Most people are constantly on self-improvement and personal development journey. Working to improve your social skills, mental wellness, self-esteem, and other matters is life-affirming. Finding ways to grow yourself can make you a better friend, parent, worker, leader, and partner. In this article, we will cover 15 things to avoid if you want to grow.
And your actions don’t just affect others; it also leads to self-actualization. But Like every other journey, there are obstacles for you to avoid, and the journey of personal development is no different.
Welcome to Alux.com, where future billionaires come to get inspired. Here are 15 things to avoid if you want to grow. If you don’t feel like reading the article here’s the video version:
1
Procrastination
There is a famous saying that procrastination is the thief of time. This is true, as procrastination is the delay or unwillingness to do something you are meant to do.This habit can be a real blocker to your growth as it affects every aspect of your life, especially your professional life.
Putting off tasks until a later time can seriously affect your productivity. And due to this your work load will be increased ultimately, later on this will be a burden on your shoulders.
Procrastination can also make you miss out on opportunities – you delay in sending out that application, you take too much time to finish that professional course, you drag your heels in preparing for the interview – after all, procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried.
To sum it up, procrastination wastes your time, makes you miss out on opportunities, and not allow you to reach to your set goals. All of which can leave you with feelings of regret and hinder your growth.
2
Comparison
Comparison is the thief of joy- I am pretty sure you all have heard that saying, and people are here to tell you, it carries a lot of truth.
In all aspects of life, comparison does one of two things: it makes you feel less or better than others.
Feeling less than someone can lead to pessimistic thoughts about yourself, feelings of jealousy, frustration, low self-esteem, and even the desire to give up because you cannot meet up to the standards of those you compare yourself to.
Feeling better than someone else is equally damaging; it causes you to place yourself on a high horse and judge others because they cannot compare to you. Comparison can also hurt your feelings.
This often leads to you not being able to reflect on your actions properly and leaves you with little to no sense of self. Comparing yourself to others is one of the most prominent forms of self-sabotage, and you might want to avoid it in your quest for personal growth.
3
Chasing Perfection
As cliche as it might sound, perfection does not exist, so don’t strive for it. Of course, things could continuously be improved, but stopping yourself from executing an idea or project because it’s not perfect is not right. You can work out on those things and make it better.
Searching for perfection makes you delay taking action, and when people do take action, it stops them from following through because nothing is ever good enough. The moment they start wanting everything to be perfect, they get stuck.
Perfectionism is an idea that cripples you. You constantly agonize over yourself and your work not being good enough, and you refuse to put yourself out there for opportunities that can help you grow.
To be a perfectionist, you ultimately stop being flexible. Everything you do is done with an all-or-nothing mindset, no middle ground- it is either perfect or a failure, there is no way in between. In reality, perfection does not exist, and imperfection should be seen as the norm.
Trying to find perfection in everything stops you from enjoying the process or seeing the beauty, joy, and wonder in things. Progress should always be the goal that you want to achieve, it is not mandatory that you have to make it perfect. You just have to give your hundred percent and try hard.
4
Negative thinking
Your mind is one of the most important aspects of your growth. It guides your actions and how you feel about everything and everyone around you. This is why people must gauge your thoughts and always steer them towards positivity.
If your thoughts are positive, they have a beneficial impact on both your physical and mental well-being, but if they are negative, your life, actions, and circumstances would probably mirror these negative thoughts.
If you believe you will fail, you might unconsciously sabotage every opportunity to succeed. Negative thinking patterns can have a strong and sometimes devastating impact on you. Ruining your mood, straining your relationships, and draining your energy.
Casting a shadow over your health, work, and all aspects of your lives.
5
Self-doubt
Self-doubt is having feelings of uncertainty regarding one or more aspects of yourself. Every person may experience it at certain times in your lives. Self-doubt prevents you from having confidence in situations that require you to.
You doubt if you are good enough or smart enough to do the things you want to do or even achieve anything. It is practically shooting yourself in the foot before you even begin. It is also closely linked with impostor syndrome, which is feeling like you do not deserve the success you have achieved even when all evidence points to the opposite.
Self-doubt can stop you from moving forward and even pull you back if you let it! Even though if you will be really sure, that little percentage of self-doubt will pull you back. The scary thing about self-doubt is that it can quickly become a habit for many of people without they being aware of it.
Your go-to thought as soon as you start dreaming big or thinking about something you want is to jump straight to self-doubt.
Getting your self-doubt under control doesn’t mean you are not going to experience self-doubt again, but it does mean that you will learn how to deal with it and push through it quickly and appropriately whenever it comes up.
6
Unrealistic Expectations
Everyone ideally should have high expectations.
Setting standards for yourself is a brilliant way to live, and having high expectations can be a good thing, but make sure they are realistic. By raising the bar too high, you run the risk of disappointment.
If you cannot accept and process disappointment, you can quickly start to view yourself as a failure, which makes it challenging to get up and try again. Your expectations have the potential to change your outlook on life and can shape your reality.
So you need to be really careful about your expectations, as unrealistic ones can set you up to judge yourself harshly, feel frustrated, and depressed, and make life unnecessarily difficult when you do not meet them.
It’s not always easy, but adjusting unrealistic expectations can bring enormous benefits and a renewed sense of peace. They can change your life, emotionally and physically.
7
A Fixed mindset
Having a fixed mindset means you believe your intelligence, talents, and personalities are fixed traits that cannot grow. You think you are born with a certain level of ability and cannot improve those abilities over time.
It is basically having a closed mind about yourself and your abilities. If you have a fixed mindset, you believe that things won’t change no matter what you do. On the contrary, Having a growth mindset and believing in opportunity and possibility is essential if you want to grow as a person.
When you have an open mind and a growth mindset, you believe things can change. You believe that your efforts will be rewarded, and you can continually improve on whatever skills you currently have.
A fixed mindset dangerously limits your ability to grow mainly because you do not even bother to put in any effort or try to improve.
If you believe that nothing will change no matter what you do or how hard you work, it will be much harder to get motivated to do the work in the first place because, deep down, you’ll be thinking – why bother?
As you can imagine, a fixed mindset will never let you grow.
8
Unnecessary Distractions
The ability to maintain your focus and keep your eyes on the prize is arguably one of the most critical skills on the path to growth. People are busy with so many things in their daily life that it is easy to lose focus and give in to distractions.
This makes time management and the ability to clear out distractions and focus so crucial because, in the middle of all this, they still have to create time for learning and career growth activities.
The ability to focus, prioritize and manage your time is a huge plus because if you want to grow in your career, you have to avoid distractions in the form of both people and things, manage your time, and create healthy habits online while updating your skills and mindset.
You can be assured that you will certainly have your hands full while working on your growth. Unnecessary distractions are indeed something you do not want to have to deal with. Most people are constantly busy trying to shuffle between different things simultaneously.
9
Living in the past
It’s easy to get stuck in the pain of the injustices and let downs that happened to you, but the reality is when you dwell on the past, it spills over into other parts of your lives and relationships. It holds you back and slows your progress and development, especially when you are clinging on to grudges, mistakes, and all the “Could’ve…would’ve…should’ve…” of your past.
Of course, mistakes will always happen, But keeping your focus and feelings on these mistakes won’t take you too far. Although it will affect your present and future goals and relationships as well. You cannot change the past, but you can decide to enjoy the present and work towards influencing the future.
However, do not confuse living in the past with reminiscing. Reminiscing is recalling memories and letting them stay where they should be: in the past. Living there is when you cling to memories so tightly that you can’t move on.
Living in the past can kill your motivation because when you constantly dwell on the past, you do not have the energy to look forward to the future. And it will affect a lot of ideas that you have in your mind.
10
Listening to other people too much
Everyone needs someone to act as a support system, a person or group to always go to for advice. It’s okay to have people you listen to, but their opinions should only act as a guide, not an absolute dictation of your actions or thoughts.
The most important opinion in your life should be yours because these opinions and decisions affect you directly, much more than anyone else. So do not rely on others opinion only.Althoughgetting second opinions and ideas is always advisable, letting them influence you negatively is not good for your growth.
Other people might have a different perspective on life than you, but that does not qualify them to tell you how to live it.
The main thing to avoid here is not listening to other people but instead feeling the pressure to live up to their opinions because that way, you will keep doing something because someone else said so, not because you want to do it for yourself.
11
An unwillingness to learn and unlearn
Our world is dynamic and constantly evolving, especially in the professional world. New jobs, expertise, and skills come up from time to time, and to keep up, we have to be willing to change and evolve as well because anyone who is stagnant will be left behind.
However, learning does not only mean completing a university degree or two, although that’s fine if that’s what you want. Learning and unlearning does not only apply to skills and the professional world. It can also mean learning and unlearning habits that can benefit your overall life.
Unlearning Habits like procrastination, being disorganized, and irregular sleep can help improve your overall life. The willingness and ability to learn and unlearn is undoubtedly one of the most essential growth elements.
So to ensure you are constantly growing, you must always be willing to learn and unlearn. If you want to be successful and if you want to sustain that success, you need to keep learning. Learning is a good hobby as well.
12
Not appreciating yourself
People often get caught up in the things they have not yet achieved and how much more they have to do that they have forgotten how much they have already achieved and how far they have come.
Self-reflection and self-appreciation are great for your self-esteem and growth. Taking a step back to be a little more reflective and admitting you’ve done well with certain things in your life with an open mind is essential for your growth.
Self-appreciation boosts your self-esteem and makes you look forward to that task ahead and how much more can be achieved. So do not hesitate to constantly remind yourself and appreciate how much you have achieved. You deserve every appreciation, make yourself worth it and confident for that.
13
Toxic relationships
Many people often think of romantic relationships whenever toxic relationships are mentioned. Although it is a very common form of a toxic relationship, it is not the only form. You can be in a toxic relationship with different people and things.
It can affect your physical, emotional, and mental health. Regardless, It doesn’t matter if the toxic relationship is with your partner, family, job, or boss. If it’s fixable, work towards fixing it.
If it’s not – distance yourself as much as possible or even stop any communication with whatever or whoever is making the relationship toxic. Toxic relationships, like the name implies, slowly drain you as if under the effect of poison and hold you back from living up to your full potential.
The impact it can have on your mental state, and overall well-being is something you do not want to deal with while trying to grow.
14
Fear of failure
Fear of failure is one of the biggest hurdles in personal development. It is the reality that plans fail, and people fail, but failure also means you constantly try to grow and improve. It means you are trying to do new things, changing your mindset, taking risks, stepping outside your comfort zone, learning new skills, and learning how to live.
Pushing through fear and taking that leap will give you some of your greatest achievements. Most things that cause a little discomfort are generally good things, but When you give in to fear, you practically box yourself up and stay in your shell.
You quit before you even give yourself a chance. As the popular saying goes, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. After all, only those who don’t try never fail.
15
Settling
Settling is something a lot of people fall for. They get comfortable in a particular zone and ask, “why bother? It is what it is”. They settle for a job they are not passionate about and give up on goals they set for themselves. However, you can take that on for a time but not for a long period.
If you are not fulfilling your potential in any area of your life, you are settling. It can be tough to admit, but when you do, you will finally learn how to never settle for less. Look around you – are you choosing your life, and are you living the life you want?
Are you actively working toward that life? If not, you’re settling. To live a fulfilling, passionate, and purposeful life, you must learn how to never settle for less. Don’t settle for less in a relationship, your career, your friendships, and your personal growth.
It is common knowledge that your mind is your most powerful ally when it comes to working towards personal growth, but in the same way, it can also be your worst enemy. Did you know that sometimes, the mind is programmed in a way that creates obstacles for you? Lucky for you, there is already an article about that too.
