{"id":76735,"date":"2016-02-01T14:45:34","date_gmt":"2016-02-01T21:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=76735"},"modified":"2021-03-16T11:52:24","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T17:52:24","slug":"2016-02-01-habits-hold-you-back-from-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/2016-02-01-habits-hold-you-back-from-success","title":{"rendered":"The 7 Seemingly Innocent Habits Holding You Back From Success"},"content":{"rendered":"

What big<\/em> things do you want to accomplish this year?\u00a0Are you going to start a new business? Double the revenue in your existing company?\u00a0Write a best-selling book<\/a>? Lose 50 pounds?<\/p>\n

Goals are great, and you should definitely have them. But goals can easily be sidetracked when something bigger comes into the picture: habits.<\/p>\n

Now, of course\u00a0there are plenty of good<\/em> habits that an entrepreneur should have . . .\u00a0but what about the bad ones?\u00a0We all know some<\/em> habits are obviously bad, like smoking or excessive drinking. But for entrepreneurs, the distinction between \u201cgood”\u00a0and \u201cbad” habits\u00a0is often blurry and situational.<\/p>\n

Therefore, I want to lay out seven habits that, although seemingly innocent, can actually hurt your chances of achieving your goals this year.<\/p>\n

But first…<\/p>\n

***Hey, you! Yes, you! If you are reading this post, you’re likely interested in\u00a0growing your business and building wealth. If so, I want to invite you to this week\u2019s BiggerPockets Webinar,\u00a0<\/strong>How to Use BiggerPockets to Become a Rockstar Real Estate Investor<\/a><\/strong>. We\u2019ll be talking about how to harness all the tools BP has to offer in order to find partners, lenders and sellers, build your reputation as an investor, and much more! Hope you can make it! And now back to the post!***<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

1. Checking email<\/h2>\n

How many times a day do you check your email? More than once? That’s\u00a0probably too much.<\/p>\n

Email tends to be the thing people do when they don\u2019t want to do what they should be doing.<\/p>\n

I know you think you need to be in your email throughout the day, but chances are, your addiction results in your putting off the one thing in your life you really should be focused on right now. So, make an effort to reduce the amount of times you check your email.<\/p>\n

Related: 10 Seemingly Harmless Habits That Sabotage Ambitious Millennials<\/a><\/p>\n

Set up smart “filtering” criteria, unsubscribe from email newsletters you no longer need to read (I just unsubscribed from over 1,000 newsletters, using Unroll.me<\/a>), and get people used to your responding just once a day.<\/p>\n

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2. Logging onto Social media<\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s be honest: We all spend way too much time on social media.<\/p>\n

Whether your social media habit leads to your sitting \u201cin the john\u201d a bit too long, or to a\u00a0quick status update that turns into 35 minutes of mindless scrolling through your newsfeed, this habit can quickly take over the limited time you have to be productive.<\/p>\n

So, do yourself a favor and limit the time you spend on social media.<\/p>\n

For me, Facebook is my \u201cgo-to\u00a0time-waster.\u201d That’s why I installed theFacebook Newsfeed Eradicator<\/a>, which essentially shuts off the Facebook newsfeed on my laptop. This\u00a0alone\u00a0has saved me several hours per week.<\/p>\n

3. Procrastinating<\/h2>\n

Yes, procrastination is<\/em> a habit. It\u2019s often much easier to say \u201ctomorrow\u201d than \u201cnow.\u201d\u00a0But the things we procrastinate about are often the very things that most need to be done now.<\/p>\n

So, instead, make it a habit\u00a0to \u201ctime-block” your most important things to ensure they get done on schedule today, not tomorrow. For more on-time\u00a0blocking ideas, don\u2019t miss “This Productivity Hack Completely Changed My Life, and It Can Improve Yours.”<\/a><\/p>\n

4. Multitasking<\/h2>\n

Yesterday I saw a CEO post an ad for an assistant, and \u201cability to multitask\u201d was the number one quality he listed. What that CEO didn’t realize, though, was that he was looking for someone ineffective<\/em>\u00a0simply because multitasking simply doesn\u2019t work!<\/p>\n

Instead of accomplishing the most important thing right, a multitasker accomplishes\u00a0dozens of things poorly. Sure, it feels good to check things off a list, but the quality suffers, the more things you add.<\/p>\n

Unless you are talking about chewing gum while walking, stick to one thing at a time and forget the habit of multitasking.<\/p>\n

5. Reading irrelevant blog posts<\/h2>\n

With an estimated 2 million blog posts <\/a>being written every single day, it\u2019s no wonder that people get sucked into the habit of reading blog posts that are completely irrelevant to the task at hand.<\/p>\n

Just today, I started reading a post about becoming a real estate agent<\/a>, and before I knew it, realized\u00a0I was reading about traveling the world for under $1,000. Great content, but irrelevant to the topic I needed to learn more about at that moment!<\/p>\n

Instead of reading posts because they are interesting, read posts because they are important for what you are trying to accomplish. Don\u2019t get sucked in by a sneaky headline (i.e., “you\u2019ll never believe #7!”<\/em>). Instead,\u00a0set aside time in your day for leisure reading.<\/p>\n

Use the Pocket app<\/a> to bookmark things you want to come back to at a later time, and focus on moving your business forward.<\/p>\n

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6. Netflix and other ‘screen time’<\/h2>\n

Ooooh . . .\u00a0you knew I had to talk about this.\u00a0Netflix, along with all other forms of movie and television consumption, consumes a huge part of our life.<\/p>\n

And, understand that I\u2019m not saying watching TV is bad. It\u2019s great for relaxing, but it can easily become a habit that will kick your goal can down the road, perpetually.<\/p>\n

Related:<\/strong> 5 Habits of Highly Miserable New Real Estate Investors (& How to Kick Them!)<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

So, set a limit on how much \u201cscreen time\u201d you allow yourself each week, and stick to it. Get an accountability group or partner to help hold you to your goal. Then, use your extra time to work on your most important task.<\/p>\n

7. Micromanaging<\/h2>\n

If you rely on other people to help you grow your business, you\u2019ve probably been guilty of micromanaging more than once.<\/p>\n

But, here\u2019s the truth: When you hire the right people, and trust them to get the task done, amazing things happen without your involvement.<\/p>\n

True, they may not get the task done the exact same way you would have, but chances are, they will\u00a0still get done! So, stop spending all your time micromanaging how other people do tasks. Instead, judge the task (and the employee) by the outcome.<\/p>\n

This will free up hours of time in your day to grow your business.<\/p>\n

Oh, ‘those’ habits<\/h2>\n

Our lives are almost completely made up of “habits” that control what we do, when we do it\u00a0and how it’s done. Those habits can be used for good or used to derail your plans.<\/p>\n

It’s up to you to decide which way you want to go.<\/p>\n

So, make it your mission this week to kill some of your deadly habits and replace them with habits that will help you accomplish your biggest goals. Then, watch your life be\u00a0transformed!<\/p>\n

[This post originally appeared on Entrepreneur.com.<\/a>]<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

What do YOU think — are any of these habits holding you back? Anything you’d add to this list?<\/em><\/p>\n

Let’s talk in the comments section!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What big things do you want to accomplish this year?\u00a0Are you going to start a new business? Double the revenue in your existing company?\u00a0Write a best-selling book? Lose 50 pounds? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":710,"featured_media":76738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personal-development"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/710"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}