Self-Destruction – the opposite to Self-Improvement can have a deadly effect on goals, your dreams and your life.
This post is a continuation from Part one, which can be read here, where the first for seven deadly sins of self-destruction were covered. This part looks at how the final four sins can effect us being better people.
Envy
“They have all the luck, they’re on TV/have a rich family/are good looking etc”
If you want to see good sources of envy look at any comment on a Youtube videos. If you see a power lifter, someone will have commented saying they are on steroids, if you see a pretty boy talking about his day, someone is calling him gay and if you someone is passionately talking about his hobby, someone is calling him a loser.
Effect on self-improvement: These are all symptoms of envy – hating on others is not good, time to stop looking at others and look at yourself. I find a lot of celebs frustrating and wish they would go away, but you know what I do? I ignore them and focus on myself, because insulting others is a waste of energy, by hating others we become bitter and that is likely to lead to more destructive behaviour.
Action: Successful people can be great role models – find who you want to emulate and don’t envy them – learn from them. Sure some people get all the breaks, but life is unfair, time to get on with your life.
Lying
“Yeah I was at the gym the other day and I lifted X amount…”
When I did Karate I was eager to develop my experience of other martial arts. I had been jumped multiple grades from a green belt to an instructor. I had developed a false self-confidence in my abilities and thought I was a lot better than I was. When I stopped doing Karate to go to university I couldn’t help but over exaggerate my abilities, which led to stupid lies.
1) I had watched a video that showed how to reduce the impact of a baseball bat swing and disarm the assailant. I made out that I had could do this and ended up with some bruised ribs.
2) Not learning from my first week error I joined the kickboxing club and over exaggerated my knowledge. I was placed in sparring with a very good kickboxer and he accidentally injured me.
Effect on self-improvement: actions speak louder than words, so if you are not as rich, popular with the ladies or just a badass that you pretend to be, people will soon see you as a phony, not trust you or want to help you. By lying we effect our ability to improve as we start to believe are own lies and end up worse off because we think we are in a better place than we actually are.
Action: Stop lying – if you ran 5k in 20 minutes, don’t tell people you did it in 16 minutes. If you are a compulsive liar I would suggest seeking further help.
Unorganised
Yeah I have goals – I don’t need a plan, I know how I will achieve…. um what did I set again? I wrote them down somewhere?
I started goal setting about 10 years ago. From experience, I can say I have only just started getting better at it in the last year, partly due to writing this blog made me realise how unorganised I was. 90% of goals I set where not achieved – it was more the pleasure I felt that I was doing something – but I was never accountable in following up the actions.
Effective on self-improvement: Your intentions are good, you may achieve goals, but being disorderly reduces how effective you can achieve goals. You go through life changing your mind what you want each week and you find old list of goals hidden at the back of the draw when you have your yearly clean out.
Action: Create a structure – buy a diary, create physical and digital files. If you have no idea on how to organise your time or structure your goals buy a book or go to the library and get a book on from the self-help section. When goals print these out somewhere you will look every day and set a date to review – what has been done and can it be developed further, what hasn’t and why and any new goals that have sprung up from living your day to day life.
So that is the final three sins – read Part 1, if you have not done so yet.
What are your big self-improvement no-no’s?
Perfect Manifesto 