You ultimately become what you repeatedly do. If your habits aren’t helping you, they’re
hurting you. Here are a few examples of
the latter that will steal your happiness if you let them:
1. Focusing on
everyone’s story except your own.
Don’t be so satisfied with the success stories of others and
how things have gone for them that you forget to write your own. Unfold your own tale and bring it to
life. You have everything you need to
become what you are capable of becoming.
Incredible change happens when you decide to take control. This means consuming less and creating
more. It means refusing to let others do
your thinking, talking, and deciding for you.
It means learning to respect and use your own ideas and instincts to
write your passage.
If you want your life story to soar to new heights, you’ve
got to clear a path, reduce the time-sinks and burdens weighing you down, and
pick up the things that give you wings.
Keep your best wishes and your biggest goals close to your heart and
dedicate time to them every day. If you
truly care about what you do and you work diligently at it, there’s almost
nothing you can’t accomplish.
2. Waiting for the
perfect moment.
Don’t buy into the myth of the perfect moment. Moments aren’t perfect; they’re what you make
them. So many people wait around for the
stars to align to do what they’re here to do.
The perfect moment, the perfect opportunity, the perfect state of being,
etc. Wake up! These states of perfection are myths. They do not exist.
Your ability to grow to your highest potential is directly
related to your willingness to act in the face of imperfection. You will come to succeed not by finding a
perfect moment, but by learning to see and use life’s imperfections
perfectly.
3. Working for
nothing more than a paycheck.
Work without interest is imprisonment. Even if you aren’t super-passionate about
your work, you’ve got to at least be interested in it. When you design a lifestyle in which your
work is something you suffer through daily strictly to pay your bills, you end
up spending your entire life wishing you had someone else’s.
Think about it. This
is your life; your work will fill a large percentage of it. It’s not all about the money; it’s about you. Ignore the propaganda, especially from people
who say, “Don’t let your work define you.”
Reverse this message and mediate on it:
“I will do work that defines me.”
When the essence of who you are defines at least some slice of the work
you do for a living, that work generates fulfillment.
Bottom line: Interest
in your work puts quality in your output and happiness in your mind. Don’t settle for a paycheck. Shuffle around until you find work that
interests you.
4. Harboring feelings
of hate.
As Martin Luther King Jr. so profoundly said, “Darkness
cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do
that.” Truth be told, when we harbor
feelings of hate, it eventually gets the best of us. It takes control of us. We forget why we hate, what we hate, and whom
we hate – we simply hate for the sake of hating. And then, naturally, we begin to hate
ourselves too.
Everything and everyone you hate rents permanent space in
both your head and heart. So if you want
to eliminate something or someone from your mind, don’t hate. Instead, disconnect yourself, move on, and
don’t look back.
5. Holding tight to
worries and fears.
Someday when you look back over your life you’ll realize
that nearly all of your worries and anxious fears never came to fruition – they
were completely unfounded. So why not
wake up and realize this right now. When
you look back over the last few years, how many opportunities for joy did you
destroy with needless worry and negativity?
Although there’s nothing you can do about these lost joys, there’s
plenty you can do about the ones that are still to come.
You will find that it’s necessary to let some things go
simply for the reason that they’re heavy on your heart and soul. Let go of them. Don’t clamp shackles to your own ankles. It’s incredibly easy to enjoy more of your
life right now, no matter what the situation.
It’s just a matter of letting go of the layers of nonsense that are
weighing you down.
Let go of your worries and fears, of your rage and jealousy,
of your need to always be right and control others. Let go of your pretentiousness and your need
to have everything your way. Underneath
all these layers of nonsense there is a happy, productive person. When you start peeling them off and simply
appreciating everything for what it is, life can be wonderfully fulfilling.
6. Dwelling on
difficulties.
A bad day is just a bad day.
Choose not to make it anything more.
Times of adversity will inevitably affect the conditions in which you
live and work; yet you don’t have to let it affect who you are and where you’re
headed. Take note of the setbacks and
adjust to them, but don’t expand on them by making them a bigger part of your
life.
Every day brings new lessons and new possibilities. There is always a way to take the next step
forward on the path you’ve chosen.
Events may be terrible and inescapable at times, but you always have
choice – if not when, then how, you may endure and proceed onward.
7. Constantly seeking
fleeting contentment.
There are two variations of contentment in life – fleeting
and enduring. The fleeting type is
derived from instants of material comfort, while the enduring type is attained
through the gradual growth of your mind.
At a glimpse it might be difficult to decipher one from the other, but
as time rolls on it becomes vividly obvious that the latter is far superior.
Enduring contentment sustains itself through life’s ups and
downs, because through them your mind remains confident and at peace. On the other hand, when life’s fleeting
changes have the ability to ruffle your mind into frenzy, even the most
elaborate physical comforts won’t make you any happier for very long.
8. Trying to make a big difference all at once.
If you want to make a difference in the world, start with
the world around you. Making a big
difference all at once is usually impossible, and the process of trying is
extremely stressful. However, instantly
making a difference in a few lives is entirely possible and usually fairly
easy. You just have to focus on one
person at a time and start with the one closest to you.
Work to make a bunch of small splashes, and let the ripples
spread naturally. If you want to change
a person’s mind or mood, sometimes you have to change the minds or moods of the
people around them first. For instance,
if you make one person smile, their smile just might make others smile
too. In this subtle way, you can touch
the masses with your thoughtfulness without stressing yourself out.
9. Holding on to
someone who hurts you.
Sometimes you have to walk away from people, not because you
don’t care, but because they don’t. When
someone hurts you time and time again, accept the fact that they don’t care
about you. It’s a tough pill to swallow,
but it’s necessary medicine. Do NOT
strive to impress them any further.
Waste not another second of your time trying to prove something to
them. Nothing needs to be proven. Do not act with any thought of them ever
again.
10. Over-amplifying
the importance of physical attractiveness.
Infatuating yourself with someone simply for what they look
like on the outside is like choosing your favorite food based on color instead
of taste. It makes no sense. It’s innate, invisible, unjustifiable
characteristics that create lasting attraction.
Just as some people enjoy the smell of mint, while others
prefer the scent of cinnamon, there is an undeniable, magnetic draw that
attracts you to the qualities of certain people, places, and things. Sometimes it’s even the scars your soul
shares with them that reels you in and creates the very hinges that hold you
together in the long run.
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