Steemit engagement challenge s3w4- Three things I would change about myself and Three things I’d keep doing by @yuceetoria

I appreciate @steemindia for this beautiful topic they have chosen for this week's contest.

Gaining clarity is a step towards achieving success and attains the heights we desire, and to achieve these things, there are things that one has to let go and also keep. In today's blog post, I will be writing about the 3 habits I would like to stop and also continue.

3 habits I will like to stop

Procrastination: the killer of dreams.

Procrastination has always been one habit I am still fighting to stop, which is kind of hard with social media always present to distract us. I am trying to create content for my blog and the next thing, a notification pops up on my screen and before I know it, I am scrolling up through my instagram, WhatsApp and linkedin feeds. The thing is, I might deceive myself and say it is going to be only 30 minutes but when I check the time 3-4 hours have gone. At this point, I am tired and restless, will either forget my work or extend it to another time.
One bad thing about procrastination is that it will always give you excuses why you should not work that moment. It is at that point that you will hear voices
‘Just watch one more videos, you can still finish up’
‘I can’t kill myself na, tomorrow I will finish up. Tomorrow will come, you will still say next tomorrow and before you know it, the week has caught up with you.
‘Are you not tired from the too much work? Play one game and get back to work’.

####Seeking validation:

I have fought with low self esteem for a long time, it affected my ability to believe that I can actually do something and it will come out okay. So with this battle, comes the need for validation, my need for it was bad. I needed other people’s approval before I can go ahead with something else. This is a bad habit because it limited me from fully achieving my goals.
I needed to be clapped for at all times, low self esteem in a way turns one to narcissists, you must be looked at and you must be clapped for. Seeking for validation also held me back on steemit, when I first joined and the upvotes were not forth coming, the mindset that what I am doing might not be enough comes up. Seeking for validations makes you not believe in yourself no matter what anyone says.

Envy:

Envy is a bad thing that eats deeper in a man’s soul. I graduated from secondary school in 2013, before then, my friends and I will talk about all the things we wanted to do when we got to the university, but unfortunately for me. My admission was held up, it was when the envy started, while waiting for my admission to pull through, and others were getting theirs. Every day, I will always hear good news about how a neighbor or a classmate or my friends got an admission. It hurt me to say the truth, that they were getting admissions into their dream schools while I was still at home struggling with different schools to get an admission.

In church, testimonies and testimonies were being made; it made me bitter towards myself and my friends. I would sometimes hiss when I hear of their achievements. As I grew, and started developing myself, I got to understand the law of attraction, it is what you think that happens to you, whatever your mind attracts is what happens to you in reality. You attract failures, failures will follow you (like minds attract).

There’s a popular Chinese proverb from Lao Tzu, “Watch your thoughts, they become your words; Watch your words, they become your actions; Watch your actions, they become your habits; Watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, they become your destiny.

With this new realization, I started clapping for others, believing that one day, it will be my turn to be clapped for.

Three things I would like to continue

Putting God in everything:

Instead of seeking for people’s validation and approval, I turned to God and sought for his. It is never easy doing new things without having an idea if it was going to work or not, but knowing that God is always there to guide me through is enough to give the strength to forge ahead.

Gratitude:

One thing I have learned overtime is that having the spirit if gratitude propels one to success and opens doors to more wins. Before I used complain to complain about not having access to so things but then realized that I was privileged for the ones I have. There’s a saying in my place, ekele dike na nke omere, o mekwa ozo(when you thank a great man for what he has done, he will do more). In the same note, I appreciate God first thing for always providing, Man for being an instrument and nature for being an inspiration. There are so many things we take for granted in our everyday lives, things that can blink and they are gone. I started being grateful for the simple things, the ability to eat, drink and sleep, and the ability to go about our activities without much hassle. The ability to breath in fresh air while free of charge while some people pay thousands to access it.

Taking my goals one day at a time:

Remember how I said I fought for validation, to meet up with the society’s standard of success and achievement. I redefined my goals, what I wanted to achieve, how I wanted to achieve them and a time bound to each of them.
I take my goals one day at a time, doing the ones I know I can handle and assistance for ones I can’t. I started to believe more in my abilities to handle a task without that unhealthy need for validation.

Thank you as you read through my blog, I can't wait to read all your stories.

I invite @confydence, @annabel9 and @iamvictorious to take part in this engagement contest.