There are a number of bad habits we all develop over the years that can make us sink or swim in life. Some of those habits are ingrained in us by the people who around us.
For instance, the type of diets we grow up to eat are largely developed due to our surroundings in youth. As is how we tend to treat people – surround yourself with good people and you tend to develop good social skills, hang out with bad people and… you get the point.
Others, such as being a loud-mouth, blurting out whatever is on our minds, acting aggressively, sleeping in constantly, always being late to the meeting, etc., are definite personal attributes that we all develop that can lead to a swift downfall in life, or at least prevent us from being the very best we can be in life.
Here 4 really particularly bad personality flaws you need to ax pronto in order to invite more success into your life:
1. You have no motivation to aspire to anything in life
This is the toughest of all the personal barriers we erect to insulate us from wealth, health and happiness. Not having any clear vision of you want beyond “I want to be successful” is a clear path to a life with no meaning attached.
There’s no clear way around this problem, if it exists in your consciousness. If you’re trapped in a world without passion, you need to get out of that world. If your job doesn’t inspire you, move on. If your business just doesn’t make you want to jump out of bed in the morning, sell it.
If your surroundings are dull, boring, even painful – change your surroundings.
2. You never have anything nice to say about anyone
Especially when you’re talking to people. There’s a saying in business that’s frequently echoed about how the only way to true success in life is by helping others.
Forget for a second about creating a product or service that helps people solve a problem, we all know this is necessary to create a successful business. Making people feel good about themselves and their interactions with you is equally important in so many situations.
If you can’t make people care whether they ever see you again, such as paying them a compliment or otherwise being a positive presence in their life, then nobody’s going to do squat for you or help you reach your aspirations. This includes badmouthing competitors around your customers too; it makes you come off as a negative, back-stabbing type.
Be nice, keep the ratio of compliments given much higher than insults and other negative comments.
3. You don’t get the saying “Speak only if it improves upon silence”
You don’t believe this quote from Gandhi has any place in society. Talking is so second nature to you, you ramble on and on incessantly about whatever pops into your head. Often at the expense of alienating those who prefer talking with enlightened (influential) folks who actually have something intelligible to contribute to a conversation.
When this bad habit trickles over into customer service and sales, it becomes a real disaster. While those in your personal life who still stick by you put up with this behavior, the customer who gets stuck listening to your jibber-jabber will always try to find the quickest exit possible, and will avoid contacting you again for fear of the time wasting jaw-flapping they’ll have to endure.
4. You use SMS-speak and IM chatter in professional correspondence
Oh boy. This one’s a real success killer, unless you’re a celebrity posting on social media, in which case this just makes you hip with the young folks out there. While LOLs, OMGs and ROFLs are officially in our dictionaries, much to the dismay of grammarians worldwide, using these acronyms on a regular basis in business will make you look like a dunce.
There’s just no way someone like Gary Vaynerchuk is going to partner with someone who comes across as an idiot who can’t take the time to type out a few extra characters to make their communications clear. This is kid’s stuff folks. Whether adults do it or not is irrelevant. It just makes you come across as a dopey teenager.
If you don’t see a particularly nasty success-killing personality flaw you think deserves to be on this list, leave a comment and let everyone know.
