Ask a dozen individuals what the key to happiness in life is and you will most likely get a dozen different reasons that this is attributed to. Interestingly enough, every one of them have certain habits in common with one another.
These habits are the key components to living a happier life. Ironically, these habits do not have anything to do with being better looking, richer, or smarter than the next person.
What makes People Unhappy?
Granted, there are a number of circumstances and situations that are attributed to how unhappy a person may be with their life.
The following is a list of the 7 most destructive habits that unhappy people typically practice on a daily basis:
1. Attempting to achieve perfection
Your behavior and your life do not have to be perfect in order for you to be happy, yet this is an all too common misconception that many people share. You will wind up setting unattainable goals and your self-confidence will suffer for it.
2. Comparing your life and yourself to others
This is not only one of the most common of the bad habits listed here, it is quite possibly the most destructive. We tend to compare our assets, our relationships, and our social acceptance with others. As a result, you create many negative feelings and thoughts.
3. Focusing on life’s negative details
Dwelling on the negative aspects of your life and situation almost guarantees that you will be unhappy. Not only that but you drag down everyone around you in the process.
4. Getting stuck in your past or thinking too much about the future
Reliving conflicts, missed opportunities, and painful memories can take a toll on you emotionally and mentally. You can also create nightmarish scenarios by spending too much time in the future and imagining how your health could fail or that your relationship will fall apart.
5. Limiting your life by thinking that everyone and everything in the world revolves around you
Thinking that the world revolves around you causes you hold back out of the fear of rejection. It scares you to think what people may say or think about you.
6. Living in an world of negativity
What we listen to and watch, what we read, and who we socialize with can have a negative or positive impact on our emotions and our thoughts. If you constantly expose yourself to negativity and let yourself get dragged down by it, it’s going to be extremely difficult for you to ever be happy in your life.
7. Overcomplicating your life
Life is complicated enough so why would you want to make it worse? This causes us to create stress and unhappiness while making the world more complex than what it already is. However, developing the right habits can simplify things a make your life easier.
It’s important to note that happiness does not happen overnight. After all, it took years for you to grow unhappy and you can’t just erase that by flipping a switch or taking a magic pill. Just be sure that you set challenging yet realistic goals for yourself.
“It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.” – Charles Spurgeon
The 10 Ingredients to Happiness
Everyone’s happiness is attributed to a variety of reasons. However, past research suggests that the following 10 elements contribute to an individual’s happiness and well-being:
1. Acceptance
Dwelling on our flaws makes it exceedingly difficult to achieve happiness in our lives.
Accepting ourselves and being kind to ourselves increase our enjoyment, resilience, and well-being.
2. Appreciation
Once you start noticing the world around you, you will begin to appreciate it that much more. If you’ve ever felt that there has to be more to life, you’d be safe in your assumptions. You just need to stop every now and then so you can take the time to appreciate what’s out there.
3. Direction
You have to have goals in order to feel good about the future. That takes direction and motivation. Our goals must be challenging yet realistically achievable. Attempting the impossible creates undue stress. However, choosing ambitious goals gives us direction.
4. Emotion
Regularly experiencing positive emotions such as contentment, gratitude, inspiration, and pride helps us to develop our resources.
It helps us focus on the positive aspects in our lives (the glass is half full, not half empty).
5. Exercising
Your mind is connected with your body. So when we are active it not only benefits our physical health, it makes us happier. Our moods improve and we can even lift ourselves out of depression as a result.
Interestingly enough, our activities do not have to involve complex exercises. There are simple things that we can do every day so that we are more active.
6. Giving
Caring about others and doing for others is vital to a person’s happiness. When we give to others or help them, it makes us happier and we become healthier in the process.
Giving helps us to create a better society. However, it also helps us to develop stronger connections with those around us.
7. Meaning
People feel more in control, get more out of their efforts, and are typically happier when their lives have meaning and purpose. Plus, they experience less anxiety, depression, and stress in their lives.
8. Relationships
Relating with others is quite possibly the greatest contributor to our happiness. Individuals who have broader, stronger relationships with others are happier and healthier. It also helps us to live longer.
We can increase our self-worth by developing close relationships with our family members and friends.
9. Resilience
All of us have experienced failure, loss, stress, and trauma in our lives. However, it is the way we react and respond to these issues that can have a huge impact on our lives and well-being. In other words, it is the way that we bounce back when we get knocked down.
10. Trying out
There are a number of positive benefits to learning. You get exposed to new ideas which enables you to stay curious and learn new things.
We become more resilient and improve our self-confidence, eventually gaining a sense of accomplishment.
Closing note: if you unscramble the first letter of each component above (A, A, D, E, E, G, M, R, R, and T) it spells “GREAT DREAM”.
You have helped my life a lot, thank you.
Hey Alex,
Regular reader and love your work man!
Can’t tell you how many ups and downs i have been through in my life that have been rectified by applying these 10 principles.
The biggest one for me was my health. Ever since I started getting away from the PC and working out, my energy levels have increased and I am 10x more productive.
Regards,
Richard
Great article. Thank You, it adds more meaning and puts a lot of things in perspective if we follow those principles.
Cheers
Splendid article and I admire your style. As a novice writer, one could really learn from your work.
“The 10 key ingredients to happiness” – A title I will bookmark most definitely.
Your closing note “Great Dream” was a fantastic conclusion to these ingredients to happiness. It can really put in perspective to the “levels” of happiness there is to achieve.
Perform with these 10 pointers in mind and your happiness will lead to a successful lifestyle.
Thanks for your inspiration, and glad to have acquainted here, and on Twitter as well.
See you around!
It’s true that it is not how much we have but how much we enjoy that brings happiness.
Thanks for the feedback everyone! It was a pleasure to contribute to the A2S community!
Ajax! Loving the post buddy! I just got done reading The Pursuit of Happiness by Chris Guillebeau and these ingredients resonate so well with what Chris talks about in his book. Alongside physical exercise, I’ve learned that emotional exercise is just as strong if not stronger. The happiness I experience with persistent gratitude and inspiration is a second to none for me. Thanks for sharing!! 🙂
Thanks for the reminder. It all seem so very easy when it is written but most of us go through life stumbling about trying out other peoples life’s and dreams and ignoring ours. I think the best way to remain focus is to have all our goals, dreams and how to get their written as it will help us to remain focus on ourselves and our dreams.
I also gets upset when people claim to have made it alone. No man is an island and no one can do it alone. There must be people who are willing to lend you a hand and give you valuable insight as you go through life.
Thanks again for the reminders.
Ajax,
Absolutely spot on, both the reasons why people are unhappy and the ingredients to become happy!
I don’t think we can highlight just one key ingredient, as they’re all needed for happiness and one without the other wouldn’t give you fulfillment.
Thanks for sharing. Nailed it!
Dan
Hi Ajax,
Brilliant post, having a strong relationship with your family is something I have really tried with recently and is definitely bringing a sense of self-worth to the equation. Great tips once again 🙂 Have the attitude of gratitude. Awesome mission too, tick one more person off of your list.
Tom
Hey Ajax,
Great post! I can really relate to No 10. I love learning new things about a variety of topics – history, physics, food, business (I have a long list!). That’s what keeps me really excited about life and look forward to every single day.
Peter