Self-Improvement
10 Ways You’re Making Your Life Harder Than It Has To Be
Read it and I promise you will love it!
1. You think everyone has negative intentions
You cannot simply let things be. If your friend hasn’t texted you back or your partner went for lunch with his/her friends, you immediately associate bad intentions with it. You take offense on trivial things which do not even matter in the long run. Do not ascribe intent to other people’s actions all the time.
A nurse who worked in a palliative care shares the top 5 regrets people make on their deathbed. Let it be your reminded at all times!
2. I, me, myself
You know that you are the star of your own movie. Everything in your head is pre-planned and is supposed to happen in a certain way. But real life doesn’t let that happen very often. Other people will not follow your plans; they will not go according to your script. Try to avoid this attitude because it’ll make you feel frustrated.
In this ever-changing wold, especially with such advanced technology, you have to know that things won’t turn out as you want all the time, and be completely fine with it. Life itself won’t let you be happy all the time. It’s just (what I like to call) the law of balance that makes like beautiful. Being sad reveals the feeling of happiness, being anxious reveals the feeling of serenity… Yes, strive for happiness and fulfilled life on all fronts, but don’t let the dark side ruin your light side.
You just have to be okay with it, and you won’t let the bad vibe hurt your overall health.
3. Everything is apocalyptic
You jump to the worst possible conclusion for a given situation. Everything has to be apocalyptic and chaotic in your head even though things turn out to be quite well in the end. Slow down and take a deep breath. And by the way, blame it on our ancestors. It’s their fault!
The brain is preparing you for the worst, it’s just the way of evolution. God knows what our ancestors had to survive through to create the people we are today. And if you think that it all goes 2 meters under with their bodies, you are wrong. It is sealed in our DNA. It’s even scientifically proven that your brain is prepared for anything.
So next time when you jump to the worst possible scenario, take control of it. Once you master your thoughts you can literally achieve anything. It’s the battle within ourselves that’s hard as hell. All else is mirroring our thoughts in reality. Have that in mind.
4. Expectations
Having unrealistic expectations in life is such a common thing for everybody. Lessen the amount of expectations you have from people, you will immediately feel more relaxed and happy.
We tend to put high expectations because we have no real control of our thoughts and emotions. Just take a look at yourself when you are extremely happy and excited. You tend to think that you can rule the world, and you do rule it, but that’s all in your head. It’s not that I am trying to tell you that you shouldn’t be happy. I just use it to explain a simple thing about expectations.
When you expect too much from someone , especially from a relationship partner, friend, or colleague, you just let your happiness and excitement speak for the other person. While that’s completely okay, you put too much expectations on a person that has a brain on his own. You are currently excited, and you see the outcome from him based on your emotions. What we forget is that the person lives in different reality. His 30 years of experience is much more different than yours. You can’t control expectations from another person. Life is just so intertwined with confusion that you can’t control everything yourself, and especially not someone else’s thoughts, intentions and actions.
Bottom Line: don’t expect that much and it makes it so much easier. If they do better, you will be happier. If they do worse, you won’t be that disappointed. Either way you win. You get my point?
I was talking the other day with my friend on expectations because we were little disappointed from one particular person, and he said to me: “You know what? Right now if my father tells me he is gay, I won’t be surprised!” And that was lowering the expectations to the minimum.
Off the record, we were joking, but you get my point.
5. Waiting for signs
Some people won’t take any action till they receive some secret “sign” from the higher power. If you keep looking for signs and omens then you’ll keep waiting and never act. It’s good to believe, but it should not impair you from doing something that you think is right.
And here’s comes the all powerful. I have no idea how to explain it, but I will try.
There’s higher power controlling this world and it’s best explained in a book I read a while ago by Napoleon Hill. This sentence really open my eyes wide open, and I even started laughing loudly, and I was home. alone. Here it is described by my words:
“Every person has at least two persons in him, whether we accept that or not. Every day you have to make that conscious decision. Are you going to listen to your “bad you”, the personality that feeds your fears, guilt, and worries, or you are going to listen to your “good you” and count your treasures, blessings, good fortune, and gratefulness.”
Now the book keeps on explaining that we are all connected to something bigger than us, and ordinary folk will say “c’mon that’s complete bulls*it”, but I say they are wrong.
When you feel motivated and vibrate on a higher level than usual (feel happier, excited, confident) you connect to higher power. A web that somehow connects all of us. And it’s really unexplained by any science. And I think that’s the beauty of it.
When you vibrate higher, you somehow find the right people for a task, hang out, even a life partner. You belong to another, different reality and you connect with the people that belong to that reality.
The signs you are waiting are hidden in your emotions. When you vibrate on a higher level, you will see more signs, connect to them, and create completely new, better life.
6. Not taking risks
You live your life in your comfort zone refusing to even peek outside. This will not help you in achieving anything since you’ll never know the hardship of the real world.
Since childhood, we may not seem to notice what’s comfort, or there is a thing called ‘comfort zone’ you can actually fall and be trapped in.
The reason is because we didn’t have the adult brakes in childhood, if you know what I mean.
There are crucial things we aren’t taught in school, and in spite of that we are educated on the global scale of learning.
The global scale of learning is the overall school education. I sucked at painting, I hated it, and yet I had to paint to get a better grade.
From primary school until present day I haven’t painted, and I don’t have any plans to do it in the future.
No one ever told me that time is the most valuable lesson in life, until I read it from dozens of books.
No one ever told me, too, that my life is not meant to be safe. Or that my life will expand (spiritually and mentally) if I step out of what makes me comfortable.
All I heard was to stay safe, get out of trouble, to dry my hair before going out, or to take my jacket because it’s cold. Maybe that was meant for bad ‘type’ of troubles. But I wasn’t told that too.
What I’ve experienced (and I’m still an early bloomer) is that comfort zone keeps my eyes shut, my ears clogged, and my mouth glued.
Because I don’t want to take you long, here another article on comfort zone. And I promise that you will like it.
7. Comparing your life with others’
Teddy Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” So why do you measure your life with other people’s lives? If you look from someone else’s eyes, you have enough.
Thanks to Michael Gregory for explaining this so good:
People live most of their lives comparing themselves to others. It normally starts off at a young age and it gets worse as they grow into adults. There’s usually an infinite amount of areas you might compare yourself with on a daily basis. Whether it’s based on looks, income, or status most people do it in one way or another. But comparing your car to your neighbor’s won’t do nothing more than build resentment between yourselves.
Kill this habit by becoming aware of your own success and victories. Have you ever passed an exam before? Congratulation! You graduated High School? Awesome! And let’s say you want to break down your success into unique experiences? Did you ask that cute person out or get their number? Great! You did something most people are afraid to do.
The point is this, when you compare yourself to others, you’re stressing your mind because you end up questioning your own life decisions and abilities. You lose focus to what you should be doing and start a petty competition that never ends. No one’s perfect and someone will always have something better or greater than you. All you can do is accept it and move on because in reality there’s someone else in the world who dreams to be in your shoes.
8. Wasting time
You let unimportant things or people waste your precious time. Value the importance of your own time and spend it wisely. Do not lavish it on selfish, egotistical or negative people. Guard it safely as if it’s a treasure because it really is the only treasure that can be spend, but not taken back.
I cannot explain it better than Steve Jobs:
“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Just imagine that this very second, you reading this cannot be brought back. Ever. And let that be your motivation.
9. Not letting go
Letting go is a very difficult task. But it doesn’t mean that you can’t do it.
Slowly and steadily you will learn to let go of that broken friendship, failed relationship and career setbacks. Life is a cocktail of loss and gain. Try not to lament over things that left your life, because new ones are on their way.
The top 3 things is life is controlling the stiff emotions, the ones that don’t seem to go away. I found that in those exact moments you know that you are truly strong person. Sometimes we are to blame, but most often it’s not up to us, and we have to face that.
Remember that you are truly strong if you can find the way to stand back up from the mud. Make a conscious choice that it won’t be easy, but you will get through it.
10. Not giving back
If you don’t give back in life, then what are you living for? Taking is the easiest thing to do, but to give someone that care, love and affection that you want to receive is really important.
Altruism is part of life. Sharing our energy with other people and showing compassion towards humans and animals can lead to happiness. It’s like a straightforward bridge from altruism to happiness.
Being happy and using ways to increase happiness is quite difficult if we don’t share what we have. Far away from money, we have bigger and brighter things to share, such as helping hand.
Sharing things in all forms – kindness, generosity, compassion, volunteering and donating money – can be favorable for the benefactor and the recipient.
Altruism in the form of kindness and compassion are the key factors to socializing and vital to our happiness. Researcher claims that random acts of kindness raise dopamine levels and boost your mood.
Get out of your limited self, see the world outside which is in desperate need of healing. Don’t let yourself become a taker in life. Giving unconditionally is the most satisfying activity for the soul.
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