24 Jul Are you (unwittingly) putting these 6 things ahead of your happiness?
I'm sure it's not intentional but I'm also pretty sure that many of you undermine your own happiness by prioritising other things. Check out these 6 happiness killers and then find a way to stop having them in your life…
by Chrissy Stockton from Thought Catalog
Having a life that’s full of happiness and stress-free calm is within everyone’s grasp. Sure, it’s a hell of a lot easier when you don’t have to worry about how you’re going to pay rent or you’re going through a frustrating situation that’s out of your control (a divorce, a job search, health issues). But at the end of the day, we decide how we want to process our lives. We decide to put in the mental work to get rid of stress and anxiety, or we fill up our lives with junk so that we’re “too busy” to ever sort it out.
Water finds it’s own level. You may find your dream job, win the lottery, get swept away by your dream man or woman — but you’ll always find problems in your life, and they’ll always feel just as real as the ones you have right now. Rich, beautiful people deal with depression and anxiety and stress. Don’t let your happiness be something you deal with “as soon as” you achieve x goal. It’s not about external circumstances. You can have a higher quality of daily life right now. Why not work at it?
Here are 10 places to start, ways we sacrifice our personal happiness for things we only think we need.
1. Caring what other people think
It’s very easy to say “I don’t care what people think” but another thing entirely to practice it. For instance, if an obviously bitchy person is rude to you, it’s easy to brush them off, but less so when an acquaintance misunderstands you. You want to correct them. You want people to see that you are well intentioned. It takes a lot of energy to do this, however, to constantly wonder how you are appearing and work towards being well-liked by everyone in your work circle and family circle and social circle. The average American knows 600 people. It’s exhausting to figure out what 600 different people want from you and then become that person to them.
There are two things that are helpful in letting go of the need to please — repeating to yourself that what other people think of you is none of your business. Your friend’s boyfriend that you were a “loud talker” — so what? What actual repercussions will this have for you and your future? Whatever they are, they are smaller than the time and energy you will spend worrying about it.
The second thing is to remember that every relationship you have with other people is a relationship they are having with themselves, through you. People don’t like people who remind them of an aspect of their own personality that they don’t like. Or that remind them of another person they had a bad experience with. Or that conflict with their own personal values. It’s none of your business to deal with the other person’s prejudices and try to sort them out. Just let it go.
2. Being busy
Your 20s can be a very busy time. At one point I worked a full time job and had a part time job and a very busy social life. But it’s very easy to use being busy as an excuse not to take care of yourself, or to keep you from thinking about difficult stressors like “am I living the life I want to?”
Part of the reason we keep ourselves so busy is that we were told we could have it all. We want to prove that we can be the person that is advancing in their career and having a love life and a social life and playing on a rec soccer league and learning how to cook and being in a book club and having a pristine apartment. The problem is that very few people (in fact, I’ve never met one) want “it all.” We may want to appear this way to others (see #1) but we just aren’t programmed to have ten different goals we care equally about.
Stop trying to impress people with the quantity of things you do. Figure out what you really care about and be great at that, and then use the time you free up to do self-care. Do 20 minutes of bedtime yoga every night and use it to relax and figure out if you are satisfied or frustrated by the things you are filling your time with. If you feel frustrated more often than satisfied, change something. You can write this down afterwards for reference, it’s an ancient practice called the examen…
…keep reading the full & original article HERE