People always want to hear about the daily habits they need to embrace in order to take their career or business to the next level. They want that magic pill. Well, I’m throwing a curveball and giving you a few things you need to stop doing. Here are 5 daily habits that are holding you back from massive success.

Trying to be Everything to Everyone

One thing you will quickly realize as your business or career accelerates, is how precious time can be. There will come a point where you just can’t get to everything, do everything or jump headfirst into every new opportunity that comes your way. Learning to say no to opportunities that aren’t ideal for you or don’t actively work to progress your goals will help you more effectively manage your time.

Not Asking for Help

One of the most common misunderstandings entrepreneurs have is that they think they must take the lone wolf approach: do it all yourself. Many start-ups take it upon themselves to do everything. While this might be partly for financial reasons, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. You need to surround yourself with mentors you can reach out to that will help you accelerate your success. At one point in 2011 my business was “stuck” in a massive growth transition. As I researched solutions, I connected with CFO Mark Gandy. That phone call ended up being a life changing event for me personally. Look around you. Who do you look up to? Reach out to them and see if they’d be willing to lend some advice based on their experiences. You’ll be surprised by how many people are willing to help others become more successful in work and life!

Negativity

In the essence of straight talk, a negative mindset won’t get you very far. If it does, you won’t stay there. It’s incredible to me how many people walk around with a terrible attitude. They hate their job. They hate their lives. First of all, that’s a sad existence. Stop the negative self-talk and start embracing the challenges you face every day with a positive, reaffirming attitude. While it sounds easier than it really is, if you can start talking to yourself in a more positive light you can work towards shifting your mindset. You shift that—and you will shift your entire life.

Checking Email First Thing

What’s the first thing that most of us do right when we wake up? Check our email? It’s hard not to check on what fires were created over night that need to be put out right away. But this starts you off in a terrible mindset. Instead of tackling jobs you need to get done to truly move your business or life forward, you end up reactively helping someone else put out fires. Instead of tackling our high ROI to-dos, you end up putting them off for “tasks” that don’t move the needle. While doing these “tasks” you might feel that you’re getting a lot done, but you’re just procrastinating the inevitable. Speaking of procrastination…

Procrastination

Why put off until tomorrow what you can get done today? Wise words! Procrastination is probably one of the biggest career or business killers out there. Many of us keep putting things off for tomorrow either because we don’t want to tackle it, we are afraid of failure (or success) or we just feel it is too big of a job. When things seem overwhelming, use the time management approach laid out by Ric Thompson in his short book 10 Minute Time Management. To paraphrase, take those big scary jobs and set an alarm for 10 minutes. You can work on anything for 10 minutes, right? This will allow you to dive in and start to make those big jobs smaller and smaller. Normally, you get so caught up in the actual task that you end up blowing through those 10 minutes on your way to getting the job done!

One thing is certain, as you scale your business, time becomes incredibly precious. You must find ways to manage your time as effectively as possible. Talk to your mentor, ask them for some advice, keep a positive mindset and control your schedule. These daily habits will help to set you up for success!

First featured on Forbesbooks.com