What if I told you there is a way you can see yourself in the next ten years? The answer is quite simple. Just take a look at the habits you practice daily.
Show me your habits, I’ll show you your future.
Mark Batterson
Distraction is everywhere in today’s age. All the notifications buzz every minute, plus our low attention span makes it impossible to maintain focus. Even when we aren’t distracted, most indulge in bad habits that waste time without much realization.
A poll by Gallup reveals teenagers spend an average of 4.8 hours on social media—this isn’t surprising considering we’re in the 21st century with advanced technologies and greedy companies soaking every penny in our pockets.
If you look at every successful person, they have one thing in common: they don’t waste time. They understand the importance of their time and adopt good habits that uplift their spirit rather than lower their standard.
To become successful in every aspect of life, we must eliminate meaningless habits that waste time. Here are some habits to avoid:
1. The phone
Of course, this is going to be number one on the list. The phone is a distraction similar to social media, but the amount of times we check our phones for something that’s not even there is astonishing.
Old text messages, emails, and notifications are just some ways we waste time. These habits pertaining to cellphone use are responsible for the loss of valuable time. A simple 5-minute scroll on our phones can turn into an hour if we’re not careful because of how addictive our phones are.
We may check our phones with one purpose in mind: maybe it’s replying to text messages from friends or reading emails. Either way, it’s so easy to waste time on our phones because of the harmlessness of switching from one app to another. We think our phones are already in our hands, so what’s the harm in checking another app?
Surfing from one app to another leads us further down a rabbit hole, where we’re unaware of how much time we’re wasting. If you have time to spare, replying to emails and text messages is productive. But if your phone is distracting, that’s a clear sign you’re procrastinating and wasting time on nothingness.
2. Revisiting the past
We all have an embarrassing moment that’s hard to forget, no matter how hard we try to sugarcoat it. Maybe it’s something we said or did that makes us feel uneasy. On a side note, I apologize if I caused that memory to be triggered.
Regardless, the past is that one place that we subconsciously revisit without realizing it. There’s no harm in doing so, but there is harm in ruminating on past mistakes and regrets.
As humans, we all make mistakes. It’s much better to learn from them and move on than consistently return and beat yourself up for something you should’ve done. Ruminating about our past mistakes wastes plenty of precious time because there’s seriously no good in belittling ourselves. It can even be hazardous to our mental health because of how much we drag ourselves down.
There are many habits to help you overcome your habit of ruminating on the past. The most effective by far is meditation. It helps you become present, so you can have better control over your thoughts.
3. Hanging out with degenerate “friends”
We’ve all heard the famous saying that goes along the lines of “You are who you hang around.” It’s not always easy determining if the people we call “friends” are worth our time and energy. It can also be tough cutting people out of our lives, especially if we’ve known them for a long time.
The best way to determine if you have healthy friends is by looking at your friend group from a bird’s eye view. Starting now, I want you to take five minutes and think about 2-3 of your closest friends. Ask yourself: what do we do when I’m around these people? Are these people bringing me up or down? Are these people on the same path as me?
Every time you get together, if the things you do together consist of bad habits, such as gambling, smoking, drinking, and partying, how would you imagine yourself in the next ten years? If these people tend to peer pressure you into doing something you disagree with and have no respect for you, it’s a clear sign you should distance yourself from them.
Hanging out with people who aren’t your friends is a huge time waster because of how much time and energy you invest without much in return. What’s the point in hanging out with people who do nothing but bring you down? Your time is precious, but if you waste it on unworthy people, you’re wasting your time doing nothing.
To determine if you have fake friends, read here.
4. Procrastinating
We’ve all been in the same situation. We’re back from school and know that we have a pile of homework due tomorrow. Instead of completing it when we got home, we took a nap and pushed it back later. Then, we continue to procrastinate to the point where all we’ve done is expose our veiled laziness.
One of the main reasons why a thirty-minute task can turn into hours is because of procrastination. When we procrastinate, we continuously push a task further and further away. No matter how hard we procrastinate, that task never disappears. The time we spend complaining, whining, and justifying why we should do something later is valuable time we’re wasting.
One of the best ways to prevent procrastination is by breaking up a big task into smaller manageable ones. For example, a two-hour study session seems daunting, but if you break it into 30-minute sessions with breaks in between, that study session is now more doable.
5. Jealousy/Envy
In the Bible, Cain and Abel were both two beloved brothers. Both were obedient to God by sending their offerings and sacrifices. While God accepted Abel’s offerings, God also rejected Cain’s offerings. In a fit of jealousy, Cain lashed out and killed his brother, resulting in God punishing Cain.
In today’s world, jealousy is a disease that first appears insignificant but slowly grows and eats us away from the inside out. No matter how hard we try to deny it, we’ve all been jealous of others’ success. On social media, many people flash their success, which ignites our fury of jealousy. Instead of praising them for their hard work, our immediate instinct is to call their possessions fake and resent them for having the things we don’t have.
Jealousy is a significant area we spend wasting our time because is there anything we gain from resenting those who are “better” than us? All it does is make us feel insecure and expose our bitterness toward others. What’s worse is when we’re jealous of those closest to us, such as friends or family.
Think about it: if the relationship between your friends or family members is hanging on by a thread due to your jealousy, does this show that you appreciate that person?
