How to Break Bad Habits & Improve Relationships
Breaking Common Bad Habitual Behaviours May Lead the Way to Success
Feb 24, 2007
The quality of your relationships is a major factor in life's success. This holds true whether the personal definition of success is financial, career, or personal happiness. Your interpersonal skills have a direct impact on your interpersonal relationships.
Improving these skills is critical to continuing personal development and growth. Identifying bad habits you have collected will help you to break the habits, improving your interpersonal relationships and paving the way to success.
Importance of Improving Relationships
Studies show that good relationships are important to a sense of happiness and fulfillment. People in committed, intimate relationships live longer and are healthier than others. In business and professional success your network of relationships is critical. Whether looking for a job, seeking a promotion, working for a big sale, or selling an idea, the support of others is critical.
Common Bad Habits
Six common bad habits that limit interpersonal skills and, therefore, undermine important relationships are:
Bad Habit of Dominating Conversations
Among the more annoying of situations is the one-way conversation occurring when one person turns everything into a personal platform to talk about themselves. Unable to get in more than a few words people give up, nod, grunt, and look frantically for an exit.
Having the Last Word—Common Habit
The typical last-word-master takes anything one party says and exceeds it. Implied is the phrase, "I can top that." This is a specific form of conversation domination, generally conveying the message that no matter what the first party described, the other persona has had it better (or worse).
It Won't Work
This is a know-it-all habit, with the double whammy that it's also negative. Any idea, suggestion, or improvement offered is immediately discounted with a lengthy description of all the reasons it won't work. It may even be thinly veiled as a compliment, as in, "That's a good idea, but..."
Making Excuses—Habitual Behavior
When someone points out an annoying behavior, one can always fall back on, "Well, that's just the way I am, I've always been that way." As if change is either impossible or unwise, this habit justifies an annoying behavior as genetic. Every bad habit can be modified.
Routine of Showing Off
This is a variation of dominating conversations, with the added twist of inserting information with the sole purpose to impress. "Look what I know," one seem to be saying, and "Aren't you impressed that I know this?"
Passing Judgment
Of the six, this bad habit may be the most damaging to interpersonal relationships and success. This is the habit of being "captain of the world," setting the standard for all to live up to and labeling people according to a personal classification system. Passing judgment is disrespectful of others, even more so than the previous five habits. Passing judgment nullifies the individuality and uniqueness of others.
If you see yourself in any of these descriptions of bad habits, you'll want to explore the fundamentals of change by Psychology writer James Prochaska.
Related Article: Personal Growth: When to Win
Topical Index of all Personal Development Articles
