These 10 Habits Will Ruin Your Chance of Success in Life

Around this time next year, where do you see yourself?

Will you be okay to be in the same spot you’re in right now? In the same career, same relationships, same skills? Is there anything you’d want to change for a better life?

Time is always moving forward. Whether you like it or not, it’s going to rush off, trains will run, the sun will set, seasons will change, and the next thing you know, it’s already August of 2023!

It’s crazy and overwhelming to look at life this way. I know you’d rather NOT think about the future and lose your shit. Me too.

But is there a way to not stress about the future and still make changes to get better at life? Is there a way to dramatically change everything you are today and become the best version of yourself?

The answer is: YES!

One year from now, you will be in your best shape, honing the skills you are passionate about, and even be able to call yourself a "successful" person. But how?

By putting your ideal life into action TODAY. If possible, right now. We call them "habits". Imagine your room. To make it tidy and super comfy, you’ll have to clean it, remove the worn out clothes and old books, and make space for what’s important. You’ll have to put in some work. It’s the same with your lives.

In order to get somewhere, you’ll have to get rid of all the bad auto-pilot habits that are dragging you down. You’ll have to live to the fullest potential. Every. Single. Day. Until this day next year. And then after.

It won’t be easy. But it won’t be the hardest thing to do either. Because you know what would suck more? Being in the same place, in the same spot, this time next year.

So, I’ve created a list of 10 habits that are ruining my chances of success. I bet you have some of these too.

Curse” words every 30 seconds.

"You look like shit." "Wow, what a f*cking blast!" This used to be my daily vernacular. Before you go judge me, this trend of casually swearing is only getting more and more common.

Is violence the only way to describe emotions? Well, cursing might make me and you seem cool for 30 seconds, but it’s the least creative way of using literature.

I digress. Once I stopped using curse words and instead articulated my emotions in a more straight-forward language, I felt more understood. My emotions and stress became a little bit easier to handle.

Swearing in a one-dimensional curse word, limits your emotional expression. It takes away the creativity, the beauty of language.

That’s one easy way to ruin your odds of becoming a good person, a "successful" person in your own eyes. Isn’t it?

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Sleeping without an alarm

I used to wake up at 6 a.m. every day. At least that’s what I told myself throughout the pandemic. But the clock was slowly creeping towards 9 a.m. and then 10 a.m. 6 a.m. was a myth that only existed in self-help books and not in real life!

You know who’s the easiest person to fool in this world? YOURSELF. People can live their entire lives without ever realising what went wrong. Or who was actually the reason for your lack of *your* success? Complain all you want, but the person who suffers the moat from your inaction is always YOU.

So, bring it all back to the nastiest noise of frog cracking at 5 am, shaking up my whole room? That was my alarm noise. Two years later, I’m free of alarms. I wake up at 5 am with no stimulation.

You don’t have to do anything. JUST WAKE UP an hour early. One peaceful hour can do wonders. It’s a blank slate at your disposal. Do whatever you want. Do what you "never had time to do".

Scream at me if that didn’t "un-ruin" your life in one year.

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Watching YouTube Shorts

Do you like to be the pet Guinea pig who gets injected with chemicals by a genius scientist? *makes puke noises * I feel like a guinea pig when I watch YouTube Shorts.

There was a time when YouTube was the heaven of free resources. It still is. But the true resources are buried under a big bumpy hole of instant-gratification.

Shorts are Satan’s curse to our baby brains. IG? It was always a filthy land of manipulation. But YouTube Shorts? What a dirty insult! Guys, we deserve more respect than that.

Can you tell me one thing, just *one* thing that shorts can improve in our lives? It’s not worth the damage it causes.

Swear off Shorts. Any kind. I don’t even care about success in life, I just want my brain to bloody function normally.

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Rush eating

The least sensible person eats their lunch the fastest. Food is the one (and only?) essential thing you ingest inside your body. And how much time do we spend on eating food?

Do not rush eating. Chewing. Whatever you call it, God forbid, do not use your phone during meal time. Don’t be the dumbest person on the planet (like me). Eat slowly. Take 20 minutes. Savor your food.

The way you eat tells a lot about you as a person. Your patience, your gratitude to your food and body, and your well-being are all connected to what you eat. Do not ever let that one pivotal habit get out of control.

Restrain yourself. Start small by chewing slowly. Then read about meals, nutrition, and metabolism. To be successful, you first have to live right. And sometimes, eating is the true essence of living.

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Eating on Saturdays

Or Sundays. Or eating every day of the week. As an extension to mindfulness eating, here’s a pro tip: Skip meals one day every week.

Fasting—or giving your mind and body a rest. It detoxes your body. It supports brain function, disease prevention, and all that jazz. Plus, didn’t Indian culture always symbolise fasting?

It’s time to not just defend Indian authenticity but also inhabit the practises it has always preached.

A clean body paves the way to a clean mind that more or less can impact on your success status. I know you’re smart enough to connect the two.

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Beliefs carved in stone

I’ve made my fair share of dumb arguments, but my biggest embarrassment of all is that I accidentally defended my deep-rooted mysogny on the face of a person who experienced harassment.

You’re not a bad person if you make bad arguments. But you become one if you don’t change it when proven wrong. It’s okay to get things wrong. But what do you care more about? Is it even worth it if I win at the expense of hurting the other person?

Here’s what I learned: be open to contradictions. If someone says Star Wars is overrated? Be sure you listen to them before arguing.

Our culture is built on the pillars of human ego. Transitioning into a successful human demands some ego-crushes. You better train yourself for that. Cool?

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Read only for school

I was at college studying cell biology when my friend from "computer science" joined Google. I was pissed. I wanted to crush the unfairness with my fist. I thought the tech graduates were my mortal enemies.

Was I wrong? Hell yes. This school-system dissection is the biggest scam in history. Separate kids based on science, commerce, and the arts? Really? And the worst part is, students stick to X stream for the rest of their lives. Where do you live? Under a rock from the 1940s ?

Don’t be old-fashioned like that. Read about neuroplasticity. Learn to code a website. Learn about Russian literature. Don’t let your school textbooks be the last thing you read.

If you read what everyone else is reading, you’ll think like everybody else. Then you’ll succeed to the level of everybody else. Wasn’t our goal to do something big? Become better this time next year?

Read a book. Something nobody on the internet has ever read.

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Talk shit with friends.

This one was the hardest.

I lost a lot of "old friends" this year because I was not interested in gossiping just for old times' sake. They were holding each other back for no reason other than sentimental nostalgia.

Harsh. I know. But talking and sharing boring shit on the WatsApp group? body-shaming classmates on their new IG posts? Geez, no thanks.

We had some of the best times together in college. We watched movies, took selfies with green sea turtles, wrote love songs on tuatara,... Ahhh, good old times. But it’s still not okay to talk shit for fun.

Time spent with friends is the most memorable pastime. From sharing assignments to travelling the world, anything is possible when people connect. When big things can be achieved and startups can be created, what does your friend circle do in their free time? I know, it’s unfair to put pressure on friendships. You guys deserve to blow off steam and do reckless things sometimes.

Success and growth are reflected by your social circle. Times have changed because of the internet. You can become friends with people who share your worldview.

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Blind to nature

This is the ultimate ruination of success. When was the last time you played in the rain?

Remember how you used to sit on the sidewalk and trace cracks? Remember those stubborn weeds that grow betweenconcrete despite everything?

Nature has a lot to teach and answers to everything. After all, it has given us a safe space to evolve for more than 5 million years. What ruins you more than this ever-growing void of separation?

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Change parents’ minds

One helluva revelation. You cannot change your parents.

This one realisation has let me move forward in my life. Because love is expressed through acceptance sometimes. Whether you approve of their beliefs or not, don’t stop your journey to convince them, or even worse, fear them. The older you get, the more you realise that—the only person you have to be answerable to is YOURSELF.

Not just parents. Don’t be obliged to please anyone.

And this amount of self-assurance comes only when you believe in yourself.

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At the end of everything, ask yourself one thing—do you believe you will change for the better this time next year? Nothing is superior than self-esteem. And that comes from the determination to stick to better habits.

Just focus on perfecting your daily habits. Success will, by default, fall into your orbit.