If we asked anyone, "Hey do you want to be happy??" What do you think the answer will be?
It will be YES, a big fat YES. Nobody will say, "Nah... I am cool… thanks but no thanks."
Everyone wants to be happy. Behind our every action is our desire for happiness. However, unknowingly we have certain mindsets, I call those happiness stealers, which as the term suggests, keep us from being happy.
Do take a look if any of these are unknowingly part of your life. If you are on this blog, chances are that you are consciously working on your happiness journey. I hope my list of seven happiness stealers helps you increase your happiness quotient.
1. Postponing happiness by associating it with big events in our life.
we are so caught up with everyday stresses, we forget that little things can make us happy.
We keep setting conditions for happiness. “I will be happy when I reach a certain dress size, get that promotion, get married, have kids, have an ocean front home, meet Oprah... list continues.”
Let’s assume that we get to meet Oprah…once the excitement dies down… do you know what will happen… mind will start thinking… “How do I become the President of the United States?”
The moment, we get, what we thought will give us happiness for life, we get another desire, which we feel will finally give us happiness… thus, once again postponing our happiness.
If we keep postponing happiness to a later date, then our own expiry date may come before our date with happiness. So, choose to be happy now.
I made a video Be happy now - A simple and powerful mindset technique to be happy. I am sharing its link (http://bit.ly/Bhappynow). Hope you like it.
2. Living our life according to others expectation. Do you know this is one of the top regrets of people who are dying?
Most of us try and live our life to fit in with what this world expects of us. We chart our whole life according to it, losing our real self somewhere along the way. There is no set formula for happiness. If we look around we will find that even in same set of conditions one person is very happy and another is dissatisfied. Why is that? It is because one person's set of circumstances is aligned to their idea of happiness and for the other person happiness means something different. Some of the happiest people I know, are the people who are living their life being true to themselves. When we are happy and satisfied ourselves then only can we add happiness to others life.
3. Grudges
Dalai Lama says "Hating someone is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies" Same is true for holding grudges. When we hold grudges, we start eroding our own happiness. At one given moment we can feel only one emotion. When we hold a grudge against someone, that person may or may not be affected by it. However, we are 100% negatively affected by it. When we hold a grudge we feel angry, irritable and frustrated. That's no way to live. We also put our physical and mental health through tremendous pressure which can get manifested in various illnesses.
4. Comparison
Mark Twain was bang on when he said, “Comparison is the death of joy”. This is a perfect prescription for sadness, anger, frustration. This world has close to 7.6 billion people. I can say this with complete confidence that there will be people who are better looking than us, healthier, richer, thinner, fatter, savvier, smarter than us. If we constantly compare ourselves to others we will never be able to cherish our blessings and find contentment. I have a friend, who was genuinely very upset because her cousin’s husband is earning more than her husband. Do you know how much my friend’s husband earns? It is close to one million dollars a year!!! I rest my case.
5. Hanging out with negativity experts
If we share our problem with someone and come back feeling that the problem is even bigger than we thought.... then, congratulations... we have a negativity expert in our life. Human mind is very receptive to suggestions, ideas and emotions. Also, most of us have to work on being positive but find it easy to lean towards negativity. That is why we have to consciously surround ourselves with people who are happy, content and satisfied in their own self.
6. Comfort zones
This is perhaps the most dangerous one because we don't even realize that we are cheating ourselves out of the life we are supposed to have. How many of us keep working in dead end jobs, or jobs which we hate because we are scared of getting out of our comfort zone? So, many people are in toxic relationships because of the same reason. However, every time we move out of our comfort zone we expand our capabilities and open up new possibilities in life.
7. Our happiness in someone else's keeping
A lot of us give our power to be happy to others, thus making them responsible for our happiness. When we do so, not only we are being unfair to ourselves but also putting that other person under tremendous stress. If they call us we are top of the world, if they don't we are down in the dumps. We get so emotionally dependent that we try to even change our very core to please that other person, which in turn we believe will make us happy. However, we forget that we are happiest when we are true to ourselves.
About Ruchi Singh
Ruchi felt she was about to die one night during her marriage. This made her think what would have been her value add to the world if she had died that night. She has started RuchiSinghTalks with the sole purpose to empower people with the life skills to transform their mindset and move from victim mindset to be the master of their life (professional and personal). Her life experience and the techniques which she has successfully used to overcome chronic pain and domestic violence, together with her MBA, decade long experience in HR, knowledge of Meditation, Pranayama, Yoga, Reiki enable her to help others who are facing their own challenges in life. She believes in the power of mindset and the infinite human potential to turn adversity to strength.
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