Positive Habits - Transform Health, Wealth And Relationships

By Uber Author

Most of us want to improve our health, wealth, and relationships. We know what positive habits we need to develop to transform these three aspects of life and sometimes we will get on the journey by practicing meditation, joining some courses, taking further education, joining the gym, and several other activities to excel in some or all three o

• Language: English
• Publisher: UBER AUTHOR
• Release date: Feb 5, 2024
• ISBN: 9798869172952

Book preview

Thoughts, Actions, or Poor Habits That Could Be Precluding You from Completing 

I've discovered 22 attitudes, practices, or negative habits that prevent us from completing the tasks we begin thanks to my research. Fear of not succeeding Fear of being successful An obsession with perfection Fear of finishing Delaying (discussed in detail in chapter 4) Unskillful planning Inadequate timing Initially establishing an unattainable deadline Taking on excessive workloads (a crucial factor that will be covered in detail in chapter 3) Incoherence Emotional upheaval Fury Working under duress is counterproductive. letting go of things temporarily and stopping at a particular moment Out of sight, out of mind means that a task is not pressing you in the face. launching a new project before completing the one you were working on, while being distracted by TV, video games, social media, the Internet, or other sources Having an issue with being late Devaluing your objective or yourself Overvaluing oneself or the objective Not anticipating or permitting disruptions Putting forth too little consistency in your work Fear of not succeeding You cannot fail if you do not complete a task or project. 

It's possible that this unconscious or conscious way of thinking is keeping you from finishing. The terrible thing about this anxiety is that if you don't finish, you actually cause the precise failure you're afraid of. It's possible that you wrote the world's most amazing report. If your supervisor requested that you turn it in tomorrow, but you require a week or longer to finish it, the response will likely be unfavorable even if you are given an extension. Where does one get the dread of not succeeding? It frequently starts in childhood. A child is informed that a score of 95 is insufficient. Teens are made aware that the college they are applying to might have been ranked higher. The youngster is made to feel like a failure by being informed they constantly fall short of what is expected of them, rather than having their self-esteem raised by a parent, teacher, or other authoritative person. They all too quickly learn this lesson. If this seems similar to you, it might be the cause of your inability to complete a task or assignment. 

How can you address this? Start by picturing the worst case scenario that could arise after the project is finished. Imagine being informed that you must resubmit it or learning that someone else was the recipient of the prize rather than you. Is it possible for you to endure such letdown? How do you think you'll handle that unfortunate news? Try now to change your predictions about what would occur if you were informed that your report is outstanding. Imagine yourself taking home the prize and defeating 78 other contenders. Are you able to handle this fantastic news? Now consider a location that lies halfway between the two extremes. Your supervisor is sure you can make the necessary revisions to your report, even if you are informed it needs improvement. Although you did not receive the award, you are welcome to reapply the following year. 

The first step in changing any of these 22 behaviors, beliefs, or unhealthy habits is admitting that you have one or more of them. See a therapist if trying to figure out why this time waster is keeping you from finishing through self-talk or hard work alone isn't working. It might be time to concentrate on the underlying issues that are preventing you from moving forward if this is a persistent habit and trait. Since giving up or abandoning a project due to fear of failing is so common, I'd like to suggest a few potential strategies for overcoming this mindset: 1. Obtain the education and experience necessary to boost your self-assurance. Competence reduces the likelihood of failure. By reaffirming your potential for success, you'll feel more assured about continuing and completing. 

Visualize the worst-case scenario and visualize yourself succeeding. I reveal twelve of the worst public speaking scenarios in my book, The Fast Track Guide to Speaking in Public. I reiterate the suggestion I just gave: see yourself navigating through each of those situations and coming out on top. Which options are those? Anything from having the entire crowd leave the room to forgetting what you wanted to say next to being heckled by a single or group of people in the audience. These are but a handful of the scenarios that each speaker has encountered. But what distinguishes amateurs from pros is the ability to persevere through those trying times and keep talking. Similar to this, you may muster the strength to go forward and finish whatever it is that is stopping you from finishing, whether it is because you can envision yourself handling criticism or whatever your greatest fear is related to ending. Perhaps you are scared to graduate because you are uncertain about your employment prospects. Are you able to handle that? You can since you'll have your degree, at the very least. Perhaps you're worried that you might receive a bad review or two if you publish your book after you've finished it. 

Is that something you can live with? Consider all the great novels that initially drew criticism—for example, Herman Melville's masterwork Moby Dick. 3.Reframe failure as a sign of bravery and alter your perspective on it. Something along the lines of We fail toward success is a cliché. It takes failure before success at last. I utilize the Thomas Edison myth, which recounts his 1,000 failed attempts before discovering the game-changing light bulb, elsewhere in this book. There are a tonne more instances. A cursory Google search for failures who made it yields stories such as Walt Disney, who reportedly had 302 rejections before receiving funding for his magnificent theme park, or billionaire J.K. Rowling, who became homeless after having her first novel rejected 12 times before being picked up by a publisher. The important thing to remember is that unless you have the guts to keep going and publish it, you will never know if you are successful with whatever it is that you are putting off finishing. 

Make the necessary adjustments after being honest about what is not functioning in the things you are putting off. If you're worried that whatever you're putting off will fail, it could be a healthy fear since it may serve as a reminder that you need to adjust, put in more effort, or try something different. Rather than being afraid of failing, objectively evaluate your work or project and, if you believe there is a chance you won't succeed, make the necessary adjustments to increase the likelihood of success. 5.Think of failure as an opportunity to learn and grow. There is another saying that says what counts is not getting knocked down but getting back up again thereafter. How are you going to build the strength to persevere if you don't complete and aren't held accountable? SixIf you give up, you unleash the same failure you're afraid of. 

One sort of failure is giving up or failing to finish; this is probably the worst kind because it is failure by default. It's one thing if you want to stop and deliberately make that decision. However, you are not being proactive about your work or your life if you give up on anything or someone and just stop trying. Fear of Becoming Successful This is the converse of the dread of failing, but it is more subtle and, regrettably, has a similar effect in that it paralyzes you, making it impossible for you to complete a task or project and turn it in. Why would someone be afraid of being successful? If you experienced shame about your accomplishments as a child because you were raised to believe that you were the smart one or the better athlete than your siblings, you may find it difficult to finish a task or turn in a project because you have conflicting feelings about shining. 

If you receive recognition for your coworkers' achievements, you could worry that it will reflect poorly on them. Completing a project may resurrect old worries of being superior to an older relative, especially if your parent(s) believed they did not achieve all they set out to in life. These are the possible underlying reasons for a fear of success, but as said above, it could also be more surface-level, where you fear that you would embarrass your boss or colleagues. Delaying prevents you from succeeding. Regretfully, delays typically result in the reverse of success: censure, dissatisfaction, and disappointment. If that makes things more comfortable for you, then when you don't finish a work or assignment, you are giving yourself those unintentional rewards, which are actually penalties. 

Similar to the fear of failing syndrome, you must engage in a great deal of introspection and self-talk to encourage yourself to overcome these mental barriers that prevent you from finishing and receiving the credit—or at the very least, the constructive criticism—that you so richly deserve. An obsession with perfection Both my proofreader and my surgeon should be meticulous. For the majority of people, pursuing attainable excellence is a more efficient use of our time than attempting unachievable perfectionism. How does the need for perfection prevent you from completing a task? The perfectionist repeatedly tries to get something just right by redoing it. Time is not wasted rewriting an email to make it more informative or toned down, or rewriting a pitch to make it more compelling. 

When you invest time, energy, and other resources in an activity that doesn't match the results or advantages, it starts to feel like a waste of time. 

To find the root causes of perfectionism, we need to travel back to our early and adolescent years. The instructor or parent who was not happy. The mother or father who claimed that 99 was insufficient. 100 has to be the minimum. The B+ who received criticism for not receiving an A.

Regretfully, signals of this nature received during a person's formative years stick with them. It's important to realize that your fear of finishing stems from those kinds of unattainable ideals. This does not imply that you submit a poorly written report or that you fail to proofread your essay for typographical or grammatical issues. However, it does imply that you develop the ability to let go when the time comes. when you've given it your all and it's time to turn in your work. 

To guarantee that what you are finishing is your best effort and to seek feedback, you might wish to show others what you are working on. However, putting your all into something doesn't mean you have to put it off for days, weeks, months, or even years because it might turn out to be a subpar play, book, business plan, updated website, or any number of other things. If your perfectionism is keeping you from finishing, consider these solutions: Acknowledge your perfectionist tendencies. Recognizing that you fit this description is the first step, just like with any other time waster or poor habit. Now that you know you're a perfectionist and it's making completion difficult for you, without criticizing or demeaning yourself, what are you going to do about it? 

Recognize that nobody is flawless, including yourself. Now that you have acknowledged your perfectionist tendencies, you must learn to live with your imperfections in order to resist the temptation to continue a task or project longer than is necessary given the circumstances. Put another way, you rewrite an email twelve times even if, after the second revision, it worked great. Or you want to write the ideal blog, but you put too much effort into it, delaying it and preventing you from making a timely comment on a noteworthy development. I am imperfect, I love myself the way I am, and I am comfortable aiming for excellence are some affirmations that might be useful. You should also learn to be at ease accepting praise and perhaps unfavorable input. Perfectionists who persevere to the point of failure could be frightened of criticism for their subpar work or, if they are accustomed to being flawed, might find it awkward to accept the congratulations that come with finishing. Practice feeling comfortable in both kinds of feedback situations. 

Reorient your expectations so that you are aiming for reachable greatness rather than unachievable perfection. As previously said, aiming for outstanding but attainable goals can release a perfectionist from unachievable standards that lead to subpar performance or abandoned projects. 5 Assign tasks or collaborate with others. Having someone else complete a task in part or in full, or even collaborating with someone who assumes accountability for the project's completion, could help you move things ahead to a successful end if you are too hard on yourself. 6Keep in mind that striving for perfection has drawbacks. Leaders that exhibit constant dissatisfaction due to their perfectionistic nature can inadvertently foster a toxic work atmosphere where employees feel that their efforts are never sufficient. The employees feel demoralized and undercut by the boss, not inspired to meet the exacting, high standards that he is setting. They can begin searching for a new position or ask to be transferred to a different division where their outstanding work will be acknowledged and compensated. 

Being a perfectionist in a leadership role puts you at danger of being called out for it, which is something that human resources or the leadership would probably view negatively. Parental pressure to meet unachievable perfectionistic standards may be the root cause of deep-seated emotions of insecurity in their children. This is especially true for parents who push their adolescents or even adult children by perfectionist standards. Applying perfectionism to friends or love partners in your personal relationships can also ruin an otherwise amazing bond. Acknowledge your own and the people you care about imperfections. Fear of Completion: A fear of finishing that stems from low self-worth and uncertainty may be the main cause. If you struggle with perfectionism, you could be afraid to finish anything because you think it won't be good enough. 

You can keep editing it as long as you put off finishing it, avoiding the unfavorable comments you fear. Consider these questions in relation to your dread of finishing something: what emotional harm is my failure to finish something causing me? What are the benefits of this conduct, either conscious or unconscious? What could be the result, either good or bad, if I finished something? Can I handle that on my own, or do I need assistance? It's possible that your parents instilled in you the belief that your efforts are insufficient from the beginning. Maybe you had teachers who, despite your merit, did not give you enough credit. Your fear of finishing a task or project may stem from your concern that you won't enjoy it, especially if it's a big, time-consuming one, and you worry about what to do next. As long as you don't fall into the trap of taking on too much at once, having at least one project or job scheduled for when this commitment is over can help you overcome your fear of boredom. You can be putting anything off or moving on to something else to avoid the feeling of accomplishment that comes with finishing something if you are concerned about how your completed product or work will be assessed. In the section that follows, you could find some helpful advice on how to handle procrastination. 

Procrastination is a major time waster that prevents people from finishing. It is covered in brief here and in more detail in Chapter 4. However, merely stating or admitting such does not actually assist. Different from other people, I view procrastination. Procrastination is information, in my opinion. Why are you taking so long? What does putting off a project indicate to you? Is it that you shouldn't have been working on the project in the first place? Is it possible that this project—the one you believe you are putting off—is simply less important than other things at the moment and can wait? If you believe you have a procrastination issue, I believe it will be beneficial to carefully look into the reasons for your delays. 

Procrastination can sometimes make you slower, so consider if you should be working on a job in the first place before putting it off. Maybe the report you committed to write should be being worked on by someone else in your department? You can be putting off work because you're upset and bitter about being asked to complete tasks that belong to someone else or that are too easy or perhaps too complex for you to complete. You need to identify the reason for your procrastination, just like you would with any of the 22 habits, attitudes, or behaviors listed here that are keeping you from finishing. However, be specific. Identifying oneself as a procrastinator won't benefit anyone—especially you. Look past that label and examine the details. Purchasing a new PC for yourself? 

The 4Ps of delay and inefficiency are procrastination, perfectionism, poor planning, and poor pacing. Poor planning is one of these traits. Being unaware of all the components involved in a project is not always the same as poor planning. Poor planning, on the other hand, typically results from underestimating how long a task would take. Before you realize it, you could have one, two, or three projects piled up if you accept a new project on the idea that the previous one would be finished on time. This could also happen if you did not plan effectively and the first project takes longer than expected. When I was interviewing IT professionals at all levels—from programmers to CEOs—for my training handbook, Delivering Time management to IT Professionals, I became particularly aware of this difficulty. The book Death March by Edward Yourdon brings to light the dire effects of forecasting too short a timeline for an IT project. One may wonder why someone would agree to a project and a deadline that is half or even more than half the amount of time that it should take. Yourdon defines a death march as a software project whereby the schedule has been compressed to less than half the amount of time estimated by a rational estimating process; thus, the project that would normally be expected to take 12 calendar months is now required to be delivered in six months or less. Numerous factors exist. 

One obvious explanation is that you may, consciously or unconsciously, fear that the work will be given to someone else who agrees to a much shorter time frame if the project manager—possibly you—told someone how long a project might take. This could apply to longer-term projects like books, business plans, or program evaluations. Alternatively, the new project may be so distinct that you have no idea how long it will take, thus your estimate is completely incorrect. Another possibility is that you were not as busy at the time you promised to meet a specific deadline. You had assumed that everything would go according to plan and that you would need x time to deliver y. However, things happen in life, and your anticipated finish date is suddenly pushed back. It will clearly be far simpler to explain and handle if this is an isolated incident as opposed to a pattern of behavior that earns you the reputation of being a bad planner. Thus, how can one improve from being an ineffective planner to a precise or outstanding one? 

Here are some recommendations: Give more than you promise. To appear like a super performer rather than an underachiever, set modest expectations for yourself and exceed them. How long did it take you to complete a project comparable to this one in the past? What variations, if any, exist between this project and the other project or projects? Will that increase or decrease the amount of time you need to finish the project? Is there any project that is at least relatively similar that you could utilize so you have some information to work with, in case this is a completely new project and you don't have anything relevant to compare it to in terms of scheduling? What variations or disparities exist between these projects that lead you to adjust the amount of time you estimated? Planning needs to be thoughtful and deliberate. Even while it seems like a good amount of time to commit to, it shouldn't be something you decide on at random. 

You are more likely to meet or surpass the deadlines you set for yourself if you base the completion date of a task or project mostly on research and an evaluation of your prior performance. Another guideline for managing your time is this. To ensure you have enough time to finish a project on schedule, add 25% to the estimated time for whatever task you think it would take. You could even wish to add 50% at times. There's a saying that says everything will grow to fill the time allotted for it, as if having too much time could be detrimental. Frivolously increasing time might backfire if it is superfluous, as many activities and projects do depend on getting to market as quickly as possible. Above all, give your planning plenty of thought. Sometimes the way a project turns out and whether you achieve or surpass your target in the days, weeks, months, or even years to come depends on what you accomplish in the early stages of the project, or even before it starts. The more planning you do in advance of a project, the more likely it is to go smoothly and have a positive outcome. I think one of the biggest [time management challenges] is that many people do not realize that spending time on preparation of large projects or tasks beforehand saves a great deal of time when it's time to actually do it, said a married Ph.D. student at a Thai institution. 

Inadequate Pacing: You should take breaks throughout the day to avoid writing a book in a day, a week, or even a month. Therefore, maintaining a daily or regular pace might determine not just whether you complete a task on time, but also how well—physically, psychologically, and emotionally. Yourdon's book, Death March (published in 1997 by Prentice Hall), was inspired by the all too often occurrence of sloppy pace in software projects. Not all problems with slow pacing are related to IT or software developers. Consider the several professions where anticipating needs and deadlines may be so difficult that employees—not just college students but office workers as well—end up staying up late drinking copious amounts of caffeinated beverages in an attempt to stay awake. Keep in mind to take into account both the longer-term pacing, which indicates how long a project or activity will take, and the daily pacing, which helps you determine how much work you can actually complete in any one day. 

Setting an unrealistic timetable in the first place: If you had established a reasonable deadline at the outset, you probably wouldn't be facing the failure to finish the problem, assuming that job or life challenges or other projects haven't come in the way of you. Rest certain that assistance and hope are available for you in the future, even if it is too late to establish a reasonable deadline for the project or task you are currently working on. What qualifies as a reasonable deadline? As previously mentioned, you should be aware of how long you anticipate things to take. If that isn't the case, you may at least put together a prediction based on fragments of other analogous activities or projects that you or others have completed. Another option is to base it on how long it took to complete similar projects in the past. You can even conduct research by asking people who have experienced a similar circumstance questions or by searching Google for the topic you're working on. Different people require different amounts of time to complete tasks, such as writing, editing, making phone calls, or even compiling a master contact list of speakers for the yearly gathering you're planning. 

Instead of choosing a date at random or attempting to win someone over, you should be planning a deadline based on information and experience, so you accept their request without considering whether it will work for you. Assuming an excessive amount of work (a crucial factor that will be covered in detail in Chapter 3) The entire