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10 Surprising Habits That Rob You of Happiness
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Someone once said, we become what we repeatedly do. So why do so many of us keep banging our heads on the proverbial brick wall?
For example, we say we want to live a healthy, active life but there we sit at home, binging on television and Cheetos. We say we are looking for our soul mate, but we reject every person we meet on the first date. We say we want to live a positive life, and then we proceed to complain all day, every day. We saw every New Year’s Eve that we are going to make a different life starting this year, but before we have even recovered from over our hangover, we are back to doing that same damn things.
It’s easier than you think to rob ourselves of happiness and breaking our habits isn’t always easy. Otherwise, all those self-help authors would be out of business. Dumping those negative patterns we’ve been carrying around, however, is often the missing piece to our happiness puzzle.
Check out these top 10 habits and see if any of them are holding you back.
1. Believing criticism
Sometimes criticism can be a good thing, it helps us to grow and improve ourselves, however, too many of us take criticism to heart. Deeply to heart. Some people criticize because they are jealous of you, others because they just plain don’t like you. Listen, just because someone says it doesn’t mean it’s true. Listen to criticism, then think about it as objectively as possible. Is what this person said true? Is it something you would like to change? Then it’s not a problem. Is what they said not true? Then forget about it. Sometimes, it’s not about you, but about the person who said it.
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2. Buying junk you don’t need
Excessive consumerism is the best smoke screen ever!
It completely distracts us from everything that is truly worth a damn in our lives. We’ve been brainwashed into thinking that buying stuff will make us somebody important, that we will be beautiful, young, hip, cool, and happy. Retail therapy to the rescue! Here’s the wakeup call, friends. You may not like this, but the truth is the opposite is what is true.
Filling your life with more crap you don’t need simply clutters us up and steals our attention away from the things that would really make us happy. Live better when you buy less.
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3. Comparing yourself to others
This has been ongoing since time began and it’s a battle you cannot win. So many people spend so much time looking at successful people and the things they did to get there that we often forget to do the things WE need to do to be successful! Listen, no matter how beautiful, young, or rich you are, there is always someone younger, more beautiful and richer than you.
Your cat doesn’t lie awake nights because the cat next door has a rhinestone collar and he just has a plain leather stretchie one. He’s just so happy to be alive and be with you that nothing else matters.
Take a tip from your cat. Enjoy what you have and who you are. It’s more than enough.
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4. Obsessing about your looks
Your body is just clothing for the real you. It’s a temporary vessel that carries something priceless. Now it does deserve respect, time, and TLC, but what it doesn’t deserve is your constant criticism.
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It’s been said that there is someone for everyone and that much is true. There are people who love vanilla, others who love cinnamon, and still others that go for mint. So if you aren’t someone’s mint, so what? You are probably someone’s perfect idea of cinnamon. Also, consider this, much of what you look like, and your shape, come from genetics that you can’t change.
So stop hating your hair, your lips, and your hips. You are what you are; what’s wrong with that?
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5. Judging others
Here is something you probably haven’t thought about.
The judgments you place on others is really an outward extension of how we feel and view ourselves. Try your best to look at every circumstance and every person with a fresh, open mind.
Passing judgment on yourself or others is self-defeating and completely pointless. Accept things for what they are and it will dramatically change how you see the world.
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6. Doing things everyone else is doing
Followers live very frustrating, angry, un-empowered little lives.
Buying into every trend you see in magazines or on television because they say you should, working out on this or that equipment because celebrities say it’s good for you, or choosing a job because your friends have similar positions and it sounds cool is not the way to lead a happy life.
Follow your own interests or your own path and find fulfillment in ways that crowd cannot even imagine.
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7. Not listening to your intuition
When that little voice in your head says “Don’t do it.”
You should listen; it always has the right answer. Most of the time we don’t listen to it because we don’t like what it has to say. It can also ask us to do things that are difficult or are uncomfortable but things that are good for us.
When we do the difficult thing now, we can often skip all the drama and pain that comes from not listening to that little voice.
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8. Drowning in too much media
Although it’s good to be informed, watching and listening to media all day long is not a good thing. Mainstream media (in general) sells itself on the awful, negative, terrible things in life.
Instead of allowing yourself to be brainwashed into distorted, narrow minded thinking or exposing ourselves to the values of pop culture, open yourself up to all life has to offer. Limit your computer time. Limit that Facebook time. A
nd perhaps, most important, limit the time you spend with the boob tube. It’s called that for a reason. Read also how to turn off netflix and just go to sleep.
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9. Waiting for perfection
If you wait for the perfect time to get married, buy a house, have a child, retire and “start living”, you will never do any of those things, because that perfect time? It doesn’t exist.
SEE ALSO: 15 Powerful Beliefs That Will Free You From a Life of Negativity
True, there are “better” times; waiting until you have a stable job and a little money in the bank before you get pregnant, for example, but the perfect time is usually right about…now.
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10. Holding onto hate and resentment
Holding onto hate and resentment doesn’t hurt anyone but you, friend. The other person you are holding that grudge against? They don’t know it and it doesn’t affect them at all. It is affecting you, however, eating you up from the inside out. The problem with hate is that, eventually, it takes ahold of you. It begins to take control. Everything and everyone you are holding a grudge against, hating, or resenting is like renting out a part of your head and your heart to something ugly and black. Let it go. Disconnect from it. Imagine yourself wadding up that ball of hate, tossing it in the trash, and then walking away towards the light. You are going to feel so much better.
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