Stephen Covey's famous work (7 Habits of Highly Effective People) is probably the most influential self-help book ever written. That said, his book makes the same mistake as many others: an assumption that we're pure potential – a malleable blob capable of absorbing effective and sustainable habits once we're made aware of them.

If only it were so.

Too often we're anything but malleable. We're not raw material waiting to be shaped, but damaged goods: poorly-programmed or misshapen machines condemned by our ineffective behaviour and deeply-ingrained negative habits.

Below, and from bitter experience, I outline what I see as the seven worst habits (though there may be plenty more) of highly ineffective people: sometimes – but not always – mirroring Covey's own. And, in each case, it's also worth noting the more positive alternative.

1. Procrastination

There's been plenty written on procrastination already, although describing it as a habit truly puts it in its place. Strip away the psychology, and procrastination is no more than repeated inef­fective behaviour. It's inaction despite numerous prompts and impulses – a habitual resistance no matter how aware we are of the need for action.

Indeed, Covey implores us to ‘act’. His first habit is to ‘be proactive’ – expressing the gap between those that act and those that don't as the ‘difference between night and day’. Yet he misses the fact that inaction is not a neutral state. It's not a car waiting for the engine to start. It's more a broken-down vehicle being pushed uphill – meaning we'll simply roll back to the bottom the second the pressure's relaxed.

Only the motivation that comes from strong planning can break this poor habit: willpower is not enough.

2. Avoiding direction

A key reason we procrastinate is our lack of direction. Without direction we're going nowhere, meaning that even action will simply send us round in circles. In fact, without direction, action is no more than inaction in disguise.

And being directionless is a habit because it resists any attempt at future thinking. Life is something that just happens to the directionless, a notion that can quickly become ingrained. In fact it can feel and sound positive – that we're ‘laid back’ perhaps, or that we ‘take life as it comes’.

Yet this is the curse of being ‘cool’, in my opinion: a habit where the short-term results exact a heavy long-term price.

Only strong planning can break such a habitual cycle. And that requires long-term goals that inspire us to the point we're motivated to not only take action (that's the easy bit) but to meticulously research and plan the required strategies and tactics, including their sequence.

3. Blaming others

Why do we avoid planning? The single most common reason is our inner belief that someone will come to our rescue. Worse, this can involve someone we perceive ‘owes us’. Too often, we blame others for our poor fate – usually those we think have harmed us (parents, siblings, those in authority, or even ‘the rich’).

Yet blame is an appallingly ineffectual habit because we've simply outsourced our future to the very people least likely to help us. Expecting a sibling or parent or our boss to have a major mental conversion and dedicate their lives to making amends is a ridiculously self-harming belief and one likely to make us both ineffective and miserable.

The absolute beginning for those wanting to replace poor habits with strong ones, therefore, is to realize it's our responsibility to do so. It's crazy to wait for someone else to help us: not least because – even if they do – they've simply further reduced our autonomy.

4. Obsessing about others' impact on us

Those with low autonomy often share a habit that disables their ability to utilize an important tool: other people. They're 100 percent focused on the impact others have on them – an obsession that wrecks their effectiveness.

Indeed, even cursory encounters can disable our progress if we're only observing their impact on us. Disinterested shop assistants for instance, or a close friend or potential employer perhaps ‘disrespecting’ us: indeed, any interaction can obsess us to the point we search their responses for signs that support our negative self-beliefs.

Of course, this surrenders our ability to shape events in our favour. We're now reliant on them – even for compliments and encouragement: a habit potentially so ingrained that we strip ourselves of any autonomy.

Get direction, however, and our concerns regarding others' impact on us is reversed. It's now our goals that matter: not our immediate needs regarding how we're being perceived or treated. With a plan, that shop assistant is no more than someone furnishing a required instrument for our progress (perhaps some smart shoes), which makes their treatment of us irrelevant.

Indeed, if we turn the table – and focus on our impact on them – we can become highly effective when dealing with people. Pay compliments, for instance, and power will flow from our words: putting us in charge of any encounter, which can then be measured purely on the basis of whether we've managed to make progress towards our goals, or not.

5. Having a fixed mindset

Connected with this is Carol Dweck's excellent notion (from her 2006 book Mindset) that the world divides into those with a ‘fixed’ – and those with a ‘growth’ – mindset. Having a fixed mindset is an ineffectual habit in the extreme as it assumes our attributes, and even our knowledge, is fixed. Our skills are innate, which means we spend our lives proving to others our worth, or – more likely – hiding our self-perceived lack of worth.

Yet this poor habit is easily reversed. We simply need to adopt a growth mindset, in which we acknowledge we have ‘everything to learn’. We therefore see all situations or encounters as opportunities to acquire knowledge or skills, which is far more effective than trying to showcase our (perhaps limited) fixed attributes.

A growth mindset not only means we're open to learning, which is more effective than wasting time trying to prove our status to others. It also gives off positive vibes: that we're interested in what others have to offer, which does wonders for their view of us – a highly effective habit indeed.

6. Ignoring progress

When all's said and done, we can make progress anyway, despite our poor habits. But if we fail to notice our advances – perhaps by retaining our negative self-beliefs – we'll remain mentally trapped: still railing against our poor luck or blaming others despite our elevated position. Any promotion will simply open doors to new levels of insecurity – new avenues for blame and fear.

And a key part of this is the fact we've failed to record the progress we make, which makes any advances feel random and therefore unsustainable. Indeed, our advances may only become apparent in their loss, something we may have viewed as inevitable given our poor self-beliefs.

This is classic territory for the ineffective. Yet, just as our poor fortune is our own concern, so is our good fortune. We must note our progress, however slow. And the best way to do this is by keeping a daily diary: one that heeds the teachings from both setbacks and, even more importantly, understands the why and wherefore of our advances, which makes any progress both satisfying and replicable.

7. Being derailed by every setback

This is one of my worst habits – being sent right back to square one by even the smallest setback. If every setback is treated as confirmation that we're a ‘bad person’, then we're unlikely to make sustainable progress. In fact, progress feels like a lie because, inwardly, we still feel incapable. This makes our successes no more than ‘luck’, which – given our poor self-beliefs – will certainly generate the inevitable reckoning of the permanently ‘unlucky’.

Yet setbacks are an inevitable part of any journey. In fact, they can even be welcomed as strong benchmarks for attainment – allowing us to know what works, because we can so clearly see what hasn't worked.

For the ineffective, however, setbacks are a total derailment. And such derailments have become a habit, meaning we look for derailment: even manufacturing the circumstances for derailment if none are readily available.

Meanwhile, those with effective habits see derailment as one result, no more. It may mean they're doing something in the wrong way or that they need somehow to hone a skill or acquire new information.

And it's worth noting that both reactions are a choice. The facts remain the same – it's the interpretation that's wildly different. So we may as well choose the reaction that helps our progress.