Life is precious, and if you are not careful, you can easily screw up big time. All it takes is a simple turn in the wrong direction, and there goes your future. It is easy to screw mess up in life, and most people screw up their own lives due to engaging in bad habits, making bad decisions or emotionally driven decisions, and lack of knowledge.
Lack of discipline, procrastination, avoiding risks, lack of goals, and self-limiting beliefs are other reasons people screw up their lives. Trust me, I know people who screwed up their lives, and if you think you are immune, you are wrong. Screwing up in life has nothing to do with your level of education, your skin color, where you come from, religion, etc.
Anyone can screw up in life. The good news is that there are ways to avoid messing up your life, and this article will go over my top 10 tips to not fu*k up everything you touch.
Without further ado, let’s get started.
1. Lack of knowledge and making emotionally driven decisions
I will kick off the list with lack of knowledge and making emotionally driven decisions as the most significant reasons people screw up their lives.
A wise man once said that information is power. I found that to be true. Most people who screw up their lives are usually those who lack knowledge. Lack of understanding leads to making bad decisions.
Typically, there are two types of decisions. Factor-based decisions and emotions-based decisions.
- Fact-based decisions. These decisions are backed by factors and proof. The more evidence you have backing your choices, the more accurate it will be.
- Emotion-based decisions. These decisions tend to be biased toward the way we feel. In other words, you are not looking at facts because your judgment is clouded. Think of a person who has a $300,000 budget to buy a house who ends up buying a $350,000 home because they like the yard and think their pet dog will love playing in the yard.
People who tend to screw up their lives are those who lack education/information/knowledge or those who get emotional and put all facts aside. I am sure you know someone who took $80k in car loans to buy a car, and they are driving the same car where they make $20/hr.
Emotionally driven decisions always lead to disappointments and regrets. Sometimes, making emotional decisions destroys lives. If you want not to screw up your life, find a balance between facts and emotions when making decisions. Favoring emotions too much means you will make bad decisions that will mess up your life while ignoring emotions will make you like a robot.
2. Surrounding yourself with the wrong people
A wise man once said, ” You are the average of the people you hang out with”.
Although you might not want to mess up your life, that does not mean others won’t. We are social creatures and often pick up behavior and habits from the people we surround ourselves with.
In other words, we want to belong in the pack. This is why the people you hang out with greatly influence your habits and personality.
Not long ago, I saw a video of a chick born with ducklings. When the ducklings set out to swim, the chick followed them into the water. Eventually, once the ducks matured, the same chicken followed them to swim in the water. The chicken picked up those habits because it belonged in the same pack.
If you hang out with drug dealers, you will eventually become one. If you hang out with low-achieving individuals, you will achieve nothing. And indeed, if you surround yourself with people who screwed up their lives, yours will screw up yours as well.
To not screw up your life, watch out who you spend time with. Only surround yourself with people who are better than you in the area you want to develop. These people will encourage you to grow and become a better version of yourself.
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3. Avoiding risks
I think this is one of the biggest reasons people screw up their lives. Humans and other living beings are drawn into their comfort zones by default. This means that taking risks makes you uncomfortable, and your subconscious mind does not want that. That is why your subconscious mind always encourages you to stay where you are, play it safe, and avoid risk at all costs.
The downside is that you cannot grow in your comfort zone. Think of working in the same job for 30 years, using the same software, answering the same questions the same way, without any sign of change or improvements. You would be comfortable and probably complete your tasks while sleeping, but your brain would not grow. You would not improve as a person in such a conditions. Your decision-making abilities will decline.
When you are in your comfort zone, you do things the same way and approach issues with the same mentality. More importantly, you don’t get to think outside the box. In other words, you are like a robot with never-updated software. I consider this a slow way to fry your brain and screw up your life unconsciously.
There is no growth in playing it safe.
4. Blaming everyone for your mistakes
Are you one of those who blame the world for their miserable lives? Lack of accountability is one of the biggest reasons you can easily screw up your life without even knowing it. A positive life comes from improving your habits and taking responsibility for your mistakes. You cannot change without being responsible for and owning up to your wrongdoings. If you cannot change and improve, you cannot grow.
Eventually, you will live an average life, constantly feeling miserable. In other words, your life will deteriorate daily due to your lack of ownership, and you will start thinking that others are to blame for your misfortune.
A good example is being late to work and using traffic as an excuse. Guess what? You could have made it on time if you had woken up early.
The best way to not screw up your life is to understand that your mistakes are yours and you should be the one correcting them. Everything in your life is your responsibility. If anyone is to change and improve the conditions of your life, it is you. Only you can change and improve your life.
5. Addiction problems
Addiction is one of those things that can mess up your entire life as you know it. Everyone has some form of addiction. When we talk about addiction, most people think about sex, alcohol, inappropriate movies, drugs, etc. But there are many forms of addictions, and they can all screw up your life if you are not careful.
It is said that you are addicted when you have an intense desire and urge to engage in a particular activity or behavior. For example, eating too much ice cream and not being able to stop yourself or control your urges is an addiction. Would eating too much ice cream screw up your life? Heck yeah. Wait until you are 500 lbs and see how much your life would have been messed up. Eating too much ice cream can negatively impact your health and alter your social life. The result is nothing other than a body that cannot handle itself with a broken mind and a soul yearning for saving.
This is similar to any addiction. To keep your sanity and avoid screwing up your life, do not be addicted to anything. How do we prevent addiction? The simplest way to do it is to avoid anything that can screw up your mind, avoid lousy influence, and overdoing anything.
Do you want to eat sweets? That’s fine. Don’t overdo it. Only eat your portion. Don’t eat a five-year-old’s food in one month.
The next time someone hands you a cigarette and asks you to try it, tell them you have a life to protect. Don’t fall for these ideas of looking or feeling cool. You are cool only when you can control your mind and determine the direction of your life. Being able to say no, even if everyone has agreed, is powerful!
6. Marrying/dating the wrong person
Similarly to the people you surround yourself with, marrying the wrong person will definitely mess up your life. The people you engage with romantically can alter your life forever. Bad relationships lead to miserable endings and sometimes death.
While you cannot entirely avoid bad marriages and negative relationships, there are precautions you can take to weed out people with negative habits and bad intentions. Here are some tips to not screw up your life due to bad relationships.
- Ask yourself why you are in that relationship
- Know the person you are dating/marrying before committing to long-term
- Don’t marry anyone simply because of family or external influences
- If both of you are not committed, don’t go ahead with it
- Don’t fall for the love-is-blind crap
- If the other person has habits you don’t like, it is a sign to take a detour.
- Never assume you can change someone. Only they can change themselves; if they have not already, it is a sign they will never change.
7. Procrastination
If anything is holding millions of people back, it is procrastination. Pushing everything later can cost you your life and your future as you know it. Trust me. Screwing your life does not take much. And it all starts with simple habits such as delaying things because you don’t want to act or think they are unimportant.
Even simple habits, such as delaying doing dishes, can lead to much larger issues in the future. People start procrastinating on small things that they think will not damage them and find themselves procrastinating on projects that cost them millions of dollars. It all starts small.
Once your mind is programmed not to take action when you should, it eventually becomes easier to push important projects aside. You start delaying your decisions, compromising actions and decisions that should not be compromised. Soon or later, you start losing the direction in your life, and everything starts going against you. That is when you know you screwed up big time.
How do you overcome procrastination?
Yes, procrastination will negatively impact your life. But, it does not mean it is the end of the world. Even if your life might somehow be screwed up due to procrastination, you can still take action and change your life for good.
Here are tips to overcome procrastination and avoid screwing up your life.
- Always set realistic goals because they are more manageable and achievable.
- Prioritize tasks based on their importance to ensure they are not missed and minimize the costs of missing any. You can quickly achieve this by making a to-do list and reviewing it daily.
- Focus on a growth mindset, push yourself to improve, and strive for excellence.
- Reward yourself whenever you accomplish significant goals. Also, always hold yourself accountable if you do not achieve your goals. Don’t just blame others and call it good.
- Start seeing problems and challenges as a chance to grow, make a difference, and achieve greatness.
- Stay positive, especially when dealing with complex issues. Most people procrastinate because they don’t know where to begin.
- Always start, even if you don’t have all the necessary pieces lined up to solve a problem. As the saying goes, you need to start somewhere.
8. Self-limiting beliefs
If you feel like you are not cut for it and always running away from problems, then you know the reason your life is screwed up. The lack of self-confidence creates a mental barrier that prevents you from achieving greatness. You cannot stay positive and disciplined long enough when you only think about how you are a loser. More importantly, you cannot set goals, push yourself to the limit, and thrive for success if you only think about your weaknesses.
Everything starts in your mind, and whatever you think about, you become. You will never achieve it if you feel you cannot. That is, self-limiting beliefs should be avoided at all costs never to mess up your life. Never think that you cannot do it. Always treat yourself as capable, strong, and smart enough to achieve anything. Promising yourself that you are able is the starting point to achieving anything.
Related: 4 reasons why success takes time all the time
9. Lack of disciple
Most people mess up their lives daily simply because they lack discipline. Simply put, discipline is the ability to do the necessary thing even if you don’t want to. Your ability to stay up all night working on a problem, to go to the gym when everyone is sleeping, to stay home and work on your project when everyone is partying, etc., is discipline.
When was the last time you made yourself do the necessary thing? Mediocre performances and life struggles are usually associated with a lack of discipline. If your life is screwed up, it is more likely that you don’t have what it takes to improve your life. Are you struggling with your finances, self-inflicted health issues, low performance, etc.? If so, it is because you don’t have the discipline to do what it takes to change your life.
You must do what it takes to improve your life, no matter the cost. If you don’t train yourself to have a strong mindset and push harder than ever, you will always struggle with low performance, emotional instabilities, and lack of life satisfaction.
10. Not setting up goals.
People without goals lack direction in their lives. You know these people because they always complain about how they don’t have something to do, how everyone hates them, and how they are always bored. Goals give your life meaning and the desire to do great things. As the saying goes, you cannot hit a target you cannot see.
If you are always confused and feel like your life is screwed up or nothing seems to work for you, it is because you lack goals. To improve your life and avoid screwing up your life, take the time to establish goals. Start by listing everything you want to achieve and narrow the list down to the most important ones. For example, some people have retirement saving goals, college saving goals, financial independence, travel, health, relationship goals, etc.
What do you want to accomplish in your life? What are the things that matter the most in your life? Who do you want to be tomorrow, next month, year, or next ten years? Take an inventory of yourself and decide what matters the most. You can also use the SMART goal-setting strategies to avoid setting up meaningless or unrealistic goals. If you are hanging out with people without goals or direction in their lives, cut them loose to not screw up your life like theirs.
11. Not aiming higher than you are capable of
Nelson Mandela once said, “There is no passion to be found in playing small—in settling for a life that is less than what you are capable of living.”
Living a life that is less than what you are capable of is the foundation of mediocre performance and the root cause of screwing your life. When you are performing below average, your results are also below average. That also means you are falling behind in life.
If you look around in your circle and are not impressed, you are in the wrong circle. More importantly, if you are the most intelligent person in a room, you are in the wrong room. This means that you need to belong with people who are more thoughtful and better than you and who encourage you to improve and grow.
You must also set big goals and push yourself to the limit. It is better to set a challenging goal and not achieve it than to set an easy goal and achieve it. There is no growth in playing small.
12. Having too much desire for the things you don’t have
Another big reason people screew up their lives is the desire to want more than they have the capacity for. People desire to buy expensive cars, live in big houses, wear designer clothes, etc. Have you seen people who go into debt to impress their neighbors?
Desiring things you don’t have the capacity for leads to taking out expensive loans and remaining in a debt cycle. Once banks take away all your income and you have nothing left to invest in your future, even if you are working 15 hours daily, you know you have fu*ked up in life. Do not desire more than you can afford. Always live below your means.
