These 5 habits can KILL your joy

by Malti Bhojwani

 

sad-black-woman

 

Realise that resentment is a feeling of a past or a situation that you cannot change. Accept it and let it go. If you have been rejected in any way by someone, realise that it was not personal and that we all do what is best for us at a particular time. 

 

Life is all about the pursuit of happiness, isn’t it? Well, some of us, along the way tend to sabotage our own happiness and joy. Take a look at the habits you never thought could make you a terribly unhappy person.

1. Choosing to stay dissatisfied

If you view your life from another’s perspective (something I highly recommend you yourself don’t do –
comparing yourself to others), you will actually see that your life is the envy of so many others. You really do have a lot more than many. But all you do habitually is feel dissatisfied. Things are great but you keep looking at things that are not right or that could be better.

Habits can’t be eliminated they have to be replaced. If you think of taking something out of your mental schedule, you need to put something else in deliberately or some other sneaky disempowering habit will take its place. Replace this one by consciously choosing joy and remembering to be happy. Even when it feels impossible to do so, choose happiness and smile. When you smile long enough and look around you for only what is beautiful you will start to feel the happiness.

2. Compounding your worries

Again, I don’t know WHY we do this one, but it is a classic and I am sure you are guilty of it as much as me. We are having a neutral day, and things are fine, but we have one worry niggling at us, then one little event happens which we view as fuel to stoke the flame of the original worry. This then grows and grows as we deliberately look for all the probabilities we could worry about and before we know it, our lives become one big mess. We are so, so worried about so many things and we just can’t see beyond the fog.

Replace this one by forcing yourself to think about the possibility of this worry actually not happening, tip the scale to the other 50%. It can either go one way or the other. What you think about affects your own mood and will in turn affect the result. So the next time you sense a worrying thought, imagine instead what life would be like it didn’t happen and in fact the opposite did. Spend time in the joyful state of this fantasy. It’s all the same anyway. Not real, so why not play with it positively?

3. Feeling resentment

Have you heard the quote, “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

Replace this habit with a short exercise. Realise that resentment is a feeling of a past or a situation that you cannot change. Accept it and let it go. If you have been rejected in any way by someone, realise that it was not personal and that we all do what is best for us at a particular time. Use the acronym HALT to assess where this resentment could be coming from – Hungry, Angry, Lonely, and Tired. When we feel either of these, we create a mental fertile ground for resentment, bitterness and other negative emotions which we can all do without.

4. Comparing and giving into jealousy

This is a big one, as I mentioned in the first point. Comparing yourself to others in any context is the No.1 kill joy you could be feeding. Stop It. Like with picking your nose in public, you don’t need 10 tips on how to stop it, you just have to stop it!

But I will say this much, when you compare, you are comparing the inside of you to the outside of them and just like with a watermelon, you are aware of your inside squishiness and comparing it to the other’s hard green exterior. It is easy to look at others who appear to be more successful, slimmer, better in various ways, but comparing your life to someone else’s will only make you feel dissatisfied and incompetent, however you look at it. So just STOP IT!

5. Negative self-talk about yourself & thoughts about others

If anyone spoke to you the way you sometimes speak to yourself, you would not be their friend. Pay close attention to some of the disempowering, mean things you say to yourself and replace them with powerful and happy affirmations. “I am not good enough” or “I am not XYZ” needs to be replaced with “I am good enough” like a MANTRA that you chant all the time that plays as background music for you everywhere you go.

The habit of always thinking that people are thinking badly of you or out to get you is another futile exercise that is sure to squeeze out any possibility of joy in your life. Be realistic and rational, people have their own lives; you are really, really not that important to them and if you were, then they need to refer to point number 4, they are unhappy and dissatisfied. Rejoice in one of two possibilities, either they are generally also good people like you and don’t mean you any personal harm or they are envious of you and be flattered by it.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

 

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