Ever feel like you’re running on a treadmill that’s stuck on the same speed while everyone else is sprinting past you on the track?
For the longest time, that was me. I’d watch friends get promotions, launch successful side hustles, or just seem to have their lives together while I felt stuck in the same spot. The worst part? I was working my ass off. Reading all the right books. Putting in the hours. But somehow, the needle wasn’t moving.
It wasn’t until I sold my first startup at twenty-seven and then spectacularly crashed my second one eighteen months later that I finally understood what was holding me back. The failure forced me to take a hard look at my patterns, and what I discovered shocked me. I wasn’t just missing good habits—I was actively cultivating bad ones that successful people had already ditched.
Here are the six habits I had to eliminate before I could finally start making real progress.
1. Constantly comparing myself to everyone else
Remember when Instagram was just photos of your friend’s lunch? Now it’s a highlight reel of everyone’s best moments, and I was addicted to scrolling through it like it was my job.
Every morning, I’d wake up and immediately check social media. By the time I got out of bed, I’d already convinced myself that I was behind. Someone younger had raised more funding. Someone with less experience got the promotion I wanted. Someone, somewhere, was doing better than me.
Research from the University of Pennsylvania actually found that limiting social media use to 30 minutes per day leads to significant reductions in loneliness and depression after just three weeks. But beyond the mental health impact, this constant comparison was killing my productivity.
When you’re always looking sideways, you can’t move forward. I’d spend hours crafting the perfect LinkedIn post instead of actually working on my business. I’d choose projects based on how impressive they’d sound at parties rather than what would actually move me toward my goals.
The successful people I know now? They’re too busy executing to worry about what everyone else is doing. They check in on competitors strategically, not compulsively. They use social media as a tool, not a scoreboard.
2. Saying yes to everything
Want to know how I ended up working on three different “game-changing” projects while my actual business was failing? I couldn’t say no to anything that sounded remotely interesting.
Coffee chat with someone’s cousin who has a “billion-dollar idea”? Sure! Join a new networking group that meets every Tuesday at 6 AM? Why not! Help a friend with their website even though I hadn’t coded in years? Absolutely!
I thought being busy meant being productive. Turns out, I was just scattered.
Psychology researchers call this “priority dilution”—when urgent but unimportant tasks push out the work that actually matters. And here’s the kicker: saying yes to everything doesn’t make you generous or ambitious. It makes you ineffective.
The most successful people I’ve met are ruthless with their time. They know that every yes is actually a no to something else. When my second startup was failing, I was speaking at conferences about entrepreneurship instead of fixing the fundamental problems in my business. The irony wasn’t lost on me later.
3. Waiting for the “perfect moment” to start
I spent three years—three years!—planning my first business before I actually launched anything. I needed the perfect business plan. The perfect logo. The perfect amount of savings. The perfect market conditions.
You know what happened when I finally launched? Everything I’d planned was wrong anyway. My target market didn’t want what I’d built. The features I’d obsessed over didn’t matter. The logo I’d paid a designer to revise seventeen times? Nobody cared.
Meanwhile, I watched people with half my experience launch imperfect products and iterate their way to success. They were learning from real customers while I was still tweaking my theoretical projections.
Psychologists have a term for this: “analysis paralysis.” It’s when overthinking prevents you from taking action. And it’s incredibly common among smart, ambitious people who’ve been trained to have all the answers before raising their hand.
The truth that took me way too long to learn? There’s no perfect moment. Successful people know that done is better than perfect, and that real learning happens in the field, not in the planning phase.
4. Treating learning like accomplishment
At one point, I had over 200 business and self-development books on my shelf. I could quote Tim Ferriss, discuss the finer points of “Atomic Habits,” and debate different productivity systems for hours.
But here’s what I realized after my second startup failed: I was using learning as a sophisticated form of procrastination. Reading about success felt productive, but it wasn’t actually moving me forward. It was comfortable. Safe. And ultimately, useless without action.
I’ve mentioned this before, but consuming personal development content had become my way of avoiding the messier, scarier work of actual change. It’s easier to read about cold calling than to pick up the phone. It’s more comfortable to study leadership than to have difficult conversations with your team.
Successful people read too, but they treat knowledge as a tool, not a trophy. They learn something, apply it immediately, and move on. They don’t need to read every book on a topic before taking the first step.
5. Making everything a competition
Growing up, I was that kid who turned everything into a contest. Who could finish their homework fastest? Who got the highest grade? Who had the best internship?
That competitive drive served me well initially. It pushed me to start my first company at twenty-three. It helped me hustle my way to that first acquisition. But it also made me a terrible collaborator and an even worse leader.
I was so focused on winning that I missed countless opportunities to learn from people who could have helped me. When my second startup was struggling, I was too proud to ask for advice because admitting weakness felt like losing. I’d rather figure it out myself than admit someone else might know better.
The research on this is clear: excessive competition increases stress, reduces creativity, and damages relationships. A study from the University of California found that cooperation, not competition, is actually what drives innovation in most successful companies.
The shift I had to make was huge: from seeing business as a zero-sum game to understanding that someone else’s success didn’t diminish my own. The most successful people I know now are incredibly generous with their knowledge and connections. They’ve learned that helping others succeed often accelerates their own growth.
6. Believing discipline meant never taking breaks
For years, my routine was simple: work until you can’t anymore, sleep for a few hours, repeat. Weekends were for catching up. Vacations were for working without meetings. Exercise was a luxury I couldn’t afford.
I wore exhaustion like a badge of honor. If someone mentioned they were tired, I was more tired. If they worked late, I worked later. I thought this was what discipline looked like.
Then burnout hit me like a freight train. Not the “I need a long weekend” kind of burnout, but the “I can’t get out of bed or make simple decisions” kind. My productivity crashed. My creativity disappeared. My second startup’s failure was partly due to the terrible decisions I made while running on fumes.
Science backs this up overwhelmingly. Stanford research shows that productivity per hour declines sharply when the workweek exceeds 50 hours. The American Psychological Association found that chronic stress and burnout significantly impair cognitive function and decision-making.
Truly disciplined people understand that rest isn’t a reward for working hard—it’s a requirement for working well. They protect their sleep, schedule breaks, and understand that sustainability beats intensity every single time.
The bottom line
Finally eliminating these habits didn’t happen overnight. It took the harsh reality of failure to make me examine what wasn’t working. But once I started letting go of these patterns, everything changed.
The interesting thing? None of these habits seemed obviously bad at the time. They all came from good intentions—ambition, dedication, a desire to improve. But good intentions don’t always lead to good outcomes.
If you’re feeling stuck despite working hard, maybe it’s time to look at what you need to stop doing rather than what you need to start. Sometimes the path to success isn’t about adding more—it’s about clearing away what’s blocking your way.
What habit do you need to eliminate?
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