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When I was a young girl, a visiting pastor came to my church and preached a sermon entitled: “Is it a Demon, or a Bad Decision.” Even though I don’t remember the pastor’s name, I remember that sermon almost word for word. He told the congregation that too many times when things go wrong in people’s lives they are quick to try to place the blame on outside forces (friends, family, coworkers, bosses, the devil, you know, the normal things) instead of taking an introspective look inward and realizing that sometimes when things go wrong, it’s not everyone else, it’s because of our own bad decisions.
There will be times when things will get stagnate, or digress in our lives and when we’re searching for answers as to why that is, maybe the first place that we should search should be ourselves. Here are seven ways that the problems that we face have origins in our own bad behavior.
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Over thinking things
When it comes to things that you really want in life, sometimes you might want to make a strategic plan on how to execute things perfectly. You decide that you want to lose weight, so you buy all this healthy food, get some workout equipment, and set your watch to work out at 6:00am every morning, and then the moment comes, but because you’ve been obsessing over what to do, you intimidate yourself with the possibilities of what might happen, or what could go wrong, and then you end up doing nothing.
Instead of trying to make sure that things will be right, just try to focus on just doing it. Not saying that you shouldn’t have a master plan, but when your master plan begins to make you overwhelmed that you can’t even tackle the issue that you’ve been planning for… then you have a problem.
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Being Lazy
Albert Einstein once said: “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” So many times people want the lavish things but don’t want to work for it. There have been too many times where I’ve heard people complain about lack of money, or opportunities, but when you ask them: “Well, what jobs have you applied for?” or “What steps have you taken to help yourself to excel?” and they tell me nothing, a little part of me dies inside. Yes things are tough, but they’re only going to stay tough if you don’t try to put a little bit of effort into what you’re doing.
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Being Stubborn
Stubbornness is a very self-destructive personality trait. When people are so dead-set on doing things on their own time/ in their own way they don’t realize that it limits their own social mobility. Opportunities are not going to come the way that you are expecting them, and some opportunities require you to be flexible. If you refuse to bend until something comes a long to cater to you, then you’re only hurting yourself.
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Procrastination
One of my favorite sayings is: “What are you waiting on? An engraved invitation?” because it’s so true. People will put off doing the right thing in life for no reason. Procrastination is more so a killer of dreams than a bad economy or whatever conspiracy theory that’s popular right now. Stop waiting on things to be perfect to act because it will never be. There will never be a time when things are 100% perfect for you to act, but if you keep on procrastinating, all that there’s going to be will be accumulated missed opportunities.
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Working off of Emotions
Do you know who really cares when you’re having a crappy day, and you just don’t feel like working? No one. When projects and assignments need to be done, letting your emotions dictate if/how effective you work is only setting yourself up for failure. Everyone has bad days, even the most successful people have bad days; but the reason why they are successful is that they push through those emotional funks.
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You’re Inappropriate at the Wrong Time
If you’re working a full time job, then it’s normal to have a few moments of levity during those 40 hours a week to keep you going. Everyone does, but when it’s time to buckle down at your office, but you still want to dissect the minutia of the Real Housewives of Atlanta (3 parts?!) reunion, even after your boss requests for you to stop, then you might as well just write your own pink slip, or build your own glass ceiling. No matter how cool a boss you have, he/she is still an authority figure. So when it comes time to either promote someone, or downsize, those moments of gaiety at the expense of doing work is going to come up in your boss’s mind, and that’s going to determine if you progress in your company or if you’re too much of a liability.
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You’re too Preoccupied with What Others Think
If you were to google search your favorite celebrity you’re bound to find at least one site that is downgrading them, calling them overrated, or just dedicated to hating them. But do you think that these celebrities care when they’re counting their money? HECK NO! People who are successful might be cognitive of the dislike that people have for them, but they don’t let it slow them down. Shoot, google search “Jennifer Lopez can’t sing” and you’ll find 9300 sites dedicated to exposing her as a flawed songstress, but she’s constantly cutting new tracks and getting multi-million dollar endorsement that features her largely debated vocals.
I agree with the saying: “Let your haters be your motivators,” but when you stop yourself from doing something that you want to do because you’re too preoccupied of what they might say, you’re being your own worst enemy.
Kendra Koger wants you to be your own best friend and make good decisions. Follow her on twitter at kkoger.
