7 Common Habits of Unhappy People

Image by Mitya Kuznetsov (license).


“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” - Marcus Aurelius

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”-Marcel Proust

Circumstances can certainly make life unhappy. But a part – often a big part – of unhappiness comes from our own thinking, behavior and habits.
In this article I’d like to share 7 of the most destructive daily habits that can create quite a bit of unhappiness within and in your own little world.
But I’ll also share what has worked, what has helped me to minimize or overcome these habits in my life.


1. Aiming for perfection.Does life has to be perfect before you are happy?
Do you have to behave in a perfect way and get perfect results to be happy?

Then happiness will not be easy to find. Setting the bar for your performance at an inhuman level usually leads to low self-esteem and feeling like you are not good enough even though you may have had a lot of good or excellent results. You and what you do is never enough good enough except maybe once in a while when feels like something goes just perfect.


How to overcome this habit:Three things that helped me to kick the perfectionism habit and become more relaxed:

• Go for good enough. Aiming for perfection usually winds up in a project or something else never being finished. So go for good enough instead. Don’t use it as an excuse to slack off. But simply realize that there is something called good enough and when you are there then you are finished with whatever you are doing.
• Have a deadline. I set deadlines every time that start with a new premium guide. Because about a year ago, when I was working on my second e-book, I realized that just working on it and releasing it when it was done would not work. Because I could always find stuff to add to it. So I had to set a deadline. Setting a deadline gave me a kick in the butt and it is generally good way to help you to let go of a need to polish things a bit too much.
• Realize what it costs you when you buy into myths of perfection. This was a very powerful reason for me to let go of perfectionism and one I tell myself still if I find thoughts of perfection pop up in my mind. By watching too many movies, listening to too many songs and just taking in what the world is telling you it is very easy to be lulled into dreams of perfection. It sounds so good and wonderful and you want it. But in real life it clashes with reality and tends to cause much suffering and stress within you and in the people around you. It can harm or possibly lead you to end relationships, jobs, projects etc. just because your expectations are out of this world. I find it very helpful to remind myself of this simple fact.

2. Living in a sea of negative voices.
No one is an island. Who we socialize with, what we read, watch and listen to has big effect on how we feel and think.
It becomes a lot harder to be happier if you let yourself be dragged down by negative voices. Voices that tell you that life will in large part always be unhappy, dangerous and filled with fear and limits. Voices that watch life from a negative perspective.


How to overcome this habit:

• Replacing those negative voices with more positive influences is very powerful. It can be like a whole new world opening up.

• So spend more time with positive people, inspiring music and books, movies and TV-shows that make you laugh and think about life in a new way.
• You can start small. For example, try reading an uplifting blog or book or listen to an audio book while eating your breakfast one morning this week instead of reading the paper or watching the morning news on TV.

3. Getting stuck in the past and future too much.
Spending much of your time in the past and reliving old painful memories, conflicts, missed opportunities and so on can hurt whole lot. Spending much of your time in the future and imagining how things could go wrong at work, in your relationships and with your health can build into horrifying nightmare scenarios playing over and over in your head. Not being here right now in life as it happens can lead to missing out on a lot of wonderful experiences.
No good if you want to be happier.


How to overcome this habit:
It is pretty much impossible to not think about the past or the future. And it is of course important to plan for tomorrow and next year and to try to learn from your past.
But to dwell on those things rarely help.

• So I try as best as I can to spend the rest of my time, the big part of my time each day, with living in the now. Just being here right now and being fully focused on these words I am writing and later as I cook and eat my lunch and work out be fully focused on doing that.

• Whatever I am doing I try to be there fully and not drift off into the future or past.
• If I do drift off then I focus only on my breathing for a few minutes or I sit still and take in what is all around me right now with all my senses for a short while. By doing either of those things I can realign myself with the present moment again.

4. Comparing yourself and your life to others and their lives.One very common and destructive daily habit is to constantly compare your life and yourself to other people and their lives. You compare cars, houses, jobs, shoes, money, relationships, social popularity and so on. And at the end of the day you pummel your self-esteem to the ground and you create a lot of negative feelings.


How to overcome this habit:
Replace that destructive habit with two other habits.

• Compare yourself to yourself. First, instead of comparing yourself to other people create the habit of comparing yourself to yourself. See how much you have grown, what you have achieved and what progress you have made towards your goals. This habit has the benefit of creating gratitude, appreciation and kindness towards yourself as you observe how far you have come, the obstacles you have overcome and the good stuff you have done.You feel good about yourself without having to think less of other people.

• Be kind. In my experience, the way you behave and think towards others seems to have a big, big effect on how you behave towards yourself and think about yourself. Judge and criticize people more and you tend to judge and criticize yourself more (often almost automatically). Be more kind to other people and help them and you tend to be more kind and helpful to yourself.Focus on the positive things in yourself and in the people around you. Appreciate what is positive in yourself and others. This way you become more OK with yourself and the people in your world instead of ranking them and yourself and creating differences in your mind.

And remember, you can’t win if you keep comparing. Just consciously realizing this can be helpful. No matter what you do you can pretty much always find someone else in the world that has more than you or are better than you at something.


5. Focusing on the negative details in life.
Seeing the negative aspects of whichever situation you are in and dwelling on those details is a sure way to make yourself unhappy. And to drag down the mood for everyone around you.


How to overcome this habit:

• Overcoming this habit can be tricky. One thing that has worked for me is to kick the perfectionism habit. You accept that things and situations will have their upsides and downsides rather than thinking that all details have to positive and excellent. You accept things as they are. This way you can let go emotionally and mentally of what is negative instead of dwelling on it and making mountains out of molehills. 

• Another thing that works is simply to focus on being constructive. Instead of focusing on dwelling and whining about the negative detail. You can do so by asking better questions. Questions like:

How can I turn this negative thing into something helpful or positive?

How can I solve this problem?
If I am faced with what I start thinking is a problem I may use a third solution, I may ask myself: who cares? I most often then realize that this isn’t really a problem in the long run at all.


6. Limiting life because you believe the world revolves around you.If you think that the world revolves around you and you hold yourself back because you are afraid what people may think or say if you do something that different or new then you are putting some big limits on your life. How?
Well, you can become less open to trying new things and growing.You can think that the criticism and negativity you encounter is about you or that it is your fault all the time (while it in reality could be about the other person having bad week or you thinking that you can read minds). I have also found that my own shyness used to come from me thinking that people cared a great deal about what I was about to say or do.
 
How to overcome this habit:

• Realize people don’t care too much about what you do. They have their hands full with worrying about their own lives and what people may think of them instead. Yes, this might make you feel less important in your own head. But it also sets you free a bit more if you’d like that.

• Focus outward. Instead of thinking about yourself and how people may perceive you all the time, focus outward on the people around you. Listen to them and help them. This will help you to raise your self-esteem and help you to reduce that self-centered focus.

7. Overcomplicating life.
Life can be pretty complicated. This can creates stress and unhappiness. But much of this is often created by us. Yes, the world may be becoming more complex but that doesn’t mean that we cannot create new habits that make your own lives a bit simpler.
 
How to overcome this habit:
Overcomplicating life can involve many habits but I’d like to suggest a few replacement habits to what have been a couple of my own most overcomplicating habits.

• Splitting your focus and having your attention all over the place in everyday life. I replaced that complicating habit with just doing one thing at a time during my day, having a small to-do list with 2-3 very important items and writing down my most important goal on white board that I see each day.

• Having too much stuff. I replaced that habit with regularly asking myself: have I used this in the past year? If not then I will give that thing away or throw it away.

• Creating relationship problems of any kind in your mind. Reading minds is hard. So, instead ask questions and communicate. This will help you to minimize unnecessary conflicts, misunderstandings, negativity and waste or time and energy.

• Getting lost in the in-box. I spend less time and energy on my email in-box by just checking it once a day and writing shorter emails (if possible not more than 5 sentences.)

• Getting lost in stress and overwhelm. When stressed, lost in a problem or the past or future in your mind then, as I mentioned above, breathe with your belly for two minutes and just focus on the air going in and out. This will calm your body down and bring your mind back into the present moment again. Then you can start focusing on doing what is most important for you again.

Gandhi’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Changing the World

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problem.”
“If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.”
Mahatma Gandhi needs no long introduction. Everyone knows about the man who lead the Indian people to independence from British rule in 1947.


So let’s just move on to some of my favourite tips from Mahatma Gandhi.


1. Change yourself.


“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”


“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.”


If you change yourself you will change your world. If you change how you think then you will change how you feel and what actions you take. And so the world around you will change. Not only because you are now viewing your environment through new lenses of thoughts and emotions but also because the change within can allow you to take action in ways you wouldn’t have – or maybe even have thought about – while stuck in your old thought patterns.


And the problem with changing your outer world without changing yourself is that you will still be you when you reach that change you have strived for. You will still have your flaws, anger, negativity, self-sabotaging tendencies etc. intact.


And so in this new situation you will still not find what you hoped for since your mind is still seeping with that negative stuff. And if you get more without having some insight into and distance from your ego it may grow more powerful. Since your ego loves to divide things, to find enemies and to create separation it may start to try to create even more problems and conflicts in your life and world.


2. You are in control.


“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”


What you feel and how you react to something is always up to you. There may be a “normal” or a common way to react to different things. But that’s mostly just all it is.


You can choose your own thoughts, reactions and emotions to pretty much everything. You don’t have to freak out, overreact of even react in a negative way. Perhaps not every time or instantly. Sometimes a knee-jerk reaction just goes off. Or an old thought habit kicks in.


And as you realize that no-one outside of yourself can actually control how you feel you can start to incorporate this thinking into your daily life and develop it as a thought habit. A habit that you can grow stronger and stronger over time. Doing this makes life a whole lot easier and more pleasurable.


3. Forgive and let it go.


“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”


“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”


Fighting evil with evil won’t help anyone. And as said in the previous tip, you always choose how to react to something. When you can incorporate such a thought habit more and more into your life then you can react in a way that is more useful to you and others.


You realize that forgiving and letting go of the past will do you and the people in your world a great service. And spending your time in some negative memory won’t help you after you have learned the lessons you can learn from that experience. You’ll probably just cause yourself more suffering and paralyze yourself from taking action in this present moment.


If you don’t forgive then you let the past and another person to control how you feel. By forgiving you release yourself from those bonds. And then you can focus totally on, for instance, the next point.


4. Without action you aren’t going anywhere.


“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”


Without taking action very little will be done. However, taking action can be hard and difficult. There can be much inner resistance.


And so you may resort to preaching, as Gandhi says. Or reading and studying endlessly. And feeling like you are moving forward. But getting little or no practical results in real life.


So, to really get where you want to go and to really understand yourself and your world you need to practice. Books can mostly just bring you knowledge. You have to take action and translate that knowledge into results and understanding.


You can check out a few effective tips to overcome this problem in How to Take More Action: 9 Powerful Tips. Or you can move on to the next point for more on the best tip for taking more action that I have found so far.


5. Take care of this moment.


“I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.”


The best way that I have found to overcome the inner resistance that often stops us from taking action is to stay in the present as much as possible and to be accepting.


Why? Well, when you are in the present moment you don’t worry about the next moment that you can’t control anyway. And the resistance to action that comes from you imagining negative future consequences – or reflecting on past failures – of your actions loses its power. And so it becomes easier to both take action and to keep your focus on this moment and perform better.


Have a look at 8 Ways to Return to the Present Moment for tips on how quickly step into the now. And remember that reconnecting with and staying in the now is a mental habit – a sort of muscle – that you grow. Over time it becomes more powerful and makes it easier to slip into the present moment.


6. Everyone is human.


“I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.”


“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”


When you start to make myths out of people – even though they may have produced extraordinary results – you run the risk of becoming disconnected from them. You can start to feel like you could never achieve similar things that they did because they are so very different. So it’s important to keep in mind that everyone is just a human being no matter who they are.


And I think it’s important to remember that we are all human and prone to make mistakes. Holding people to unreasonable standards will only create more unnecessary conflicts in your world and negativity within you.


It’s also important to remember this to avoid falling into the pretty useless habit of beating yourself up over mistakes that you have made. And instead be able to see with clarity where you went wrong and what you can learn from your mistake. And then try again.


7. Persist.


“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”


Be persistent. In time the opposition around you will fade and fall away. And your inner resistance and self-sabotaging tendencies that want to hold you back and keep you like you have always been will grow weaker.


Find what you really like to do. Then you’ll find the inner motivation to keep going, going and going.

One reason Gandhi was so successful with his method of non-violence was because he and his followers were so persistent. They just didn’t give up.


Success or victory will seldom come as quickly as you would have liked it to. I think one of the reasons people don’t get what they want is simply because they give up too soon. The time they think an achievement will require isn’t the same amount of time it usually takes to achieve that goal. This faulty belief partly comes from the world we live in. A world full of magic pill solutions where advertising continually promises us that we can lose a lot of weight or earn a ton of money in just 30 days. You can read more about this in One Big Mistake a Whole Lot of People Make.


Finally, one useful tip to keep your persistence going is to listen to Gandhi’s third quote in this article and keep a sense of humor. It can lighten things up at the toughest of times.


8. See the good in people and help them.


“I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.”


“Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.”


“I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.”


There is pretty much always something good in people. And things that may not be so good. But you can choose what things to focus on. And if you want improvement then focusing on the good in people is a useful choice. It also makes life easier for you as your world and relationships become more pleasant and positive.


And when you see the good in people it becomes easier to motivate yourself to be of service to them. By being of service to other people, by giving them value you not only make their lives better. Over time you tend to get what you give. And the people you help may feel more inclined to help other people. And so you, together, create an upward spiral of positive change that grows and becomes stronger.


By strengthening your social skills you can become a more influential person and make this upward spiral even stronger.

9. Be congruent, be authentic, be your true self.


“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”


“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”


I think that one of the best tips for improving your social skills is to behave in a congruent manner and communicate in an authentic way. People seem to really like authentic communication. And there is much inner enjoyment to be found when your thoughts, words and actions are aligned. You feel powerful and good about yourself.


When words and thoughts are aligned then that shows through in your communication. Because now you have your voice tonality and body language – some say they are over 90 percent of communication – in alignment with your words.


With these channels in alignment people tend to really listen to what you’re saying. You are communicating without incongruency, mixed messages or perhaps a sort of phoniness.


Also, if your actions aren’t in alignment with what you’re communicating then you start to hurt your own belief in what you can do. And other people’s belief in you too.


10. Continue to grow and evolve.


”Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.”


You can pretty much always improve your skills, habits or re-evaluate your evaluations. You can gain deeper understanding of yourself and the world.


Sure, you may look inconsistent or like you don’t know what you are doing from time to time. You may have trouble to act congruently or to communicate authentically. But if you don’t then you will, as Gandhi says, drive yourself into a false position. A place where you try to uphold or cling to your old views to appear consistent while you realise within that something is wrong. It’s not a fun place to be. To choose to grow and evolve is a happier and more useful path to take.