A client says “I want to be happy” in a recent coaching session. While I could write a book on the subject, I will discuss specific habits that I see my clients repeating.
Many of our daily habits make having a happy life somewhat elusive. You’d be surprised how your life will improve and how you will feel more joy once you eliminate specific habits. According to Psychology Today, there’s a whole science as it relates to habit forming.
Believe me, I know that changing habits isn’t going to be easy. I want you to be happy and I know you can do it…only if you’re committed.
Promise me that you will be willing to challenge the status-quo if you really want to be happy. If you want to see a real change in your mood and feel more happiness, you need to do the inner work!
The “I want to be happy” Challenge!
Avoid these habits to get started enjoying more happiness in your life:
1. Other people’s opinions inject your psyche with judgement. We need to stop concerning ourselves with the opinions of others. No one is perfect however, you could be darn near perfect in every way possible, and someone will still find something to criticize about you or something that you are doing. It should not be a personal goal to impress everyone. Instead, focus on what makes you happy and surround yourself with more of that! Take a “happy break” and look around you and begin naming everything that you love.
2. Stop the internal negative self-talk. It’s absolutely defeating! There’s no reason in the world to make your life even more of a challenge than it already is. Instead, begin to practice something different. When you begin the “habit” of negative self-talk, stop immediately and begin to look around you to find something that you love. The power of love will surprise you!
3. It’s great to want more but not at the expense of not being grateful FIRST for what you DO have. If you’re
living under a park bench, it’s natural to want a home then you’ll want a bigger and better home and on and on it goes. But as long as you have what you need, wanting more can be a source of stress and frustration. UNLESS… You begin to work with your positive feelings of gratitude and abundance. You can find proof that you have money for example so focus on that. Strive to focus on what you have and say “Thank you”!
4. Comparing yourself to others. Everyone has their own unique strengths, weaknesses, past, and challenges. If you want to make a reasonable comparison, compare your current situation to your situation 5 years ago. If you’ve made progress, celebrate. If you haven’t, figure out why and get busy. The law of abundance and sufficiency is so important for you to understand here.
5. Stop right now if you continue to beat yourself up over mistakes. Make peace with the fact that mistakes are a daily part of everyone’s life. The key is to learn from your mistakes and move on. You WILL have a brighter future if you can grasp changing these negative habits today.
6. Stop blaming others around you. Circumstances happen but it’s how you respond to them that your responsibility. Believing that someone else is a cause of the difficulty you’re experiencing is harmful, because you lose control. If you believe that your situation is your own doing, you have the power to fix it. Regardless of whom is to blame, it’s still your responsibility to handle it. If you spend your life blaming then be sure to understand, it will return to you in another negative form.
7. Learn to say NO every now and then. Saying “yes” to every request gives you little down time to regenerate and simply makes a life full of being overwhelmed. By saying yes to everything, you rob yourself of important time that should be used to do some inner work and gaining more peace.
8. Stop waiting for perfect conditions, they simply don’t exist. Whether you’re waiting for the perfect time to have children or start your own business, that perfect time will never arrive. It’s important to make small steps towards the dreams that make you feel alive! Get started right away on the activities that mean the most to you. Time is ticking away. Nothing is worse than feeling regret as you look back on life.
9. Avoiding new experiences could potentially be disastrous. What’s the point in living the same day repeatedly? You won’t feel alive! You will wake up one day and wonder what your life was all about. You only have so many years on Earth. Get the most out of it and live your life out loud.
10. Trying to change too much at once is a bad idea. It’s a good way to set yourself up for a crash! Talk about feeling overwhelmed and a general feeling of CRAZE! Make smaller changes in your life and build upon them one at a time. I like the 1% rule…I feel that it’s been a pretty good day if I have changed by 1% from yesterday.
The elusive statement… “I want to be happy” will always be there. There is research on it. It’s a movement. Some of what we know is that there is a genetic set-point at which you go back to. The trick in the simplest of terms is to being happy is to look for love, be grateful for what you have and avoid too much stress. Your habits create your life. Evaluate your habits and determine which are negatively affecting your ability to enjoy life. Happiness might be closer than you think.