Need A Happier Life? Avoid These 3Cs
All of us are looking forward to a much happier and more fulfilling life. We try out all the Do’s to experience that moment of immense happiness that works at times and doesn’t at other times. I remember browsing endlessly on google, finding out ways to be happy. It took me very long to understand that while doing things to be happy is essential, not doing other things which make you unhappy is much more substantial, like the great quote which says;
“Doing anything the right way is important, but not doing the opposite is a must.”
So here are the 3 NOs of my life which have helped me build a stronger relationship with myself and everyone around me. These three are the significant loopholes leading to the jeopardy of your happiness.
1. Complaining
Before I move on to explaining the head and tail of complaints, here is some data to ponder on.
Complaining rewires your brain for negative thinking.
Complaining shrinks the hippocampus, which is your cognitive brain
Complaining increases the stress hormone cortisol in your body.
These are a few; however, in reality, there are a million more.
Let’s try to understand what happens when we complain
As I mentioned previously, complaining releases cortisol, which throws us into F3 mode (Fight, Flight, Freeze), redirecting blood only to critical systems for survival. Now that you are in the F3 way, the body believes you need more glucose to run and save yourself, and hence the body raises the blood sugar level leading to Diabetes.
Research carried out at Stanford University says, “Complaining or even being complained to only for 30 minutes a day can physically damage your brain. The MRI scan proves it, and here’s the most dreadful data; a typical human complains somewhere between 15–30 minutes every day.
2. Comparing
Warren Buffet, the American business magnate philanthropist, usually asked this question:
Would you rather be the world’s most fantastic lover, but have everyone think you’re the world’s worst lover? Or would you rather be the world’s worst lover but have everyone think you’re the world’s most excellent lover.
We are busy comparing bananas with apples.
When you compare yourself with others, you lose your power over them. When you compare, you’re more likely to reach their best characteristics to your average characteristics. It’s like you are trying to write the best handwriting with your left hand being right-handed.
Result?
We become disappointed with the outcome and start judging our capabilities which is self-destructive. Furthermore, when we compare, our focus moves from raising ourselves to bringing them down, which is certainly not pleasant.
3. Criticism
So, the last C that should be avoided to experience a healthier and happier is criticism. However, the first thing that we need to understand here is that there are two types of positive and negative criticism. I can list a million benefits of positive criticism. You intend to encourage people to do work better or to rid themselves of a particular dysfunctional habit that impedes their effectiveness. What I am talking about here is negative criticism, where the objective is not to improve others but to raise their self-respect at the expense. This criticism is never constructive, guaranteed to do more harm than good to both recipient and sender.
Criticism reprograms the brain to pinpoint negative things in anything and everything, and I have experienced this more than closely.
As a child, I remember I criticized everything starting from food to clothes to academics, simply everything. And it took a lot of time, effort, and mentoring in my adulthood to get rid of this habit. There was a time when I had no friends at all. When I observed myself, I realized I always create a hostile environment where people don’t like to befriend me. Not only this, my blood pressure was usually high because the human brain considers criticism as a stressor. I was genuinely good at my work, but people wouldn’t value it. Everyone thought of me as controlling, and come on, who likes to be controlled? My personal and professional relationships sucked, and I was in the maximum mess possible. Then, I got some clarity of why what was happening was happening. Since then, I have been working rigorously on myself to avoid criticizing people. Of course, I am not always the way I want myself to be, but I am aware of the facts, always trying to avoid them.
Make sure you don’t do any of these three things for fulfilling relationships with others and with you.
Happy Reading
