It’s Not Just Your Business That’s at Risk: 7 Reasons Why Complacency Can Destroy Your Personal Life - by Hassan Younes

When left unchecked, complacency can completely change who you are and what you do both in your professional and personal life. Find out more about the dangers behind this notorious quicksand.

Staying in your comfort zone doesn’t sound so bad, does it? You’re in your lane and it feels safe to stick to things that you’re good at. You may have had big dreams in college, but now you’re perfectly comfortable with where you’re at.

However, people often don’t realise that this comfort zone is what prevents progress.?

Once someone feels like they’ve achieved their personal goals, they tend to stop pursuing new experiences. This can make them miss out on many life opportunities.?

And it is precisely what complacency looks like, just for a start.

In this article, I’ll share the reasons why complacency can destroy your personal life.?

The Reasons

Complacency is like quicksand that pushes you further down.?

Here are the five ways that complacency can destroy your personal life.?

Reason #1 – You Become Resistant to Change and Fall Behind

There is a saying that goes, “change is the only thing constant in this world”. Ever since the dawn of time, all species have been adapting to changing environments. Those who failed went extinct eventually.?

Unfortunately, complacency tends to make people resistant to change. It’s a matter of time before somebody complacent starts to fall behind those friends and colleagues who manage to avoid the quicksand.

Complacency makes it hard to change just about anything. Let’s use an example in life. It’s easy to believe in your ability to lose weight once you decide to do it. The truth is that the longer you put your health on suspension, the harder it gets to fix. You end up piling on those extra kilos that you never really shred. Habits become incredibly hard to change as we age. Since you’re not getting any younger, you might as well start now.?

Reason #2 – You Start Settling

When you become complacent, you stop pushing hard or aiming for bigger things in life. Instead of shooting for lifestyle goals that make you happier and healthier, you start settling for whatever you have and become comfortable with mediocrity. You may lead a more sedentary lifestyle, read less, and eat more highly processed foods that have lower nutritional value. Before you know it, laziness takes over your life.?

This is the ultimate success destroyer, as it leaves no room for progress.

Reason #3 – You Replace Good Habits with Bad Ones

Since we were children, we’ve invested a lot of time and effort into developing good habits. Unfortunately, it’s much easier to break a good habit than to build one. As you become complacent, not only do you lose your good habits, you’ll also be developing some bad ones.?

Your old mindset that had a knack for making good choices is now replaced with one that can’t resist temptation.?

This is a big reason why being complacent is dangerous. Once you get to that phase, it becomes tough to make positive changes. The longer you remain there, the harder it is to get out.?

Reason #4 – You May Stop Making New Connections

As you become complacent, you’re likely to stop making an effort to build new connections. People usually appreciate it when you show effort to earn their interest and trust. Failing to do so can cause people to want to do the same and lose whatever interest they may have had in you.?

In fact, an important step on your path to success is networking, both in your personal and professional life. You put effort and time into understanding the ins and outs of your field and meet people in other companies and positions or even cities. As you become complacent, you simply stop expanding your social circle.?

Worst of all, you may even lose your existing connections. As we age, we can take people in our surroundings for granted. We continue to live our lives and believe that our close friends will always remain so. Soon, you may reach a point where you only get in touch once every two months, then maybe once a year, until you only see these people at weddings and funerals.?

Reason #5 – You Stop Believing in Yourself

One of the saddest effects of complacency is losing faith in yourself. You’ll look back on the past and stop believing in hard work. As you lose motivation to strive for better, your progress stops and you no longer develop yourself as a person.?

What happens next is that you’re going to start noticing all these other people that are doing their job better than you. It is them who rise to the heights that you fervently dreamed about. At that point, you may stop believing in your ability to reach that level of success.?

Reason #6 – You Lose Your Skills

If you’re good at something, it’s because you’re skilled in it. To keep those skills, you have to nurture them. You shouldn’t rely on what you have now or what you had in the past.?

But when you become complacent, you stop improving. It gets worse, as you may start losing the skills you once possessed. The ones that you enjoyed and could spend hours on may become not so enjoyable any longer.?

Unfortunately, your skills can slowly fade away if you stop nurturing them. If there’s someone else around who hasn’t stopped working on themselves, you can easily lose your position to them.?

Reason #7 – You Stop Doing Things That Make You Happy?

Not only can complacency make you stop nurturing your skills, but it can prevent you from finding joy in the little things that used to bring satisfaction. Whether it’s reading or going for a walk, your favourite past-times stop being so. Everything that requires effort is not so interesting to you anymore. Complacency is to blame for all of the above.?

Why?

As you become resistant to change, as you lose your skills, connections, and habits, you also lose interest in things that made you happy.??

Progress Doesn’t Mix with Complacency

The single most important thing you can do if you want to always progress in life is avoiding complacency. The more you settle for complacency, the more it ruins your life and dreams. It affects who you are and what you do in so many ways. You start losing connections, become lazier, start settling, don’t respond to change, and that’s only the beginning.?

Although it may feel good sometimes, being stuck in your comfort zone is just going to push you further down. It’ll soon become much harder to get back up.?

But, you don’t have to do all the work by yourself. Reach out and see how my speaking services can help you fight complacency.?