Of course, age is nothing, but, a bunch of numbers. However, I am such you will agree with me that there are expectations that come with age. Everyone expect a certain degree of sensibility when dealing with people in every spare of life. It is not sufficient to just age with grace or be wrinkle free at a certain age, there are more to maturity, there are more to experiences and there are more to the title “adult”.

Below are some of the habits that are not worthy of praises. There are few suggestions on how to ditch some of them or professional help available.

Procrastination.

Procrastination is the habit of delaying or putting off things that require immediate attention. It is a struggle with self-control and the ability to predict rightly. Procrastination is a disease and it eats deeper before you realise the damage. The time would never be right if you are in the habit of putting things off. The war is between you and things you plan to do. Procrastination not only takes away precious time, it steals opportunities and damage personality.

When you keep postponing something, you lose respect and catching up with what you have lost might not be possible. Achieving any goals in life might also be very difficult. Procrastination can lead to anxiety and depression, this is when you realised how much time you have wasted and the marks people around you have attained. At this stage, you are more likely to make a bad decision due to low self-esteem and you dwell deeper in self-pity leading to a very lonely path.

The best way to ditch this habit is to set smaller realistic goals and work on accomplishing the goals set before embarking on new ones. Understanding the psychology behind your attitude in putting things off might be helpful. Seek help if you think you cannot do it alone, read motivational books and choose to be around people who will help you ditch the habit.

It might also be helpful to know that the time lost never be gained back. The truth is you are not in control of what tomorrow holds. This is the best time to make that call, to apply for that job, to say “hello” to your next-door neighbour. The time will never be right to start saving, the time will never be right to start anything you plan to. You must do it now. The time is now or never!

Lying/Dishonesty.

Lying is a habit that is difficult to ditch. It demands pure determination and self-discipline. Lying as a habit can start from mere exaggeration or low self-esteem.  There are many ways this habit can become an addiction. It can develop out of respect for people or if you are building an appearance you do not own. Lying becomes a problem if people around doubt you whenever you utter a word or find it difficult to believe what you say every time you talk. Lying not only deceives; it destroys relationships. Lying does not give much, but, takes a lot off you. A liar has to be thinking constantly of how to cover up lies and you work the nerves in your brain in futility to clone up more lies which might be blown open at any time.

When you lie, you deprive yourself of staying true to yourself. You put yourself off by not owning up to your true values. It is not okay to lie and it is not cool in any way.

Making the decision to stop lying might be hard but with determination and self-search it becomes easy with time.

*Have a secret chat with yourself and ask if all these lies worth anything.

*Review all your lies, view them as dreams and work to accomplish the dreams. For instance, If you lie that you had thousands as saving, work extra hours and build a habit and save some money.

*Taking it by the hour. Have a chat and note down how many times you lie hourly. Reward yourself with treats as you accomplish your goals. You do not need to tell anyone why you are patting yourself on the back. It is your little secrets.

*Tell yourself every morning, “Today is going to be lie-free” and work to make each day lie free.

Stinginess

This habit is the inability to part with your possession. It is also known miserliness. It is the reluctance or unwillingness to share or give or spend on yourself or people around in general. You might need to understand that being stingy does not increase wealth in the truth sense. Learning to share gives unbridle joys and unexplained satisfaction. Sharing is not extravagance, it is spreading of love. Stinginess can be ditched by supporting a local charity, giving out what you do not need and taking time off to reflect on how much you have and how few people around the world have. You can give up few hours of your time to support good causes.

Cheating

Cheating is also a habit. It is very close to lying and usually kick start by lying. It is a way of cutting corners. A bit of “eating your cake and having it”. A cheater will assure his position in a working environment or in a relationship by deceits. To cheat, you must lie and lie you must paint pictures of unreal scenario. A Cheater’s credibility in life is subject to scrutiny. It might be helpful taking the time to review the effect of your action on others. Seeking professional help might be the best for some.

Rudeness

Rudeness is a thing of the ego. Most people who are rude do so out of attention seeking. It is discourteousness and lack of manners of approach, bad manners have no place in the society. Rudeness is a display of disrespectfulness by not complying with social norms or way of behaviour of any given community.

In other to cub this weakness, you need to establish proper ways of dealing with people. Treating people how you imagined being treated is also very important. You might need to seek professional help if this has become a problem you cannot solve. Taking time out to visit people in a care home or hospital might also be beneficial.

Bullying.

Bullying is another common habit that you need to kick out if you call yourself an adult. The problem with bullying is that you might not realise you are a bully until you are told so. Bullying can take different shape or forms. Bullying can cause distress and emotional turmoil to the person you are bullying, it might affect their family life and cause health issues. Bully can happen at school, home, in a relationship or at work. If you are a bully, you are misusing your power or position. It is an act of oppressing another person or group of people. The best way to stop bullying is to imagine yourself in the other peoples’ shoes. Bullying can go on for so long that you might not know, especially if the person you are bullying never find his/her voice. To stop bullying is to treat people with respect and to respect their opinions. If you are controlling, you might be a bully.

There might be an undiagnosed problem if you enjoy bullying people as part of your everyday doings. Counselling is the best way to shake off this habit.

Aggressive behaviour.

Aggressive behaviour may make you feel irritable or restless for no reason. It may make you feel impulsive and you might find it hard to control yourself.  Accepting behaviours which are socially acceptable might be difficult for you. You may direct the aggression to yourself some times and to others often. It is an uncontrolled anger with the intent to hurt. This might come in the form of shouting, screaming, threatening or physical abuse.

Aggression does not just happen; many things can change or shape how you behave. This might be social influence such family structure and life experiences or chemical imbalances such as mental health and other neurological problems.

The best way you can deal with this easily is to seek help; help can come in form of counselling, therapy or medical.  It also good to know that people do feel hurt when you behave aggressively towards them. Hurting people knowingly or unknowingly send wrong signals and people might begin to avoid having anything to do with you.

Stress

Some people might argue that stress is not a habit and ditching it might not be possible, but, trying to not get stressed in the first instance might be more appropriate. If as an adult, you allow yourself to worry extensively about things you cannot change or you put yourself in a state of mental or emotional strain or immense tension, you are developing a habit which might lead to stress.  Stress is when you feel you are under too much pressure either mentally or emotionally and you feel you cannot cope. It is okay to feel a bit of pressure and it does help you achieve your everyday goals, like waking up early to get to work, sort the kids out, get your business ready for the day, organise an event or do something new. However, chronic stress is bad for you, this is when you feel you cannot handle anything anymore. This type of stress can disrupt the normal functioning of your system. You become vulnerable to all sort of illnesses, chronic stress can speed up your ageing process, increase your risk of heart attack, mess up your digestive system, raise your blood pressure and upset your reproductive system just to mention few.

You can check stress and eventually ditch the habit that causes stress. It is important to know that all the problems you are facing won’t just go away, you still need to keep paying your bills, there will always be 7 days in a week and the hours in a day would not increase to 25. Checking your stress is managing the way you react to a situation in your life and identifying what is likely to be the cause, it is about taking control of your life including your thoughts and emotions. You also need to do what you enjoy doing every day, by doing so, you are creating good vibes in your life. Lack of sleep can induce stress, having your beautiful restful sleep is important if you want to manage the stress. Exercising can also help in managing stress. It might be helpful to speak to your doctor who should be able to help.

Gambling

Gambling can lead to other social problems and it can become an addiction. As an adult, gambling can easily turn to compulsive behaviour and lead to financial problems. Though, gambling might be fun, but, once you realised that you cannot do without gambling if becomes a problem. Gambling does not just affect you alone, it affects your loved ones and it put a lot of strain your relationship. If you steal, lie, cheat to gamble you need to seek help.  Finding something to occupy your time might help, reducing time spent with people that gamble might also help. Help is available and easily accessible, please seek help.

Gossiping

Idle talk about private affairs of others is what we do not usually think of, but, it is a habit to kick. Research has shown that people gossip for many reasons few of these are boredom, envy, attention, superiority, jealousy or anger.

I am very sure that you hate people talking about you, so tell me, why do you go about talking about people?

To ditch this habit, you need to really try and concentrate on developing yourself. Make good use of your time. Spend less time looking for people’s fault and try keeping your thought to yourself.