3 Bad Habits Keeping You Broke (And How to Break Them for Online Success)

If you’re working full-time but still feel like you’re spinning your wheels financially, you’re not alone. Most people don’t stay broke because they’re lazy, it’s usually because of subtle habits they aren’t even aware of. I know this firsthand.

When I started out, I believed the secret was to simply work harder: more hours, more effort, more hustle. But the truth was, I wasn’t moving forward because of three bad habits that drained my energy, money, and focus. These habits cost me years of progress and thousands of dollars. Once I broke free from them, everything changed, and I turned what used to hold me back into a six-figure online system.

Let’s start with the first habit that derails so many people before they even begin.

Habit 1 – Escaping Into Gaming, Parties, and Quick Dopamine

In my high school and university years, my life looked a lot like everyone else’s: video games late into the night, weekends filled with drinking, and more than a little weed. At first, it felt normal, just part of growing up. But when I tried to start an online business, those habits destroyed my focus.

The problem wasn’t just the time lost. Gaming gave me a false sense of progress. Leveling up a character or finishing a quest felt rewarding, but in the real world, I was standing still. Cheap dopamine made it harder to do the slower, less exciting work of building something meaningful.

I realized that you can’t level up in life if your energy is constantly spent on distractions. A video game character reaching level 100 means nothing in the real world, but every hour invested into yourself compounds into skills, income, and freedom.

Breaking this cycle was the first step toward financial progress. Minimal drinking, no more gaming addiction, and a focus on building myself instead of fake characters.

Habit 2 – Course Hopping and Shiny Object Syndrome

The second habit that held me back was what I call shiny object syndrome, constantly chasing the next big thing. Every time a guru launched a new course with flashy marketing, I was convinced this was the missing piece. I’d buy it, binge-watch it in a weekend, try the strategy once or twice, and then abandon it when results didn’t come instantly.

Looking back, I spent between $20,000 and $30,000 on courses and coaching in just a few years. Many of them taught almost the exact same thing, just rebranded with a different name. Instead of mastering one proven system, I kept resetting my learning curve to zero.

This wasn’t just expensive, it was exhausting. Every new course gave me a short burst of excitement, but no lasting progress. The truth is, building any online business requires repetition, patience, and consistency. By hopping from program to program, I never gave myself the chance to see results.

What finally changed everything was committing to one system long enough to make it work. I researched the mentor, looked at their track record and client results, and decided: If I wouldn’t want their life or their results, I won’t buy their course. Once I invested in the right guidance and stuck with it for 6–12 months, my focus sharpened, and results followed.

If you’re guilty of this too, the fix is simple: stop jumping, start committing. One teacher. One system. One business model. Until it works.

Habit 3 – Looking for Shortcuts (Cheating the System)

The third habit was the most damaging of all: trying to take shortcuts. In the early days of my dropshipping business, I cut corners with products I shouldn’t have sold. During COVID, I jumped on the mask-selling trend, only to have my ad accounts banned overnight because it violated platform rules. The quick cash I made vanished just as fast, and I was left scrambling to rebuild.

I repeated the same mistake with YouTube automation. Instead of building a channel the right way, I bought a pre-monetized account and tried spamming Shorts for fast growth. It worked for a while… until YouTube caught on. My channel was demonetized, I lost the money I invested, and all my progress disappeared in an instant.

These experiences taught me a painful truth: shortcuts don’t save time, they cost it. Every time I tried to cheat the system, I ended up further behind than when I started. Worse, I lost confidence in myself because I had to keep starting from scratch.

The hard but liberating lesson? Play by the rules. Choose one model, commit 6–12 months, and stop searching for hacks that promise overnight success. In business, shortcuts usually backfire. The long road is actually the fastest road because it keeps your progress sustainable.

If you feel stuck financially despite working hard, it’s often not your effort that’s the problem, it’s the habits behind it. For me, the three biggest roadblocks were:

1. Escaping into video games, partying, and quick dopamine instead of building real skills.

2. Wasting years and thousands of dollars on shiny-object courses instead of committing to one proven system.

3. Trying to cheat the system with shortcuts that only ended in bans, setbacks, and lost progress.

These three mistakes easily cost me 3–5 years of wasted time. But once I broke free, my focus sharpened, my business grew, and I finally built a system that created freedom instead of frustration.

Success online isn’t about grinding harder. It’s about removing the habits that keep you broke and doubling down on what actually works.

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