You know you’re becoming the best version of yourself if you’ve let go of these seven toxic patterns
There’s a funny thing that happens as you get older: Your priorities sharpen.
You start noticing which habits actually help you grow—and which ones quietly sabotage your days.
I’m no saint, I mean, I spent decades at a desk job just collecting little stress habits like souvenirs.
Only after I retired and had more time for walks in the park (usually with a grandkid tugging my arm to look at a beetle) did I realize how many of my patterns were running me, not the other way around.
Today, I want to talk about seven patterns worth dropping.
Let go of these, and you don’t have to chase “your best self”—you’ll simply uncover it:
1) People-pleasing at the expense of your values
Quick question: When someone asks you for a “small favor,” how long does it stay small?
For years, I said yes to everything—extra shifts, last-minute errands, “just one more” volunteer task—because I wanted to be helpful and liked.
The cost? My own priorities slipped to the bottom of the list.
I wasn’t being kind; I was being absent from my own life.
Letting go of people-pleasing doesn’t mean becoming rude.
It means choosing honesty over appeasement and remembering your time, energy, and attention are limited—and that boundaries aren’t barriers, they’re guardrails.
If a relationship can’t handle that? That says more about the relationship than your answer.
Parents, this matters doubly as our kids watch how we handle requests.
If we model calm boundaries, they’ll learn those instead.
2) All-or-nothing perfectionism
Perfectionism is a sneaky procrastinator.
Ever told yourself, “I’ll start when I have a full free day… when I get the perfect planner… when the stars align”?
Meanwhile, the laundry multiplies like rabbits.
Waiting for perfect conditions is just waiting and life rarely hands us a pristine block of time.
The best version of you isn’t the one with flawless plans; it’s the one who takes the next small step.
A trick I use: lower the bar until you can step over it.
Five-minute tidies, ten-minute writing sprints, two laps around the park and if you miss a day, you missed a day.
Remember the old line, “Done is better than perfect?”
This is it!
3) Comparison that shrinks your joy
“Comparison is the thief of joy,” Teddy Roosevelt supposedly said.
Whether he did or not, the man had a point. Scroll long enough and someone will always look happier, richer, wiser, or more put together, but their highlight reel is not your daily life.
When my grandkids and I feed the ducks, nobody’s filming the part where the bread bag rips and we chase slices across the grass.
That’s real life—messy and wonderful.
Here’s a simple practice: Compare down, not up.
Ask, “Compared to six months ago, where have I improved?”
Maybe you’re more patient with bedtime battles, take a daily walk, or finally booked that dental appointment you kept avoiding.
Progress counts, even the quiet kind. If you must keep score, keep score with yourself.
4) Catastrophizing and doom spirals
If your brain likes to ask “What’s the worst that could happen?” and then helpfully schedules a private horror film, welcome to the club.
Mine has shown double features for decades.
Catastrophizing is the mental habit of treating possibilities as probabilities.
The email from your boss becomes “I’m fired;” our teen’s late text becomes “They’re in trouble,” or your partner’s sigh becomes “They’re mad at me.”
It’s exhausting—and it’s rarely accurate.
Try this three-step reset:
- Name the story.
- Ask for evidence.
- Plan the smallest action.
If you need an anchor, borrow mine: Right now, in this moment, I’m safe, breathing, and capable.
It’s simple, but it cuts the volume on the inner siren.
Kids take their weather from us, so if we model calm in uncertainty—“We don’t know yet; let’s wait for the facts”—they learn to do the same.
5) Numbing instead of noticing
We live in the era of easy escapes—doom-scrolling, bottomless streaming, always-on notifications.
After a long day, it’s tempting to numb out.
The trouble is, what numbs pain also numbs joy. I’m not against a good show or a silly video; I enjoy both.
The pattern to drop is automatic, unconscious escape. The kind where you look up and an hour has evaporated and you feel worse, not better.
When the urge to escape hits, do one nourishing thing first.
If you still want the screen afterward, fine.
Nine times out of ten, you won’t; on the tenth, at least you hydrated.
For kids, this is gold as it teaches them to check in with themselves, not just check out.
6) Over-scheduling and calling it a personality
Busy is not a badge of honor; it’s often a boundary problem in disguise.
I used to introduce myself by my to-do list.
If my day wasn’t packed, I felt twitchy, like I was doing life wrong.
Then my first granddaughter was born; I held her, counted her fingers (twice), and realized I didn’t want to be the man who always had to rush.
I wanted to be the man who noticed.
Over-scheduling crowds out the very things that refill us: sleep, movement, unhurried meals, conversations that meander.
It leaves us brittle, and brittle people snap under pressure.
When our days include room for delays, moods, and lost shoes, we’re kinder to each other—we arrive whole.
7) Grudges, scorekeeping, and quiet resentment
Nothing weighs down a home—or a heart—like unspoken resentments.
I carried one for years over a minor slight at work.
The other person forgot; I fed it like a houseplant.
Meanwhile, I suffered.
Grudges feel justified, but they do two things poorly: They don’t punish the other person, and they don’t heal you.
The best version of you isn’t the one with the longest memory of hurts; it’s the one with the shortest recovery time.
A tradition in our house: we call a “reset.”
If a day goes sideways—snippy words, little frictions—we pause after dinner.
Someone says, “Reset?” and we exchange a hug.
No court case, no cross-examination, just a mutual agreement to start fresh—it’s simple and it works.
A quick word to parents
Kids don’t need perfect parents, they need present ones.
When we loosen our grip on people-pleasing, perfectionism, comparison, catastrophizing, numbing, overbusyness, and resentment, our homes get lighter.
Not because life gets easy, but because we stop making it harder than it needs to be.
On our weekend walks, my grandson loves to race me to the old oak.
He always wins; he gives himself a generous head start.
The last time, he turned around and shouted, “You’re getting faster, Grandpa!”
I wasn’t, but I was less distracted, less tense, more there—that’s the real progress he felt.
