You’re reading How to Make The Rest of 2018 Successful By Quitting These 6 Toxic Habits, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
It’s more halfway through the year…would you consider 2018 a massive success?
A failure?
Or a lot like the last year and the year before that?
If you’re wanting more out of life you don’t need to wait until 2019. I’m confident you can still create your best year yet, even with less than six months left.
But you’ll have to do the one thing our brains hate — change.
Change is a necessary part of life. You must be willing to surrender what you are for what you can become.
Change doesn’t always mean adding things to life, sometimes it means dropping things that are limiting your progress.
Quit these six things and your life will change. Not just for the next six months but the rest of your life.
1. Quit Dwelling on Your Past Failures
“Your life is controlled by what you focus on.” — Tony Robbins
While you should always learn from your mistakes, don’t dwell on them and live in the past.
Focusing on the past robs you of the present AND the future.
To change your focus, do a quick recap of the year thus far. This way you can learn from it and look ahead to the future.
Ask yourself these questions (out loud) and write your answers in a journal:
What worked in my life thus far?
What could have I changed thus far? Why didn’t I?
What held me back from reaching my goals?
Once you have clarity on your past you can learn and move forward to making the necessary changes to improve your life.
2. Quit Setting The Wrong Goals
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” — Lao Tzu
In the same journal, create four goals for the next 90 days.
Create an outcome goal for each of these areas: health, wealth, social self, and personal enrichment.
As Craig Ballantyne said, “By setting just one goal for these four areas you remain laser-focused on what matters. If you set too many goals you end up without any priorities at all. Too many ambitious people make that mistake.”
Four goals are the perfect amount, enough to reach all areas but not too many so you can’t focus on achieving them all. These are your outcome goals.
To achieve your outcome goals create smaller steps, known as process goals.
This helps chunk your big goals into small, achievable, bite-sized pieces to work toward them on a daily basis.
Example: Outcome Goal: Lose 10 pounds in the next 90 days
Have one green juice per day
Run 12 miles per week
Workout with weights 4x per week
Write your goals down, review them regularly, and start making them happen!
3. Quit Being Around the Same People
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Choose wisely.” — Jim Rohn
Is your circle of friends helping or hurting you?
Are they challenging you and making you better or making it easy to settle?
Start being around new people to create new experiences.
You need to surround yourself with people who remind you more of your future — not of your past.
If your inner circle is dragging you down, it’s time to audit your friends. If they aren’t helping you, they’re hurting.
It’s time to find new, uplifting, and positive friends. The problem is that it isn’t always easy to find them. UNLESS you reverse engineer your chance of meeting like-minded people.
How? Attending seminars and events on topics and with people that you want to be around.
Attend at least one new seminar or event in 2018.
The most successful people in the world are always growing and developing.
Find one event and commit to going in 2018. Buy the ticket now to hold yourself accountable.
4. Quit Starting The Day Reactive
“The way you start your day determines ow well you live your day.” — Robin Sharma
If you still start your day hitting the snooze, rushing to work, and cursing the traffic that is 100% your fault.
Be intentional with your mornings by being proactive, not reactive.
Start the morning on your terms by getting up earlier and focusing on you. Even if it’s waking up 10 minutes earlier, a morning routine can set your day up for success.
Do one of these of these rituals for 10 minutes each morning before checking your email, texting or scrolling through social media.
Write your goals down in a journal
Meditate
Read something inspiring
Watch motivational videos
You’ll start the day refreshed, energized, and ready to win the day.
5. Quit Relying on Willpower
“You are who you are because of your environment. Want to change? Then change your environment, stop the willpower madness already.” — Benjamin Hardy
As Benjamin Hardy said, “Willpower doesn’t work.”
Willpower is a muscle, like any muscle it can be overworked and fail.
Instead of relying on your willpower muscle, change your environment to make it easier to accomplish your goals.
Do you want to start running each morning? Lay your shoes out so you roll out of bed into them.
Do you want to quit eating that food that kills your diet? Don’t have it in the house and don’t even go down that aisle in the store.
Set yourself up for success by changing your environment!
6. Quit Staying in Your Comfort Zone
“The sooner your step away from your comfort zone you’ll realize that it really wasn’t all that comfortable.” — Eddie Harris Jr.
RUN — JUMP — LEAP — whatever you need to do to get out of your comfort zone.
The same job, same friends, same morning habits, and the same nights will create the same experiences.
Don’t live the same year over and over again. Mix up your routines, habits, environment, and people you surround yourself with.
Step out of your comfort zone as often as possible.
The five habits above will help get out of your comfort zone but I challenge you to keep thinking different. Go skydiving, take a bucket list trip, or sign up for your 1st marathon.
Challenge your mind and body to achieve more.
Remember, your comfort zone is where dreams go to die.
Final Thoughts
Don’t wait until 2019 to start living the life you deserve.
Drop these six bad habits and start living your life — no more settling for mediocrity. You don’t need to wait until next week, next month or next year to start changing your life.
Remember, improving isn’t always about adding to your life. Sometimes, it’s dropping the things that are holding you back from success.
Michael is the creator of Inspire Your Success and is regularly featured on top self-improvement sites like Goalcast, Fearless Motivation and others. Check out his “Success Cheat Sheet” to learn more about creating a perfect morning routine and the top 5 habits to 10X your life.
You’ve read How to Make The Rest of 2018 Successful By Quitting These 6 Toxic Habits, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
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