We often talk about habits we need to start to improve our lives but today I’d like to talk about 5 addictions that you must break to become your best self.

Comparison

It’s not so early but still morning, you’ve just put the kettle on after stretching your jaw with yawning and while waiting for the water to boil, you go on instagram. You scroll through your feed and after a few minutes a thought enters your mind: damn, everybody’s doing better than me. Here’s what happens next. First, you notice that your kitchen looks old-fashioned and your tea tastes awful (dissatisfaction with life). Then you notice your neighbour jump into his brand new Tesla that he bought for his latest bonus and remember that your net earnings, WITH a bonus, wouldn’t even get you a Smart (feeling of inadequacy). And so you decide: that’s it, I sleep too much, I work too little. I will give my side hustle more time and attention and make it big this year (rushed goals).

Comparison will steal joy from your life. Don’t let it.

Replace it with gratitude. If you’re like me, you won’t last long completing a daily gratitude journal. I’m grateful for my health, for my family, for my house… It’s far too repetitive. You might want to try this instead. I keep a section in my daily calendar called: What Went Well. I can easily say what went wrong in my day but this invites me to flip the script and think of what went well instead. The best part - when I randomly flick through my diary much later, all I can see is the good stuff. The things that went well. Wow, my life is awesome!

Comfort

These are my feet back in January 2018. It snowed that day and I was pleased that I could apply cold therapy to my battered toe without any ice packs. These are also my feet, together with the rest of my body about a week earlier. I’m at a running camp in the south of Portugal. That happy woman next to me is Cindy. She told me that when her son got married, her friends threw her a party and made a banner that said: “Welcome to the bite-your-tongue club!” I loved running next to Cindy. We were both equally slow and equally happy to be there, completing two runs each day for a week. One of those runs was a loop run in a national park. You picked your distance, one loop was 4k so I went for two. The terrain was rough, rocky and hilly at places so I wore my brand new trail running shoes. Before I was able to complete the first loop, I realised that there was something bad happening to my toe. I suspected it was bleeding. I ran longer distances before so knew the feeling far too well. Awful feeling. I was running the trail with my then partner and he kept asking every few minutes: do you want to stop? Did I want to stop? Of course I wanted to stop! My toe was bloody throbbing with pain. And it was getting more battered every time my foot hit the ground. I wasn’t exactly enjoying the view of the trees all around me. But I wondered: what would happen next? I’d have to walk the same distance to complete the loop and meet our group. And I knew for a fact that physically it would have been much more comfortable but mentally I’d only swap the discomfort of believing in myself for the discomfort of feeling defeated. So I kept running. As much as possible, I enjoyed the views. And I completed the second loop.

Growth doesn’t happen in comfort. I’ve learnt a lot on that run. Different voice: Mainly about different shoe sizing of sports brands. Just joking!

I’m not saying that you need to seek discomfort in every aspect of your life. I’m saying you need to seek discomfort in the are you want to grow in.

Fail. Fail again. Fail forward, fail better. That way you’ll know that you’re growing. And to avoid panicking, use the 85% rule - your learning will be optimised when you get things right 85% of the time.

Waiting for perfect conditions to start

Both in my life as a coach and in my private life, I hear so many reasons people cannot start taking action. Most of them, quite frankly, are the grown up versions of my dog ate my homework excuse. I once worked as a mental health support worker and my colleague who had her kids at a very young age would always watch me signing up and completing courses in social care and photography and say: I’m waiting for my kids to grow up and leave home. I’m glad I had them early as I will have all this time sooner to do things I want to do. I left that workplace, became a photographer, and then came back as a temporary worker before starting a graphic design bootcamp. My colleague was still there. Her kids were leaving for college and she told me: I always say I wish I had them later. I could have done so much in my life if not for my kids!

Here’s the hot tip: don’t use your kids as your excuses. They won’t like you for that.

This is a very quick list of perfect conditions I could have waited for before starting my YouTube channel: I need to learn how to project my voice, how to speak without an accent, how to be funnier, how to be confident on camera, how to shoot professionally-looking videos, need to get much better gear, need to get a plant, need to poison my noisy neighbours, need to take a year off and so on. I didn’t have any of these before I started or even as I’ve gone on. In the words of Beastie Boys, from a song that was about politics but hey: “it takes time to build.” And yeah, after over 160 videos I still speak with an accent. I know, maybe it will go in video 300.

There are people who know less than you, are less experienced or qualified than you but hit goals and live the life you want. Because they take action.

Decide on the goal you want to achieve and the next action you need to take. Use the Pomodoro Technique combined with don’t break the chain method . Set a timer for 25 minutes and work without distractions on your goal. Just one pomodoro, not more. Then cross that day off on your habit tracker - this is the beginning of your chain. Then do the same thing for the rest of the month. Complete just one pomodoro of work a day and don’t break the chain. That’s all. You’ll be amazed with your result.

Complaining

I come from a country of hardcore complainers and live in a country of mild complainers. Complaining is the most socially accepted addiction. Maybe after caffeine.

On the surface, complaining does no harm. We connect with people when complaining. We vent, we offload, we feel understood. But there are two major problems with complaining: one - it trains your brain to seek out the negative side of everything. The more you complain, the more you find to complain about. And two - it puts your respect on the line. Good leaders don’t complain, full stop. Would you feel encouraged to work for somebody who constantly complains? I wouldn’t. It’s draining! And since you’re the leader of your life… break your addiction to complaining for some self-respect.

I admit I have a tendency to complain. It’s a bad habit that is really hard to get rid of. Like slouching. Here’s what helps:

1 - wear a hair band on your wrist. Every time you complain, snap it. This way you’re aware of your whining and by simply noticing it you make it go away. Pro tip: don’t beat yourself up for complaining. Just notice it. It’s like eating chocolate. The more you resist it and want to will yourself not to do it, the more you will crave it. You’re allowed to complain, you simply choose to notice when you do it and not engage with it.

2 - If you REALLY need to vent, pretend you’re calling a friend. Open Voice Memo on your phone, hit the red button and complain for as long as you need to. Then hit stop and delete. Job done. It’s out of your system and it doesn’t ruin any of your friend’s day. Some people journal, I find it far too much effort for something I’d never want to read again.

Go and try these methods for a week. They will change your life.

Quitting

I was talking to my friend the other day who’s also a YouTuber and whose recent video got tens of thousands of views instead usual hundreds. And he told me this: “if not for you, I wouldn’t have made videos for a year.” So of course I had to use one of my all time favourite quotes on him: “The genius thing we did was that we didn’t give up.” - Jay-Z. This quote is my Mount Fuji. When you travel in Japan and you’re on the Shinkansen, you can see Mount Fuji in the distance and feel its incredible, reassuring presence. It’s not just a landmark, it’s more a kind of beacon. And that’s what Jay-Z’s quote is for me when it comes to my long-term goals.

Quitting is the single thing that will guarantee your failure. Forget it.

If you can’t see the consequences of giving up, raise the stakes. Once a friend of mine wanted to run the 5k Tough Mudder. She signed up but couldn’t motivate herself to train and called me saying she’s giving up as she clearly won’t make it. I asked her: what runs do you need to do this week and whose music do you hate? She told me her training schedule and then went on about how much she can’t stand Justin Bieber. OK then, send me screenshots of your running app after each training by the end of the week. If I don’t get them, you buy 50 quid worth of Justin Bieber’s music. Deal? She agreed and we repeated that deal until she completed the Tough Mudder.

Don’t quit. Keep going, keep showing up - that’s 80% of any success.

By the way, my YouTuber friend asked me which Jay-Z’s song that quote is from. But it’s not from a song. It’s from an interview he gave ages ago. And sat next to him was none other than Warren Buffett.

Addictions makes us who we are and it’s important to know which ones to keep and which ones to leave behind.