13 Bad Habits You Must Break To Be Happier in 2025

The ultimate goal of every human is to be happy, and a lot of things impede our happiness. Sometimes, it could be due to unproductivity, failure and much more.

Despite hoping for things to work in our favour, we often play a role in making that impossible.

What you do and how you do them matters a lot in life. This now, is where bad habits come into the picture. How do they manage harm us greatly?

What Are Bad Habits?

Bad habits are attitudes and things we do constantly that cause us to lose ourselves by affecting our personal and work life. When we repeatedly do things we shouldn’t, we hurt ourselves deeply.

The best step to take is to look within yourself with an intent of righting all the wrongs that barricade your smiles and productivity. 

Not one person can confidently say he has no bad habit. We all do, and it impairs our success. Although we may not be able to totally break all of them, we can reduce and control them to the barest minimum.

To improve the quality of our existence, we need to work on ourselves to the fullest. Thus, there is a need to look deep and carefully pick out all bad habits that corrupt our minds and deter positivity.

Why Do You Need To Break Your Bad Habits?

Once you grow positively, You’ll understand that the constant sadness you feel is a progression of the bad habits that polluted your mind and made you see happiness as fantasy.

Whether you did everything consciously or unconsciously; the toxicity evolved and needs to be wiped out totally.

As you work towards becoming a better and happier person, understand that these bad habits are the little things you do every day.

Awful habits are possible to break but it takes determination to get rid of them. You need to work on your reformation without worrying about situations or what other people in your life have to say. So long it’s for the best, do it without relenting.

Virtually every human have had a fair share of toxicity, the best you can do is stop acting on them once you realise your shortcomings.

To help you begin a journey I’ve started, let’s dig deeper into 13 list of bad habits you need to drop for a happier life this year. This post is a head-start to beginning a new life journey, a happier you and a positive mindset.

13 Bad Habits to Break For a Happier and Meaningful Life

To achieve happiness, there are so many things we need to check and balance. Here are some bad habits to drop to achieve your greater goal, happiness.

The Habit Of Complaining

As humans, we believe and use complains to express disgust and unhappiness. It’s easy to grumble about things that don’t favour us, but it’s hard to find the good in them.

No matter how we sugarcoat the need to complain, whining about things has never helped a situation or your mood.

You fix nothing when you complain, but then, you place yourself in a spot that pushes you deeper into negativity. Try to picture the positives in any unfavourable circumstance you face.

If you can fix an awful situation you won’t complain; If you can’t resolve it, don’t complain. Look on the brighter side of life, and watch how happier and less stressed you’ll become.

Not complaining doesn’t mean you are accepting a situation. It means that you are letting go of what you have no power over and moving on for a better experience.

When you find yourself in situations that trigger the desire to complain, remind yourself of your beautiful mental health and how complaining solves nothing.

The old me had always been a victim of constantly complaining about things I couldn’t change. Discovering the positivity of not going back and forth over uncertainties made me a happier me and stripped me off the ‘Lamentator’ title.

Employ mantras and positive affirmations; they’ll help you be at peace with yourself when situations turn sour beyond your control. These positive affirmations may help you get better with yourself;

• “I release complaints and embrace gratitude.”
• “I choose positivity over complaining in every situation.”
• “My words create my reality, so I speak only of solutions and gratitude.”
• “I let go of complaining and focus on the positive aspects of my life.”
• “Each challenge is an opportunity for growth, not a reason to complain.”
• “I am in control of my thoughts, and I choose to build a positive mindset.”
• “Complaining serves no purpose; I choose to find solutions instead.”
• “I attract positivity by letting go of the need to complain.”
• “I release the habit of complaining and welcome a mindset of appreciation.”
• “My words shape my reality, and I choose to express positivity and gratitude.”

Comparing Yourself To Others

If not for anything, for your sanity, stop comparing yourself to others.

The attitude of comparing yourself to another clears the path for low self-esteem, a feeling of not being worthy.

Imagine not having to picture your life as someone else; you’ll surely have more time to work positively on yourself.

When you feel things aren’t right with you, rather than beat yourself up for not being like others, identify possible positive changes that will improve your personality and overall well-being.

The internet hasn’t really helped people see a better version of themselves because every day they’re bombarded to supposedly perfect counterparts. There are too many fake people surviving on the praises they enjoy from social media fans.

Social media lies are one among many others that you should never use to judge your growth and performance. Do not compare your existence to that of an Instagram model or influencer.

Sometimes in our habits of comparing ourselves to others, we fail to realise that no one is ever perfect. People can stay internet perfect, but nobody has it all.

There are challenges, and everyone has a fair share of this unwanted gift. Rather than worry yourself over how miserable life is for you and not others, work on yourself. Halt the habit of feeling insecure and dissatisfied with your life.

If I hadn’t cracked the code of not comparing myself to someone I felt was better than me, I’d still be lurking in the dark in my battle with low self-esteem. When you stop seeing yourself as. not doing better than someone else, you’ll experience a boost in confidence and self-love.

Over perfectionism

Perfectionism is a personality trait characterised by an extreme desire to strive for flawlessness and setting high-performance standards, accompanied by critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others’ evaluations.

A perfectionist lays great emphasis on the standard of performance, and expects too much from others. To a perfectionist, anything below perfect is unsatisfactory; any standard short of perfection is unacceptable.

It’s one thing to crave perfection and another to force it. Imagine having to sit on a task because it hasn’t measured up to your standard. You’ll stay in one spot, no progression, just you trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.

I’ve had a significant struggle with perfecting things and an attitude of expecting too much from people. I assumed that everyone needed to know everything I knew.

I undermined my ability and felt my attempts aren’t worthy of giving me desirable results. Bottom line, perfectionism gave rise to my procrastination habit. I’ve had to pause a lot to fix things I never fixed; its offence was not being good enough.

• You are a perfectionist if every result you’ve attained is only good to others.
• Your best efforts are appreciated by everyone else but you.
• You make futile your attempts and keep digging deep to fix the unfixable that never needed a retouch.

Rather than stay in one project, trying to rebuild things, appreciate the good you’ve done and progress to the next task. Perfectionism is never the same as striving to be your best.

The major way to overcome this bad habit is to realise that no one is perfect. First, understand that the world itself is imperfect, and no one can achieve perfection no matter how hard they try. The perfection you see on the internet isn’t factual. Don’t put yourself under unnecessary pressure.

Procrastinating; Waiting for last minute

No one can ever say they don’t struggle with procrastination. The attitude of abandoning essential tasks for less trivial things or nothing is a challenge of productivity. To grow in life, you must learn to beat procrastination to its barest minimum.

The crazy truth about procrastinating is the fact that you realise the negative consequences but wallow in the habit with an excuse of not being able to help it.

You know you’re procrastinating, you feel bad about it but do absolutely nothing to change it. That’s how unpleasant and draining procrastination can be.

Recent studies have shown that people regret more the things they haven’t done than the things they have done. Also, feelings of regret and guilt resulting from missed opportunities tend to stay with people much longer.

Procrastination.com 

One of the easiest way to overcome procrastination is to be deliberate; take action when you have to and not when you feel like. Inculcate the habit of doing things at the right time and stop waiting for later that never comes. “It’s a gradual process, but we can do it!”

Overloading Yourself With Information

Staying informed is an inevitable quality. The more informed you are, the more knowledgeable you become. Information helps you stay ahead. While this is a good trait, it becomes a threat when all you do is engulf more and more without delivering what you know. There’s a term for this, information overload.

Information overload occurs when you convince yourself that you need to be on a continual lookout for new information to be able to accomplish anything in life.

In your hunger for knowledge, you’ll consume way too much information with little or no action. You may discover that you’ve had no time to deliver what you know because you’ve only been consuming!

At some point, all you’ve engulfed becomes a weapon of distraction. You know too much yet can’t express all you know because your brain is jammed up. You’re processing too much at the same time and can’t tell which version of your knowledge makes more sense than the other.

Unloading the known becomes a problem and you grow sick of what you know. It’s disheartening, but we are mostly all victims of our desires to learn more.

The amount of epic content on the Internet makes almost possible for us to digest every and anything with a desire for more. The same discourse has several other versions that you’ll be interested in knowing (It won’t hurt, we say, but it does!).

The only thing we can do to stop this bad habit is to have self-control and filter the information we choose to take in.

Living in the Past

Sometimes, our pasts, things we’ve done, said or made others do come haunting. Feeling bad about your past actions shows clearly that you’ve realised your mistakes, but making it a silent killer that keeps haunting you with no space for happiness, is unfair to you.

The thought of one’s past life, activities or experiences seems inevitable but letting go isn’t. It might look like a hard nut to crack, but the minute you stop getting ruled by thoughts of the past, you will become happier and healthier. By giving yourself a chance to make changes, you can set things right.

To let go of the past, realise that you cannot change what has happened or get back the time you’ve lost. The only thing you can do is work towards a better future and avoid losing more time.

Mantras and positive affirmations can help you in your fight against the past. Say them every time you feel the need to lurk over your mistakes. Try these simple affirmations

• “I release the past and embrace the present moment.”
• “Every day is a new opportunity for growth and positivity.”
• “I let go of what I cannot change and focus on what I can control.”
• “My future is shaped by my actions today, not by my past.”
• “I am free from the burdens of yesterday; today is a fresh start.”
• “I choose to learn from the past, but I no longer let it define me.”
• “My journey forward is more important than dwelling on what’s behind.”
• “I release the grip of the past and welcome the possibilities of the present.”
• “I am the architect of my own future, and I choose to build a positive one.”
• “Each moment is an opportunity to create a better future for myself.”

Self Starvation and Dehydration

You would agree with me that getting starved is the one of the worst things to happen to anyone.

Why punish yourself to such extent?

Sometimes, we starve ourselves of food or water due to either laziness, procrastination or carelessness. Give yourself a break and refuel. You’ll perform better if you satisfy your hunger and quench your thirst.

It’s easier to forget your meal time if you work from home. to help yourself in in such situations, you can normalize stocking your home with snacks and foodstuff. With snacks, you can easily eat while you work or prepare a more preferable food. Give yourself a treat everyday, you deserve it!

Keeping Bad company

Good friends are irreplaceable and generally needed, but what happens when you find yourself surrounded with the opposite?

• You always get into trouble
• Start a dirty habit
• Lose good friends
• Lose yourself entirely

By keeping bad company, you spend time with people who are not morally good.

Most teens and young adults tend to deal with lifestyles inculcated in them by the company they keep. When you spend so much time with someone who negatively impacts you, you tend to behave like them or worse, to your detriment.

Good friends and colleagues are those who want you to accomplish incredible things. They help empower and push you to be better.

There are different kinds of people you shouldn’t keep close if you want to be happy with yourself. Some of such persons include;

• Liars
• Promise breakers
• People who play judge
• Manipulators
• People who don’t appreciate efforts 
• Envious people
• Greedy and Selfish people
• People who do not forgive
• People who act like Pests
• Gossips, among many othere.

Stay away from these kind of people. They add no values to your life but drain you. People who do not encourage or help you see the brighter side of life aren’t worth keeping close unless you’re out to help them get better.

When you mingle with the right kind of people, you’ll experience a boost in happiness, peace of mind and your overall well-being.

People pleaser; displeasing yourself to please others

Imagine sacrificing your happiness so the next person can stay happy?

People applaud this attitude, but do they ever think of the individual’s well-being?

If you’ve had to continuously displease yourself to feed the other person’s ego, have a rethink and put yourself ahead of such people.

No matter how hard you try, you can not please everyone. Whether you learn this the hard way or not, understand that your best will never be good enough for some people.

Learn the art of doing your best and not overworking your soul to look good to a crowd that likely doesn’t care! They don’t put food on your table, but you want their love so bad. It’s understandable, but not healthy and you need to stop for your mental well-being.

Unless you have kids or helpless people that can do little for themselves, you do not deserve to stay unhappy for others. Take a break, refuel your mental health and call it a quit if need be.

Addicted To your devices

Technically, technology brought us channels of distractions we love and hate. You are able to access this beautiful blog post because you have either a phone, tablet, PC or a laptop. But then, our devices have caused us to have unhealthy daily routines that affect our everyday productivity.

The first and last thing you likely do everyday is to visit your phone. An extremely bad habit to break for health and productivity sake.

Some distractions our devices aid are discussed on their own below.

Social Media Distractions

Now,we have several social media platforms and forums filled with interesting discussions going on. Whilst these platforms are great essentials for our businesses, we tend to forget our purpose of visitation and get carried away by frivolous activities.

Excessive Gaming

Games have also grown from being just leisure activities to time wasters. Some people don’t mind spending half their day trying to finish a stage.

Unless you make money from gaming, know when to stop and get back to work. You could get addicted to gaming and know it’s ruining you. Addictions are difficult to break, but you have to if this is you.

Gambling

Yes, there are other ways to gamble, but you’d agree with me that our devices have made everything easy. Sports betting, casino, and more are milking people dry!

Gambling is like one of the most addictive and destructive habits you need to break if you’ve been engulfed by its evils.

Gambling causes people to lose life savings, houses and even their sanity due to extreme depression. Consider your well-being and strive to break this bad habit.

The best way to break the bad habit of gambling is to make up your mind to quit then register with a good therapist who will help you through re-evaluating your life for the better.

Conclusion

Now that you are working towards fixing your life up to make things work better for you, it’s important that you truly mean your intentions.

It takes dedication to break bad habits and overcome the challenges associated with your great decision.

This post may not contain other habits you’re trying to break, but it sure does share your challenges.

Remember that your big breakthrough begins with you! Congratulations to us as we win this battle.