The 10 Worst Habits Keeping You From Financial Freedom

Bad habits are what keep people from achieving the financial freedom that they deserve. By transforming your bad habits into good habits, you'll not only bring your self-improvement game up but you'll also get more work done as an entrepreneur.

These are the worst habits people do daily that keep them from achieving financial freedom.

1. Spending Hours Scrolling on Social Media

Spending your free-time scrolling on social media apps like TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, and others wastes time you could spend productively. Not only does spending hours scrolling on social media waste your time, but the social media algorithms also raise your dopamine levels high and consistently keep them unhealthily high for long periods of time. Each new video you view gives your brain another dopamine hit that you'll crave more of once you exit the app.

This'll keep you coming back for more, for example, this addictive element of social media often hooks you onto the app for hours longer than you planned to spend when you opened it from the start. Furthermore, the reason why after scrolling on social media for so long you feel too tired mentally to do anything productive is that your dopamine levels have been increased so much that any activity that won't bring you the same amount of instant dopamine will feel like too much work and bore you into stopping.

This is the devastating effect of social media on your productivity, yet still, according to Statistica.com, over 4 billion people on Earth spend their time on social media. In addition, 30 percent of American adults consider themselves addicted to social media according to thinknow.com.

2. Endlessly Browsing the Internet

The internet is an extremely interesting place. Using the internet can either benefit users or prove to be a bad habit depending on what an individual uses it for and for how long.

Clicking around on websites out of boredom only wastes more time that could be spent productively on the internet.

Spending time pointlessly searching the internet instead of using the internet for researching different assets to invest in is another mistake.

Anyone with an internet connection can learn information online for free or do work online like writing articles, starting online businesses, producing online products like e-books and courses, freelancing, programming websites and applications, producing content on websites like Youtube, streaming on websites like Twitch, starting their own podcast, and other productive habits that will earn income by producing content that people will consume instead of consuming content yourself.

3. Excessively Playing Video Games

Video games, while obviously fun, entertaining, and relaxing, waste lots of time that could be used more productively.

Especially with video game addiction, where someone plays video games for hours daily and struggles to stop playing to start being productive, it's procrastination's best friend and will only give you one more reason to contemplate why you shouldn't start spending your time productively.

Playing video games isn't ever going to help you to achieve your dreams and goals in life, which is why people use it as an escape from real life which is boring compared to video games and lacks the high dopamine releases that video games provide.

Many people also spend money on video games which only pushes them further away from the financial freedom that could be attained through investing in assets or investing in a business that generates profits.

4. Watching too much TV on Netflix and other streaming apps

Watching movies and TV shows takes a huge chunk of your free time. This is valuable time you could be spending producing content instead of consuming it.

Similar to spending time playing video games, this activity wastes time you could be spending productively. In addition, it costs money to buy monthly subscriptions to stream content.

Think about that, not only does streaming content cost you your time when you could be producing content or working online to make some extra money, it even costs you money to keep up this bad habit.

Similar to smoking cigarettes which spend your money and ruin your health, paying for monthly subscriptions to these streaming companies hurts you in two ways by wasting your time and your money which could be spent to make you more money so you can reach financial freedom.

5. Constantly Checking Your Notifications

What seems like a harmless habit of trying to stay up-to-date with what's happening that you're missing out on, in reality, is a hook that you're falling for like a fish. Each time you open a notification, you're risking getting hooked onto that app and potentially spending 10–30 minutes or more on one little notification when you were supposed to be getting work done.

Now consider how you get multiple notifications per day and that's a lot of chances to spend more time than you plan on different apps you weren't supposed to be on in the first place.

Checking on notifications ruins your focus when you're getting work done and it promotes procrastination by staying on the app for a myriad of minutes when you planned only on checking it.

6. Spending Time Overthinking Your Decisions

Thinking deeply about things before you begin them is a good idea because you make sure you do things correctly, however, overthinking is a bad habit.

Overthinking wastes time you could spend working on what you've been thinking about and it makes you start contemplating whether you should really start being productive now or push whatever you're planning to do until after you've had your entertainment for the day.

7. Perfectionism

Perfection can be achieved, but it is almost never possible to do something perfectly on the first try.

That's why you should always get your work finished first, then perfect it after it is finished, this way you'll have something to show for what you've done and you can always fix any inaccuracies later to make it perfect and something you're completely proud of.

It's in this way, that perfectionism is a double-edged sword. It can help you perfect your work or it can make you lose motivation to complete your work because it hasn't reached the result you've wanted to achieve yet.

8. Avoiding Difficult/Challenging Tasks

Everyone has difficulty taking on challenging tasks at some point in their life when faced with something they're not used to.

This is due to the fight-or-flight response our bodies go through when faced with hard decisions.

You either decide to take on the difficult challenge or you run away from it letting your deadlines or procrastination creep closer and closer to causing problems for you.

Though nobody wakes up wanting to start off the day with what's hardest to do, (because our brains like easy things and to be comfortable) it's often the hardest things in life that yield the best results for individuals and make life easier. Difficult and consistent actions make life easier in the long run.

9. Excessively Daydreaming/Zoning Out

Daydreaming can feel like an easy way to ignore what you need to get done for the day, but it only makes things harder for yourself by losing time you could've spent working on your tasks for the day instead of zoning out.

If you find yourself zoning out too often while trying to get work done then try removing distractions that are taking away your attention from what you're doing.

10. Lack of Planning and Setting Goals

Finally, not planning out your day or setting goals is another bad habit. Not planning out your day leads to disorganization which stops you from being as productive as you could be since you aren't sure what you need to get done, what is most important and needs to get finished first, and what you can work on later in the day.

Planning out your day brings a sense of accountability to what you need to get done each day and therefore will likely increase the chances of you getting most or even all of what you planned on doing finished by the end of the day.

Setting goals is also important as it gives you an idea of what you want to achieve in a certain amount of time and it'll accelerate your progress in the work you do to get closer to that goal and eventually achieve it.

While goal setting is always a great idea, you should always aim for realistic goals. If you make a goal that's too difficult to achieve in the time span that you give yourself, you won't be able to achieve it and will be demotivated to try again or consider setting future goals for yourself.

Thank you for reading and I hope the information in this article was useful to you and helps you achieve financial freedom!