You may have no idea but there are career habits that can hinder your professional progress. They can be tiny things that you may not pay attention to and before you know it, they are eating deep into your career and crippling your progress. The purpose of identifying these habits is to tackle them and work towards imbibing more positive habits and letting the bad ones go. The only way you can fight the habits is by recognizing them and that’s the first step.

What are the dangers of unhealthy career habits?

Just like unhealthy foods are bad and not beneficial to the body, unhealthy career habits are also detrimental to your professional career. The thing about ignoring these habits is that the havoc caused by them does not start to manifest immediately. Over time, when you have spent so much time in your career, you start to see the consequences of your actions which include the following:

Stagnancy

Everyone loves to experience a significant level of growth in their career journey but engaging in unhealthy habits can cause a stunt or pause on the journey making it difficult to advance or move to the next stage. Also, this means that you may not be able to enjoy opportunities or make new decisions regarding your career.

Bad Reputation

If you continuously engage in unhealthy habits and people know you for this, it may earn you a bad reputation and can make it difficult for you to get clients or interact with other professionals. No one will trust you and it is hard quite hard to mend a damaged reputation.

Strained Relationship

No one wants to have anything to do with someone who has unhealthy habits for fear that they may rub off on them. Technically, this means little or no collaboration or teamwork which can affect your overall productivity.

Poor skill development

Good habits will help you learn and update your skills. Bad habits on the other hand may cause you to be unconcerned, nonchalant, and procrastinate so much that you don’t make vital moves to take your skills to the best level there is.

What are these unhealthy career habits?

It is possible to engage in unhealthy career habits and not know that they are really unhealthy. To be certain of what these habits look like, here are a number of them as it is important that they stay far away from your career:

Procrastination

This is a very common unhealthy habit which means that you are delaying whatever you are supposed to do now till another time. Considering that you may have tasks that are to be attended to promptly you’re looking to them at a later time. Procrastination reveals a thing which is your inability to manage your time; in the end, you are trying to achieve so much in just a little time and there is a tendency that you may even burn out. Also, if you have to work with a deadline, anxiety may set in because you are trying to rush the work and turn it in. However, the result of this is poor quality work or performance which may dent your reputation.

Overworking

While anyone can be caught overworking, it is peculiar to certain people who seem to be the head of a team or organization. Even when the closing time says 5 p.m., they still stay back to get one or two things fixed and eventually, they are spending extra hours working. If you work outside of your closing hours such that you spend the entire day glued to the screen, responding to emails, and brainstorming strategies, you are most likely to burn out quickly and break down. This may even mean that you have to take a break and leave some tasks undone.

Being defensive when it comes to receiving feedback

Some people flair up and get all defensive whenever they get feedback and it is important to note that this is detrimental to your profession. It can impede your career growth, and damage the relationship that you have built over time with your colleagues, managers, and boss. The essence of feedback is for you to identify areas of a project or task that need adjustment and more strategy. In the end, it only makes your job better. But, if you refuse to engage feedback, your work remains as it is and eventually will lack flavor. In the long run, this will be the trend for most of the tasks carried out by you.

Lateness

Lateness can hurt your career as punctuality is seen as a sign of professionalism and reliability. If you have a bad habit of arriving places later than usual, you may miss opportunities, important meetings, deadlines, and maybe a chance to shoot your shot at the company during a meeting. Also, being late to events can cause a dent in productivity because workflow will most likely be disrupted. You may even encounter too much stress while trying to catch up using the little time left to meet up with that particular event.

Overstaying a job that does not let you grow

You don’t have to love a job so much that you stay there even when it no longer contributes to your professional growth. From time to time, you need to address your career goals and see if it aligns with your current position. If it doesn’t, then you may have to start making plans to leave by searching and applying for new jobs. Explore new career opportunities that can help you to get to your destination and reach your full potential. Don’t be too comfortable; make strategic moves whenever you feel that the time is right.

The constant feeling that you are not doing enough

Imposter syndrome may sometimes show up, it is left to you to decide what to do with it. Do you want to accommodate it? Or would you rather be confident that you’ve got the skills, you are not a fraud and you are doing excellent? Imposter syndrome can stay as long as you harbor it and most of the time, it causes you to dim your light, not shining the exact way you are supposed to. Also, it can fuel stagnation, causing you to constantly worry about what you are not doing right when in the real sense, you are putting in your best.

Your career is an important aspect of your entire life and it only thrives on what is being fed to it. Don’t entertain or indulge in bad habits that would eat deep into your career, causing it to be damaged. Assess yourself from time to time, identify what you are not doing right, and tackle all bad habits before they become irredeemable.