drifting and download the Free PDF to anchor yourself to purpose. Let your values direct you home.

 

Picture of Marcel Deer

Marcel Deer

Marcel is a journalist, gamer, and entrepreneur. When not obsessing over his man cave or the latest tech, he’s failing helplessly at training his obnoxious rescue dog ‘Boogies’.

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