4 Things That Ruin Your Happiness And Which You Must Stop Doing
Pay attention to them NOW
Why happiness is important
Happiness has a huge impact on your work and personal life. If you’re not happy and in a positive frame of mind, you cannot focus on your work, carry out a creative activity or make any meaningful progress towards your goals. When your mood is low, your productivity suffers, and it also takes a toll on your relationships.
Happiness makes a big difference for most people, and the whole purpose of living life boils down to feeling good and fulfilled.
Isn’t it rather strange then that for something that important, you pay little time, thought, and attention to — and are oblivious of — the things that steal your happiness?
Here are four things that are ruining your happiness and you must attend to them right away.
1. Overworking yourself
There’s a great emphasis on hard work and a general belief that if you put in the hours, you can accomplish anything you want. This motivates most people to slog and hustle to make their dreams come true.
But like they say, excess of everything is bad, the same is true for work as well. Overworking yourself not only stresses you up but also destroys your happiness.
No matter how passionate you are about your work — and achieving your life goals — but the fact remains that you are only a human, and there are only a fixed number of hours in a day.
If you’re spending most of your time working — chasing money or goals — you’re missing out on many meaningful things such as family life, me time, socializing, and letting work rob your happiness.
It’s good to be work-oriented, but going overboard and making yourself a workaholic will ruin your happiness to no end and lead to various issues like poor physical and mental health and strained interpersonal relationships.
There’s enough time for you in a day if you properly plan things and organize your life. Set a work routine, and designate fixed hours for your work. It pays to draw rigid boundaries if you don’t want work to seep into your personal life.
Work-life balance is not all that elusive, and it’s more about commitment than time management.
Your life will be full of happiness and joy when you don’t allow work to become all-consuming and give time to your family and yourself, and engage in various meaningful activities.
“Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.”
— Dolly Parton
2. Worrying too much about ‘what if’
Life’s not perfect. Things don’t always go as planned, you make mistakes, people rub you the wrong way. Stuff keeps happening all the time. These things do cause anxiety and give you a reason to worry.
But if you become paranoid and start playing worst-case scenarios in your mind, you’re self-sabotaging your happiness and making your life miserable.
Worrying is one of the most destructive habits. Thinking things might go wrong and putting the ‘what-if’ rider on every action of yours can lead to procrastination and decision paralysis.
“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow; it only saps today of its joy.”
— Leo Buscaglia
If you’re anxious about making mistakes or want to get things right every time, give proper focus to your work, spend ample time in planning, and better execute your plans.
At the same time, you must have an open mind and be mentally prepared that no matter how meticulous you are, there’s every possibility of tripping. You can only regulate things that are under your control. There will be circumstances and situations that you cannot alter and have no say over.
Instead of perpetually worrying about ‘what if’ something happens or things go wrong, cultivate a problem-solving mindset and train yourself to navigate the challenges that life throws your way.
There’s nothing that cannot be fixed if you give it time and work on it patiently. There might not be a perfect solution, but you can always arrive at the best possible solution and figure out the way forward.
3. Being stuck in the past
Live is happening in the present, yet many people live their lives clinging to their past.
Holding onto your yesterday and reliving the painful memories and hurts is a surefire recipe for overwhelming yourself with negative emotions and ruining your happiness.
Carrying the burden of your past failures, mistakes, rejections, and disappointments can get you stuck in life and prevent you from achieving the success and happiness you are worthy of.
Dwelling on the past and mentally torturing yourself for the mistakes you made can seriously impair your mental health.
What has been done cannot be undone. You cannot time travel to your past and make amends. So it’s pointless regretting and feeling sorry for yourself.
The best thing you can do is accept your past, learn from it, resolve not to make the same mistakes again, and take a breath of relief that whatever it was, it’s all behind you.
Develop a positive mindset and look forward to life. Give yourself some meaningful and worthwhile goals and get busy pursuing them.
Each day you get plenty of opportunities to make something of your life. Avail your chances, work hard to better yourself, create your best life and take pride in becoming your best version.
“Consider that the path you were once on was meant to end when it did. Obsessing about plans lost or changed is a barrier to holistic wealth because it keeps you stuck in the past and unable to move forward.”
— Keisha Blair
4. Not appreciating yourself
Each day you do so much work, stretch yourself to the limits to complete the unending to-do list, carry out chores, play different roles, carry out duties and responsibilities, fight your daily battles, and tend to everything that gets put on your plate.
You genuinely do a lot of stuff.
But how many times do you stop to appreciate your efforts and pat yourself on the back?
Rarely, if ever.
You take yourself for granted most times and think, “you ought to do what you are doing; there’s nothing special about it.”
And that’s where you go wrong.
When it comes to pointing out your mistakes, you’re hard on yourself and are quick to admonish yourself. But you ignore your hard work and pass it off as routine work. This sends wrong messages to your brain and creates a feeling of emptiness and unhappiness.
More than the outside approval, you need inner validation to feel reassured that your work is being recognized and you are worthy of praise.
Self-love is not only necessary but essential to living a healthy and happy life. It connotes self-acceptance and self-compassion, which are critical for feeling fulfilled in life and giving your best to whatever you do.
Appreciating yourself for all the work that you do — even though some of it might not show positive results — reaffirms your belief in yourself that you are worthy of unconditional love. It further motivates you to bring out the best in you and helps you grow as a person.
“Love yourself first, and everything else falls into line. You have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.”
— Lucille Ball
In Conclusion
Living life is challenging; the only way to make your life journey pleasant and enjoyable is by making yourself happy.
Happiness is an inside job, and you are the sole person responsible for making your life wonderful and worth living. So stop doing things that ruin your happiness. Become your best friend, prioritize yourself over everything else and start creating a happy life for yourself.
“To be happy, you must be your sunshine.”
— C. E. Jerningham
Originally published at https://www.drroopleen.com
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