It's always difficult if you are a perfectionist. It is very difficult for such a person to achieve a state of happiness, because even the path of achievement must be ideal. There will always be someone who, in the understanding of a perfectionist, is still better in something – a house, an apartment, a career, a family, a hairstyle, in the end. Moments of happiness for such a person are very fleeting and rare – only when he felt that he had done something perfectly, and until he saw that someone had done it even better.

Chatting with people who are always dissatisfied with something

Man is a social being. We cannot completely renounce other people and live as hermits, listening to no one and nothing. Those with whom we communicate have a fairly large impact on us.

How can you be happy if people around you constantly say that life is terrible and mostly unfair and cruel?

It is one thing when such things are said on the case (the situation in the country, crisis, etc.), but it is quite another when such thoughts and opinions are prevalent and concern absolutely everything. It is better to avoid such interlocutors and exclude this information noise from your field. If this is your inner voice, then you will have to seriously work on yourself.

Constant thoughts about the past and the future

Everyone knows the rule “here and now”. By focusing on thoughts about the future or the past, we lose the sense of the moment that occurs in the most important time, in the time “now”. We are almost always obsessed with 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, and what was generally right at that moment.

Old grievances, failures – all this bites off a savory piece of our feeling of happiness “here and now”.

How can you be happy remembering and analyzing your failures? There is a time for everything – we are sad, analyzed, drawn conclusions and we are moving forward!

Comparing yourself and your life to others

The other is always better off, even if in other aspects of life it may be much worse than yours. In general, the constant comparison of yourself with someone is not a good habit. And the more often you are better, the more painful it will be if someone is better than you. Often people generally begin to compare themselves with a huge number of others, and everyone will definitely have something better. As a result, your self-esteem can fall below the baseboard. And if this repeats itself often enough, then an appointment with a psychiatrist and the loss of friends are guaranteed to you.

Focusing on negative moments in life

You don't have to go far – go to your grandmother or stand in line, where there are many retirees and aunts of pre-retirement age who get the main news from TV programs and radio.

As a result, all the talk about constantly stealing, killing, firing from work and “best” friends taking away other people's husbands and wives from under their noses. This is followed by a monologue on the topic “There was no such thing during the USSR”. But normal people treat this calmly and with a slight apprehension, realizing that this is part of life. Grandmother lives in this every day, and this news for her is life itself.

Yes, you will not envy the lives of our grandmothers, but we still have the strength to change something. For example, stop dwelling on negative things.

Dependence on the opinions of others

Before you do something, you always think: “What will people think (say)?”

You may feel that you are the center of attention of some people, and by breaking the standard boundaries and standard behavior, you will trigger a mechanism of condemnation.

If you are trying to do something new, you are doing it in secret from your society. You may think that you are the source of the negative reaction of others, absolutely not thinking about the fact that maybe someone just had a difficult week. Constant glancing back and a sidelong glance at others (what will they say, how will they react?) Very clearly interferes with personal development. And since it interferes with development, it means that it interferes with being happy.

You compare yourself to others

There are always people who are richer, more successful and more beautiful than you. People compare themselves to all of them and are therefore unhappy. Accept yourself as you are. Compare yourself yesterday with today. Go through this life becoming the best copy of yourself, and not someone else. Stop comparing yourself to others and be happier.

You think about the past

We often get stuck in the problems of the past. We remind ourselves of the mistakes we have made and cannot be corrected. We suffer from past loves, losses, setbacks and failures. But living in the past, you become unhappy and miss the present. The past is left behind, and the present is the opportunity to be happy.

The habit of being unhappy

At one time, I understood this very clearly: no matter what I did, all the same, a state of some kind of sadness, bitterness, experiences of certain moments remains in my soul. And I like it!

It has developed into a habit that manifests itself every day in actions, words, thoughts. Again and again.

It's no secret that happiness is an inner state. And no matter what happens outside, nothing will fill us with happiness, if there is no “habit” of being happy, there is no such attitude.

Unhappy love

One of my clients quite recently, after several of our meetings, suddenly wrote me a letter about some of her realization:

“You know, I listened to all the songs that were recorded in my collection. Almost all of them are about unhappy love. “

The goal of our coaching with her was to build a happy relationship with her husband. The girl is 24 years old.

Recommended: Test: Your Level of Happiness in Relationships

And realizing her mistake in the situation with the music collection, she realized that every day she fed her consciousness with his repertoire.

She hypnotized her brain daily that love is unhappy. Immediately after this realization, the girl erased all these songs.

Love = disappointment

There is another example of my client and friend. She had two marriages, and they did not end very well. Now the woman is looking for a new partner. Somehow a man appeared who became interesting to her, they developed mutual sympathy.

And, in the end, after a while the woman realized that this was not the person with whom she would like to live her life. But out of habit, she began to suffer that disappointment overtook her again, again everything was wrong, again lost time and the like.

After some time, we communicated with her, and a friend says: “Wow, I realized that I was upset not because the relationship was impossible with this person, but suffered, because I got used to thinking all the time that something not this way”.

This is a habit that we do not track. But if we are aware of it, we can cope with it.

Exit from the state of suffering

What can you do in order to switch your brain from a state of suffering to a state of happiness, looking for happy moments and fixing them?

It is necessary to independently create an image of a happy relationship, regardless of whether you are in a relationship now or not. Alone, looking for or you already have a close man.

Either way, creating an image of a happy relationship is very helpful. This is comparable to a piggy bank, into which you throw coin after coin, collecting capital.

You are 75% happy!

In general, you are happy, but sometimes you are not aware of your happiness. External factors prevent you from doing this. You know how to get joy from little things, and negative feelings for you are akin to self-destruction. Happiness for you is not the point you have reached. This is the path that you took when you reached this point.

You are 100% happy!

You're just the embodiment of happiness! You have great motivation, which you feed the most insignificant events and situations. You manage to squeeze the maximum of positive and beauty out of them. You love your life and yourself. However, this does not mean that you are happy 24/7. There have been times when you were completely desperate but managed to get up off your knees. You are truly the creator of your own happiness.

You are 50% happy!

You are happy and unhappy 50/50. Sometimes you want to achieve these high emotions and even succeed. But there are times when you get lost in the realities of life. You are undoubtedly concerned about the issue of money, which often turns into a problem for you. Nevertheless, from time to time you are happy, but it takes time for you to realize this. You should increase your motivation and take your time to live, then you will gain that very cherished feeling that will not be temporary.

You are 25% happy!

It seems that we are facing a person who does not know how to be happy. Perhaps you are right, and it is very difficult to be an absolutely happy person in the modern world. However, you should understand that happiness for people is like a medicine that gives strength to live on. We think you should rethink your life and live it so that later there is no sad feeling of something missed and unlived.

It allows you to avoid feeling responsible for your life.

The more you feel sorry for yourself from other people, the less motivated you are to make any changes in your life. And making changes quite often takes courage. This is a courage that you do not want to go for.

Your ego tells you it's better to be unhappy in order to get more attention for yourself. You don't have to try to do anything to change your life. Many people simply prefer to sit in one place and do nothing at all. It's much easier than trying to be happier and striving for something.

It takes much less effort to be unhappy. It's easier than allowing yourself to wake up and remember that nothing is holding you back from happiness except your mind.

Redefine your expectations

As I said before, unreasonable expectations that you or others place on yourself can keep you from joy.

On the one hand, aspirations can often become outdated. What you wanted ten or five years ago (or even six months ago) may not be relevant to your situation today and should be entered into the mental cabinet.

Another problem is that our culture is putting exponential pressure on all of us to do better and better, to try their best to work 24 hours a day to pursue fame and recognition. Any result that earned less than gold is punishable by an exception for the cool crowd, receiving less in the form of benefits, bonuses, and even appreciation.

As a result, anxiety, depression and all their dark friends begin to creep into our minds and color everything else that can give us joy and satisfaction.

Therefore, periodically checking your expectations – their validity and importance on your happiness list – is critical to preventing the spread of unhappiness in your life.

Examine your way of thinking

At the heart of the so-called rational emotional behavior theory (REBT). This idea was pioneered by American psychologist Albert Ellis in 1956. This idea never upsets us. This is our interpretation and our thoughts on it. Based on this, changing our thoughts will reduce (and hopefully eliminate) our anxiety.

Let's continue. Positive (non-delusional) thinking has long been proclaimed the winner when it comes to mental health. If you find yourself going down the spiral of negative self-talk, you must stop yourself immediately. It is a trap of misery.

But, of course, it is not easy to do such deliberate actions all the time. Psychologists tell us that it can become a habit.

And don't forget to be grateful.

Good old-fashioned pros and cons

While it may seem like a less fun way of figuring out if you're unhappy or not, the list of pros and cons has been around for a long time – and yet it's a great tool for letting you scrutinize things, evaluate alternatives, and come up with satisfactory answers.

Interestingly, history tells us that this invention is attributed to Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century. Notorious for his productivity, he applied the pros and cons to almost everything in his life.

The beauty of the method also lies in its simplicity. So, go back to the chalkboard and start writing what you like and dislike (make you unhappy) in your life and what you know with confidence to make you happy today.

From the subset of “things that make me unhappy about my life,” think about what you can do to move them along the continuum – to the brighter side.

You may be surprised to find that there is much more to building your own happiness than chance, circumstance, or others.

Mental cleansing

Mental health is in the spotlight quite often these days. And it is right.

The way we take care of our bodies and minds is directly related to many life outcomes.

Mental confusion can be a stumbling block to well-being. Because of rethinking, old grudges, past events, all of this can make it very difficult to feel uplifted and content.

Doing a mental cleanse once a month can be a way to get you on the path to restoring your happiness.

Visit the past to confront your fears, get rid of the people who humiliated you, free yourself of any emotional baggage.

You have to pay for happiness

This attitude comes from childhood. Many of us were brought up like this: you have to earn an A, a mother's smile, gifts for the New Year, etc. But it happens differently! Agree, initially, when we are born, we receive love and affection just like that, by birthright. We are loved for what we are. And subsequently, we give care, affection and warmth to our new children in the same way. Unconditional happiness still happens!

The phrase “you have to pay for happiness” shapes the debtor's psychology. He sincerely thinks that for every ray of the sun he will have to pay back seven times. It is such people who then come to trainings and pay big money in order to find out and comprehend a simple truth – no one owes anyone, the sun shines just like that, and happiness is an inner state.

Let's not dismiss the existing responsibility, there is a harsh reality, yes. But still, we do not pay for everything, and it is the ability to appreciate simple things and experience joy that often constitutes the inner state of happiness. Let me remind you that health is also an initially free given, which we often don't think about, while we have it, we don’t take care of it.

The alternative to this negative attitude is that I am very grateful for everything I have!

I don't have much time left

Of course, such a phrase is pronounced by people with extreme fatigue. And if it is constantly repeated confidently, our brain and body will respond to what is really not long left, there is no strength and resources are running out. In fact, you need to change something in your own life in order to improve your condition.

Use the expression: it's time for me to rest.

I'm such a fool

By scolding yourself, you really want to justify yourself and explain to others that you have the right to make mistakes. Of course, such words help to relieve oneself of responsibility. But along with this, you broadcast to others a disrespectful attitude towards themselves. Naturally, sooner or later the day will come when at the most inopportune moment you will hear in your address: “So you are a fool!”

Change this phrase to: my mistakes do not make me worse, the main thing is to notice them in time (correct, do not repeat).

I'm fat (ugly)

This phrase is often not related to the real weight of the person. Note that it is especially incorrect to pronounce it in the presence of really fat people.

Of course, a woman (man) thus wants to hear a refutation in her address: you are not fat! In addition, such words indicate the presence of dissatisfaction with their appearance. Apparently, there are problems with self-esteem, so a person needs confirmation from the outside that everything is fine. The phrase provokes the need for constant approval from others. Better tell yourself: it's good that I'm healthy!

We are ordinary people, we do not grab the stars from the sky

With this phrase, people want to justify their modest existence, for which they are ashamed or someone is trying to shame them. Naturally, this is pure programming of oneself for such a simple existence in the future, its immutability. And always in such moments it is about dignity.

Tit in hand or pie in the sky? What's more important, money or peace of mind

It is very important to understand the true nature of these words. Very often people are really satisfied with a simple life, without diamonds, expensive fur coats and luxury cars. And it happens that a person from himself disguises his sense of shame for not leading a decent (rich) life.

Tell yourself: I live the way I feel comfortable! What are you experiencing? Are you really comfortable, good, comfortable? Or are you actually ashamed of your standard of living? If it's comfortable, then you shouldn't worry, and if not, change everything, work hard, improve!

Young girl.

She was a good partner, friend, lover, but after breaking up with her boyfriend, she stopped being successful with men. “As if someone had jinxed it,” she laments. What happened? Where did her ability to be bright, flirt and seduce go? Why doesn't it work?

Conclusion: the lack of skills that will help to realize the goal.

Advice: to acquire the skills of “harmonizing the inner world”, to increase “self-confidence”, to revive “trust in men”, etc.

Smart programmer.

He is in demand, with merit and a cool portfolio, he works in a modern holding. But a young specialist, not such a strong professional, is ahead of him in a number of parameters, because he knows English, studies professional literature in other languages, and participates in international conferences. Where's the justice?

Conclusion: undercompletion, skills that worked in a different place do not work.

Advice: make progress, develop new competencies: time does not stand still and requires new inclusions. Or choose another place of work where the trends of the times are not so relevant.

Master from God.

Excellent hairdresser, manicurist, pastry chef, etc. He has clients, there are enough of them, but the feeling of failure is present, because more advanced competitors who have mastered Instagram and YouTube are taking all the cream off the market. Sadness.

Conclusion: the need to choose a clear goal.

Advice: to understand the goals, what is more important is fame and willingness to spend time on promotion or financial stability and a calm measured life. And depending on this, move in the right direction.

Middle-aged lady.

In the past, athletic, active, cheerful and energetic, and now – a lazy woman. She abandoned fitness and a beautician, so instead of a photo, she puts a “cat” on her profile picture, and her husband is staring at his young colleague. Depression.

Conclusion: there is a skill, but it is atrophied.

Advice: to revive forgotten skills, aspirations and skills: “love for oneself”, ideally, “love for sports” is also possible, but about harmony with oneself is paramount.

A wonderful mother.

Her first child, daughter, is the pride of the school, but the second, a teenage son, does not crawl out of the children's room of the police. How so?

Conclusion: lack of skill, because a different range of tasks arose.

Advice: most likely, she does not have enough competencies to raise her son – “authority”, “endurance”, etc. Too gentle character. You will have to develop new skills in yourself: to become “harder”, to learn to “be strict”, in a word, to acquire new personality traits.

A young man (gender is not important, it can be a girl).

It seems to be good to everyone: successful, smart, charming. He also has the desire to start a family, but he does not go well with his personal life. Why?

Conclusion: the lack of the skill to be in a pair and the corresponding components: “nobility”, “the ability to take care of someone”, “responsibility”, “loyalty”, “inner strength”, etc. (emphasize the necessary).

Advice: understand that in addition to the skills of “being a good guy”, you need “partnership skills”, and go to master the territory in which he wants to be successful. The same works in any field (study, career, self-development, etc.).

Young woman.

She is married, previously she was happy in family life, and everything suited her husband and wife. But after 10 years of marriage, she increasingly hears reproaches from her husband for infantilism and frivolity, which makes her unhappy.

Conclusion: undersupply, skills that worked in a different place and time do not work.

Advice: most likely, such traits of a girl as “flexibility”, “easy attitude to life” (a kind of image of a “girl”), necessary and useful at the beginning of a relationship, can interfere with the decision of strategically important family issues or situations in a couple, when the foreground should be “self-esteem”, “responsibility” or “self-sufficiency” (the image of an “adult woman”).

An excellent accountant.

No, even the best in the office or higher in the corporation. He has 100% skill to be a super-pro. Figures, reports, tables and even queues at the tax office always gave him real pleasure. And he lives in it by inertia. But for some reason the buzz has gone out of life. What to do?

Conclusion: lack of knowledge about the lack of skill and the need to choose a clear goal.

Advice: sit down and sort it out, sincerely, with yourself. Tired of work and want to give up everything and do floristry? Or are you tired of being a cog and it's time to raise your status? In any case, the task is to add to your life what is lacking and develop new skills: either a start-up florist or the chief accountant.

Improper diet and sleep

It's trite and you've heard it so many times. However, food and sleep are the basis of our well-being. Contrary to all other sources of healthy sleep, the number of hours you sleep doesn't matter, but it is also an indicator of your state of health. If you sleep 12 hours in a row on a long-awaited weekend, swaying after sleep into adequate wakefulness for another two hours, think about why this is happening.

If the fatigue from all the worries accumulates in such volumes, it is time to add more rest to your daily routine. You wake up from any rustle from behind the wall behind which the neighbor lives, as if the brain is playing some kind of perverted game with you, as if you are the character of Edward Norton from Fight Club, the solution is the same as in the previous case – more rest.

Edward Norton in the movie Fight Club

There are countless books and articles written about healthy eating, but the most important thing to know is “you are what you eat.” This phrase seems to you filled with mysticism or, in extreme cases, a template from dietology for phyto-babies, although even your grandmother used to say this to you more than once. After all, this is science, friends. But for the layman who flew in yesterday from the moon, the point is this: any food is chemistry.

The simplest experiment that can reveal, for example, your unnatural addiction to caffeine: forget about coffee for a couple of weeks. By the way, lethargy from the absence of this product in your body is already a signal about the inadequacy of your love for it. Two weeks later, introduce yourself “your personal brand of heroin”, notice how it affects you, because you use it every day, you do not pay attention to it. Any food has an impact on you, be it an apple or a slice of cake.

You are not taking care of yourself

This includes any procedure you do for yourself, from a night mask to a dentist or gym. By the way, the latter can be replaced with any sport that you can practice even at home. When you free up time for relaxation, following the previous advice, you will suddenly feel the urge to do something for yourself.

Even reading fiction on a bench in front of your office building at lunchtime will work in a positive way, allowing your brain to rest. After all, you changed the decor of the four walls for the first ball of Natasha Rostova, filled with excitement, brilliance and aromas of perfumed ladies.

There are too many unnecessary things in your apartment

You've already heard this somewhere, haven't you? Your workplace, as well as the apartment you live in, is an indicator of your emotional state. Too much unnecessary junk is an indicator of stagnation in your development. The relationship is simple – for something new you need to free up space from the old.

The magic of this method is that it really works – you cleanse yourself by throwing away deposits of college notes that for some reason you have kept for ten years, jeans and T-shirts that remind you of your waist from those times or the courage to choose defiant prints.

Another pleasant bonus of cleaning: in some cases, the new is a well-forgotten old, remember – without fanaticism. Suddenly you find paints on fabric or watercolors in your “help out room”: five years ago something in this hobby attracted you. Sometimes a new feeling can become so strong that, without finishing cleaning, you rush to pull the paper on the stretcher. Don't hold back, let it happen. If the new hobby does not touch you, unused paints can be given to friends who have children.

Take care of yourself, especially when things aren't going well.

In reality, thousands of people refute this idea with their behavior. Most anxiety and depression sufferers do the opposite. The worse they are, the more they start themselves (stop seeing friends, give up their hobby), and the more they start themselves, the worse they get. A vicious circle arises.

Doing what you love when you have problems is not the most obvious way out of the situation, because we lose our desire for this. However, many works show that this desire must be awakened with an effort (as in the case of a stalled engine, which must be started again).

Just do not be mistaken about the ultimate goal: when we feel bad, the task of enjoyable activities is not to make us happy, but to prevent misfortune from growing and taking root within us.

Avoid perfectionism and do not strive for happiness “by all means”

Reflecting on happiness, Gustave Flaubert wrote: “Have you ever thought how many tears were shed because of this terrible word? Without him, we would have slept more peacefully and life would have been easier for us. ” It is not necessary to take the writer too literally, but nevertheless … The search for happiness should not become an obsession for us, and the right of every person to happiness – written, by the way, in the US Constitution – should not turn into a duty to be happy no matter what became.

We cannot avoid meeting with misfortune, but it is in our power to stop being afraid of this meeting and benefit from it.

Moreover, the feeling of unhappiness, an integral part of human existence, can sometimes be useful, forcing us to think about whether we are living the right way, or even necessary, when it prompts us to face unpleasant truths.

We cannot avoid meeting with misfortune, but it is in our power to stop being afraid of this meeting and benefit from it.

Savor moments of happiness

The best (and most enjoyable) weapon in the fight against unhappiness is to derive as much pleasure as possible from those happy moments that fate gives us. An excellent vaccine against feeling unhappy is to enjoy happiness by trying to make that feeling stronger, more powerful, and more intense.

Perhaps the disease will not pass you, but it will pass in a mild form! As always, this is easy to say, but not so easy to do. The contemporary French philosopher André Comte-Sponville talks about how incredibly “it is difficult to be happy when you are doing well.” Let's not wait for the vicissitudes of fate to remind us that life can be beautiful and make us regret that we did not dispose of it better …

And here we come to the oldest and wisest advice of philosophers: carpe diem (“seize the moment”), rejoice at what you have today.

Reflect on worries, but don't dwell on them

Studies of the psyche of anxious people show that they constantly scroll thoughts about trouble in their heads, but, paradoxically, this does not help them find a way out of the situation. The fact is that the feeling of anxiety is needed in order to signal an alarm, to draw our attention to the problem. This is not at all a way of perceiving the world or solving our problems.

This is why one of the goals of psychotherapy, especially cognitive therapy, is to teach people to perceive their unhappiness as problems that need to be solved, and not as a curse. In this case, the so-called “Socratic method” is used, which consists in asking tough questions about our worries: what is relevant to the facts, and what follows from my interpretation of events or my expectations? Does it help me if I'm constantly worried? What is my disaster scenario? What is the likelihood that it will happen to me? Etc.

The method is harsh, but effective.

Sources used and useful links on the topic: https://Lifehacker.ru/7-obshhikh-privychek-neschastlivykh-lyudejj/ https://mensby.com/life/interesting/9790-pochemu-ty-neschastliv-i-kak- eto-ispravit-nemedlenno https://www.grc-eka.ru/ya/pochemu-ya-neschastna.html https://onedio.ru/news/test-kotoryj-tochno-opredelit-na-skolko-procentov- vy-schastlivy-41674 https://FB.ru/post/psychology/2020/2/15/185464 https://zen.yandex.ru/media/id/5cc19ed88e370c00b366cde9/pochemu-ia-neschastliv-5-shagov- chtoby-vyiasnit-prichinu-5cc82e58eb28ac00aea479d6 https://aif.ru/health/psychologic/ya_takaya_neschastnaya_10_fraz_kotorye_portyat_nam_zhizn https://econet.ru/articles-usevstu-my-chahn ot-psihologa https://psyocentr.ru/blog/5-prichin-pochemu-vy-chuvstvuete-sebja-neschastnym/ https://www.psychologies.ru/standpoint/7-sposobov-perestat-byit-neschastnyim/

Post source: lastici.ru