Bad Habits, The Inner Devil!
Bad Habits, Do we learn to live with them or correct them?
The greatest part of our lives is lived by Bad habits. From the time we are born we begin to form good and bad habits. We start by mimicking the things and people around us. Parents, siblings, pets, etc. From the start, that is how we learn what we like and dislike. It shows us what others like and dislike around us. Sometimes we mimic the people and things that only others like or praise us for. Habits are really hard to break, especially bad habits! They are embedded in us!
How many times in life have you heard someone say, ” That little guy acts just like his father”? Well, there is a reason for that, I am sure there is some Genetic makeup that can be argued but most of it will be from habit, mimicking his father and by habit, he will continue to do this until it is not comfortable to him. Whether good or bad habits he will pick it up.
“Sally acts just like her mother”! Same thing, she loves her mother and wants to be like her. Therefore she mimics her and it becomes a habit until she no longer feels comfortable with it or wants to be her own person and be different and set her own mark in the world. At this point, she decides to get rid of the bad habits.
We form both good and bad habits early and many of us take them to our graves with us. There are so many bad habits that is is impossible to list them all! Swearing, Cursing, excessive drinking, Smoking (This could be considered an addiction) Chewing Tobacco, just to name a few of the more prominent one. Everyone has a glitch and someone will not like it! Habits are hard to break and some harder than others.
How do we deal with bad habits? We know we have them and sometimes we can even be embarrassed by them in public places. I had a closet full of bad habits that I have dealt with for years. Still dealing with some of them. They are what they are, bad habits. Unless I want to continue reacting and acting the way I always have I need to deal with them.
Some of these have been easy to deal with and some not so easy. We pick up bad habits as we grow into young adulthood from other people we respect or admire. These habits I have found to be easier to break than the ones ingrained in me from birth and early youth!
I am going to list a few qualities that I think I can improve on and let me know if you think you have room for any of these in your own life.
Lack of Persistence: My bad habit was a lack of persistence.
per·sis·tence:
The quality that allows someone to continue doing something or trying to do something even though it is difficult or opposed by other people.
This is an area I had trouble with in my early years. If things got tough, I got out! If things met resistance, rather than forging ahead and making them work, I got out! I was afraid of failure! I didn’t realize it but this made me fail in many ventures in my life! If you live in fear, you will fail!
As I grew older I realized that if I was ever going to get ahead or make something a success, I had to work at it. When things got tough or people resisted a great idea, I had to go ahead with it anyway! It is called sacrifice! If you aren’t willing to go the extra mile and defy the naysayers you will not succeed! To be successful, you have to be persistent. Stick to it! Stay with it until the end! Unless you see it coming apart and it is obvious it will not work, make it work!
The best recourse I ever found for having persistence and the courage to do things and see them through was my faith in God! I have found that faith has played a greater part in my success in life than any other resource.
There are many resources out there for many things but without faith that you can accomplish what you set out to do you are pretty much wasting your time. I trust God to help me and give me the strength to accomplish what I am setting out to do. I have not always done this and I have failed because of it! You have to have faith in yourself and keep on keeping on! You are capable! The things you want to accomplish in life just need put it into motion.
Managing being Impulsive: My bad habit was, I was very impulsive.
im·pul·sive:
Doing things or tending to do things suddenly and without careful thought: acting or tending to act on impulse.
Patience is a virtue! Whoever said this needs a medal!
This is a thorn that has many times in my life led to hurt for me and others! Where I learned this bad habit, I don’t know. Maybe we are born into it! It is a very common bad habit for people! Acting on impulse can cost you everything from time, money, reputation, love, respect, etc!
We are so prone to answering anger with anger and hurt with hurt that is hard to govern sometimes. Every time we turn on the tv or watch a movie it is full of violence and people getting even over anything and everything! If you hurt me I am going to hurt you back! If you curse me I am going to curse you back! If you cut me off in traffic I am going to run you down and flip you off! If you, bla, bla, bla…You see, this is so embedded into us that we do it without thinking! Doing things on impulse is not a good thing and is a very bad habit.
If we want to be an example to our children and family we need to stop, take a look around and think before we react! Instead of reacting we need to act! We need to act like responsible people and ask God to give us the answer. This has helped me more than anything else.
Impulse is a money and business killer! Acting on impulse without doing a little research can break you in a hurry! This can cost you time and money when doing Blogs. By not researching your keywords and finding out before your buy your domain. Sometimes domains are purchased just because you like the name or topic. Yep, I’m guilty. If it is worth doing, it is worth researching a little. Take your time, think about it, ask questions, search online, listen to what others think. Keep calm and be deliberate once you make a decision. My friend Larry Dean over at Side Income Blogging has helped me in this area a lot!
Listening with Empathy and Understanding: My bad habit, I lacked having compassion sometimes at one point in my life.
em·pa·thy : The feeling that you understand and share another person’s experiences and emotions.
un·der·stand·ing: The knowledge and ability to judge a particular situation or subject.
This is something that has to be learned for most of us! I had a bad habit as I grew up that if the topic was not interesting to me I just ignored everything being said and day dreamed throughout the entire conversation of meeting or whatever I was involved in! This is a terrible habit! This is a habit that really needs to be broken! Our Empathy and understanding toward others will define our character in life! Your character is not defined by how you treat people who are capable and self-sufficient but how you treat those who have less and have need of sympathy and understanding.
You see, the person that has everything, his needs may be more appealing to you but the person who has needs and problems that they don’t have resources to fix actually needs you! If you have information that can help someone out along the way and you hide this knowingly, how can you consider yourself compassionate or having empathy? They need your compassion and understanding. I have been on both ends of this scenario! I have made good money and felt like I was self-sufficient and didn’t need anyone and felt like if you were having hard luck you needed to get off your butt and do something about it! Don’t cry to me, I don’t have time!
Well, let me hopefully be a service to you. You can just as easily be on the end of the person needing help and understanding as you can be on the end of having it made! When you get down and out and you feel like no one understands it is a living hell! It will make you miserable, depressed, anxious, withdrawn, etc! If you have not been there please don’t judge. Don’t forget where you came from! A great read on this is “Don’t ever forget your blogging roots” over on Side Income Blogging
I have been in both places and I am thankful to God for his mercies! I usually learn most of my lessons the hard way! I have never been mean or rude to the less fortunate but I have ignored the signs of help and need in my lifetime. This is a thing I very much regret. I wish now I had been more compassionate to others at times. You see, not taking the time to feel others hurt or trying to understand their problems is a bad habit and until we learn to overcome this we really are not very compassionate people.
Helping people get back up on their feet and pointing them in the right direction is what life should be about! I am not saying we should take total care of people and encourage laziness but we should help them get back to making their own way so they feel productive. The best way to do this is to put ourselves in their shoes! Feel their pain and loss and understand that they need to know someone understands their situation. Pick up the fallen and mend the broken hearted! This is a great blessing in the eyes of God! Let’s try to break the bad habits of not showing empathy and understanding no matter the situation.
Thinking Flexibly: My bad habit, I had tunnel vision.
flex·i·ble: Willing to change or to try different things.
This is another one of my bad habits! I have been in the past prone to have tunnel vision! I would look at something and see it one way and work myself to death trying to make it work out that way! We need to be a little flexible in certain areas of our lives. I am not saying that we should bend or change out principles or morals but in business and many other aspects, it is necessary to be flexible.
Sometimes we just need to look at the business from another direction. Maybe we need to be a little more flexible in the way we look at others. There are times we really need a change of perspective. If we keep doing the same things over and over and they don’t work then we need a change of perspective.
Albert Einstein said “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Well, sometimes it takes us time to realize we are being insane! We get into such bad habits of doing things a certain way that we miss wonderful opportunities in life. Religion is no different. We get caught up in doctrines and bickering about who knows the best way that we miss the entire message God has for us!
We really need to look and learn to be more open to the ideas and things around us. Not saying to forsake morals or ethics just things that can improve the quality of our lives and the lives of the people around us.
My friend Larry Dean had a terrific article that can pertain to this on his Blog, “Who moved my blogging cheese?” This can pertain to everyday life also! It is a very good read. Life is constantly changing and the people around us are changing also. We need to learn to be flexible so we can help instead of hinder! May I also mention Larry is a Web Designer and good Christian man! He has been a very good friend to me in my learning how to use a Blog and Design a site.
Striving for Accuracy: My bad habit, I rarely double checked my work when writing.
ac-cu-ra-cy: The condition or quality of being true, correct, or exact; precision; exactness.
First and foremost, always be truthful or just don’t write it. If you are trying to give guidance or help someone out by your actions or writings, always be truthful. Unless you are using something as an example and you tell that is what you are doing, just don’t write it.
If you go about making up stories or telling things that just aren’t truth to sound better people will find out and your influence will be worthless with them. They will not trust your speech or your written content. Be who you are and be honest.
When I was younger and would write an article or letter I always had great faith that I would not make mistakes in my written content and rarely double checked it. Well, if I was as bad then as I am now about making mistakes in my written content, bless those souls who had to read it! I am constantly making spelling mistakes. Not that I don’t know how to spell, well, sometimes if you read it before I checked you would think I didn’t know how to spell. I never learned to type in school and I try to use as many fingers as I can as I type now. I have taught myself a little but I am still not very good at it. Sometimes it looks like I am writing in a foreign language if I get in a hurry.
Thank goodness for spell check! Google Docs, etc. Without them, I would be hours correcting my articles and would no doubt still publish lots of errors. I still miss some from time to time. That is just how it is. I am not perfect but I try to make it look accurate and presentable. You have to put forth an effort. I have started reading articles published on blogs and stop after the first couple of lines and move on because of the poor writing or grammar. If you want people to read it, take the time to be accurate.
Depending on the subject you are writing about, it may take hours of research to be accurate in your assessment of it. I have friends online who spend hours and days researching articles before they publish them. I am in day two of this one right now. I know there are people who are gifted in writing and speech and have a great vocabulary and can just sit down and put an article together in a short time on subjects they are familiar with but I have to work a little harder to be sure mine are accurate.
I have to read and reread and then spell check and then reread a couple more times and still, things get by me. We can’t be perfect all the time but we can try to at least be accurate in what we are writing and how we present it. If you do your best then try to improve it you will always do better.
Questioning and Posing Problems
How do you know?
Having a questioning attitude; knowing what
data is needed and developing questioning strategies to
produce that data. Finding problems to solve.
This is something I had in the past been able to implement in my personal life and business. I was constantly questioning why things worked in my business or why they didn’t. This was after I matured and became more responsible. I had a very successful HVAC business for 13 years that I sold. My wife owned a Home decorative business during this time and we treated it the same way and it was a very successful business. We knew what made them work and why! Understanding the whats and whys are a must to be successful.
This is a learning curve for me in the internet business that I am still trying to wrap my head around. I am constantly asking why but I am so far behind I don’t always understand the answer as it is sometimes answered in internet terms. It take me a little longer than most. I read some blogs that have mastered the ability to get their readers involved engaged and get tons of comments. Many of these do it by asking questions in the content of the article. Targeting the readers needs and getting them engaged makes a winning article.
Taking Responsible Risks: I had a bad habit of not doing this.
Venture out! Being adventuresome; living on the edge of one’s competence. Try new things constantly.
As I grew up I was taught by my fathers lifestyle that you should not take risk. He was not a risk taker period! He did not venture outside of his comfort zone! He knew what he did and he did it well. I am confident that with his knowledge and intelligence he could have been much more successful had he taken responsible risk in business. I am not disappointed in him that he didn’t. He was a wonderful father and worked hard and loved his family very much but I think he could have made his life easier by venturing out!
Sometimes we are thrown into situations that put us outside our comfort zones and we actually amaze ourselves that we are as resolute as we are. You don’t know what you can do until you try it! Confidence and responsibility make great partners! Don’t be afraid to try new things and test new ideas.
I was an adult before I ever had the ability to move outside my comfort zone. My upbringing taught me not to take risk. Without responsible risk there is no progress.
Finding Humor: Bad Habits! I used to stress over everything that went wrong!
Laugh a little! Finding the whimsical, incongruous and unexpected. Being able to laugh at oneself.
If you can’t learn to laugh at yourself, it is going to be a long day! There are so many things that can and will go wrong that if we can’t learn to laugh at them sometimes we will be miserable all the time. The very best you can do, things happen.
In the internet business, there are tons of things that can go wrong! Computer glitches, host down at high traffic times, website crash, lost data, etc! We can do everything possible to keep things from going wrong but stuff still happens! I am not saying a data loss is funny by any means. Been there and it was not funny! There are just so many things we stress over that can be such an easy fix! We just as well laugh about it and go on! Our attitude controls out stress level!
I have a friend who had triple bypass surgery 3 years ago in his late 50’s. He did not smoke, drink alcoholic beverages, chew tobacco, eat unhealthy foods, etc. What happened? He owned a construction business and built houses. His doctor told him his heart attack was all stress related! We can stress ourselves to death or look at it as it is. Things happen. Stressing over everything is a bad habit!
Thank you for stopping by Back Roads Living again.
I hope this article on Bad Habits helps you as much as writing it has helped me.
Related Posts
Brood X Cicadas Invasion ~ Are you Ready?
Timber Rattler Mountain Terrain ~ Canebreak Rattler
Our Home Canning Machine and Fruit Preserver
Why Should I Homestead the Answers are Here!
Grandpa and Grandma’s Story
OUR MOST POPULAR FACEBOOK POST
