4 Mental Habits That Steal Our Happiness

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Habit # 1. Worry about the future

This mental habit steals such an important component of happiness as calmness and serenity. Worrying about the future is one of the worst habits of our mind, which "poisons" our life and everything that is good in it. Anxiety about the future (that is, about what is not yet, and whether it will be, is unknown) steals energy and joy from the present. You can achieve a lot, you can be very lucky, you can have everything, or almost everything, that ordinary normal people dream about. But if you continue to worry, all this will not bring you real happiness. You may be rich, famous, healthy, but alas, unhappy.

While it seems to us that there are so many reasons for concern in our lives, in fact, most of these reasons are illusory and unfounded. There is an opinion that anxiety-anxiety about the future is nothing more than one of the manifestations of the fear of death. This fear is "stitched" in our head as an instinct. And like any instinct, it is blind and poorly controlled: it turns on “off topic” and without our team. When we worry about the future, we invite this fear into our counselors. Maybe in war or in extreme conditions for life, he really helps, but in “peaceful” everyday life he is a poor helper and advisor - he charges too much for his services.

Many people understand that their constant concern and anxiety about family / work / health / money / situation in the country and in the world poisons their lives and takes a lot of energy, but they cannot do anything. Some, in order to somehow solve this problem, "addicted" to various sedatives. It is highly undesirable to do this. Find an opportunity to calm your anxiety on your own - there are many ways, methods and techniques for this: relaxation, auto-training, yoga, all kinds of meditation techniques, etc. The simplest and most effective way to cope with anxiety and anxiety is relaxation - physical relaxation. There are many methods of proper relaxation, and the simplest of them is to sit so that you feel comfortable and comfortable - so that all your muscles are as relaxed as possible, close your eyes and concentrate on your own breathing. Sit like this for 10-15 minutes. Relaxation is a physiological background on which anxiety and anxiety simply cannot physically arise, and your concentration on the breath will prevent you from getting hung up on anxious thoughts.

Habit # 2. Focus on the negative

This mental habit steals such a component of our happiness as a good mood, forcing you to constantly experience various negative emotions. Unfortunately, the human brain and psyche are so arranged that they focus more and more on the bad than on the good. Negative thoughts penetrate our consciousness more easily than positive ones, and when they penetrate, they grab our attention more tightly and for a longer time. And we begin to "fixate" on them, while experiencing negative emotions of varying strength and duration. And, mind you, nothing bad happens to us at this moment. That is, most often we suffer (experience negative emotions) because of our thoughts in our own head, and not because of the events that are happening around us!

Focusing, "getting hung up" on negative thoughts is a habit common to very many people, and most of them do not even know about its existence - for them such a focus on the negative is the norm of life to which they have long been accustomed. You don't have to go far - listen to what people talk about in queues, public transport, look at the expressions on their faces when they just think about something of their own. Or just observe your consciousness throughout the day, and then count and compare the number of negative and positive thoughts that came to your mind during the day.

What to do? First, do not try to fight them or forcefully "squeeze" them out of your head. If you try to do this “by force,” you will only feed your negative thoughts with your own energy. And from this they will become even more negative and even more intrusive. Secondly, in order to reduce the number of negative thoughts in your head, you need to systematically do one simple mental exercise. Every time you catch yourself on some unpleasant thought for you: the country is a mess, the dollar is getting more expensive, it gets colder on the street, acquaintances have borrowed money and won't give it back, but something hurts in your side, say to yourself: “Stop! I now think about it and experience such negative emotions. " Don't try to get this thought out of your head right away. Just be aware, without trying to influence them, what kind of thoughts are in your head now, and what emotions they cause in you. Then try to switch your attention again and concentrate as much as possible on what you are doing at a given time: cleaning, cooking, walking down the street, working at the computer or communicating with colleagues (see Habit # 5.). By doing this exercise systematically, you will soon be surprised to find that negative thoughts come into your head less often, and linger there for a short time.

Habit # 3. Fear failure

Fear of failure is a very strong brake on any growth and development. And therefore, the fear of failure is one of the most serious obstacles to your achievement. Fearing failure is a mental habit that steals the success and achievement components of happiness from us. When we are afraid of failure, we tend to give up efforts to achieve the desired result, internally agreeing to "tit in hand", although it is not quite what we wanted. To feel happy, a person needs to achieve something significant in life: become a Master Chef winner, write a book, become a world champion in ballroom dancing, or just make a million dollars. A person who is afraid of failure deprives himself of this opportunity, because, out of his fear of failure, he abandons serious worthy goals. True happiness is never complete without experiencing your own accomplishments and your own success.

What is a person who is afraid of failure really afraid of? First, he is afraid of discomfort and tension, which he thinks is a prerequisite for any serious achievement. Secondly, he is afraid to waste his strength and energy in vain. And thirdly, he is worried about his self-esteem, which can suffer greatly if the bar is raised too high and he does not cope with the task at hand. As the saying goes, a successful person looks for opportunities, and an unsuccessful person looks for excuses. Fears, as you can see, although serious, are by no means fatal. And everything that does not kill us, as you know, makes us stronger. I think that for the sake of your cherished dream they can and should be overcome in yourself. Overcoming them is a prerequisite for the fullness of our happiness.

Set a goal for yourself, realize and express a firm intention to achieve what you want and start acting. Be sure (on), you will receive all the energy and opportunities necessary for this. The main thing is to really want!

Habit # 4. To divert your attention from what is happening “here and now”

What is the here and now moment? The essence of this moment is best conveyed by the words of a famous song:

“There is only a moment between the past and the future

And this moment is called LIFE"

This is where you are now and what you are doing right now. The more your attention is paid to this immediate moment of your life, the more you concentrate on it, the better. The stronger and denser your contact with yourself, other people and the World will be. The fuller, more emotionally rich and meaningful your life will be. The better and better you will do what you do.

But, alas, our mind is not used to focusing on the moment here and now. He is accustomed to wandering chaotically over a past past or a future that has not come. Focusing on thoughts about the future or remembering and scrolling the past in our head, we lose the experience of the moment that occurs in the most important time - in the time "now". When in our thoughts we move away from “here and now” into the past, we are almost always “fixated” on something negative, and much less often we remember pleasant moments. Usually these are thoughts about why something did not work out for us, why we were refused, why we did not do it right. We remember and relive old grievances and failures. The same is with the future: more often than not, we think about the future with anxiety and anxiety (see habit # 1), and not at all with optimism.

Another side effect of distracting attention from the here and now is the loss of concentration. Concentration of attention is one of the main factors for the success of any activity. It is this skill that ensures the maximum (with the highest efficiency) involvement of our brain in solving any of the most difficult tasks or problems. If we are not included in the "here and now", then we are also not "included" in what we are doing now, whether it is cleaning, cooking, communicating with a child or drawing up an annual report. Our attention is out of focus, it "wanders", which means that the results of our activities will most likely be very mediocre.

Whatever you do, whatever you do, try to concentrate your attention on it as much as possible. When you eat, try to give all your attention to the food: its smell, taste, that pleasant feeling that causes its intake. When you are walking or running, be completely absorbed in the movements that you make and the sensations that they cause. If you listen to music, try to completely "dissolve" in its rhythm and melody. And if you try, you will almost immediately feel how much being in the moment "here and now" makes your life easier, more pleasant and more productive.

Whatever people want, in fact they all want only one thing - to be happy. What can we do to get closer to happiness? In terms of efforts that only depend on us, the formula for happiness is very simple. It is necessary to get rid of the maximum number of bad habits that lead us away from happiness and educate and form in ourselves the maximum number of good habits that make our happiness closer.

They say that if you learn to manage your habits, you will learn to manage your life! Getting rid of old bad habits, their place must be filled with new - useful ones. I can guarantee you that if you get rid of the bad habits discussed in the article, and in their place you will form others, namely:

• the habit of staying calm and serene;
• the habit of focusing on positive thoughts and emotions;
• the habit of developing one's abilities and striving for achievements;
• the habit of concentrating as much as possible on the moment “here and now,

the state of happiness in your life will increase significantly! Which is what I wish for you.