25+ Common Things Preventing Happiness

Happiness is an emotion, and just like any other emotion in general, you must not look outward for it; rather, you should look within yourself and see what it is that makes you happier.

You must dive deeper inside yourself and understand what the negative things diminishing your happiness are and work on getting rid of them at the earliest.

common things are preventing happiness

When you don’t remember your inherent value

You are much more valuable than you think you are. You never know how important you are to your loved ones and that your worth is never contingent on external factors like looks, wealth, relationship status, and so on.

All of these external factors hold no value to the people who love you for who you are as a person. All of these are just the roles you play; they don’t determine your inherent worth. As a human being, you are worthwhile and valuable.

When you have a pessimistic approach towards life

Pessimism is a trait that can suck all the happiness out of you. What pessimism does is that it makes you feel you are not capable enough or worthy enough of doing something. It decreases your self-confidence levels.

On the other hand, when you are optimistic, you don’t give up on your goals even after you fail many a time. You have a strong moral value, and failures don’t make you afraid of trying again.

When you let other’s opinions affect you

There are hundreds of people around you with thousands of different opinions. You must not take every one of them; rather, you should not take any of them unless it is from someone you trust or you are sure that their opinion will benefit you in your life.

When you let other’s opinions influence your decision making it becomes a burden on your shoulders as to what to do and how to go about something in life, and this makes you even more confused and stressed out rather than making things easier for you and providing you with clarity of thought.

When you compare yourself to others

Quit comparing your life to someone else’s life in general. Don’t compare a restaurant you visited another one visited by someone else, don’t compare the car you have and the car someone else has. Is this comparison even fruitful?

No, it isn’t. The more you compare, the more you lose confidence in yourself and the decisions you make. In no way does comparing someone with someone boost their confidence and morale.

Keep in mind that it is this diversity and contrasting nature of everyone’s life that makes the world so interesting.

biggest ways you are hurting your own happiness

When you let negativity impact your life

There is negativity everywhere you look around. There is negativity in the form of people, in the form of petty issues based on factors no one can change, there is negativity in the form of customs and traditions, though not all.

When you let negative thoughts and people influence your life, you diminish your ability to be kinder and more compassionate to others and also lower your self-esteem. You develop a negative mindset which later becomes a burden on your shoulders.

When you procrastinate a lot

A lot of people have a notion that when they keep the most important tasks for the last moment, they can work on it with greater zeal and enthusiasm because they have a fixed deadline which makes them put more effort into it, but in reality, that never happens.

When you procrastinate, not only do you feel stressed out and experience anxiety because you have a lot to do in a very small time, but also impacts your productivity, making you less efficient.

When you chase money and materialistic possessions much more

People work because they want to achieve all they have ever dreamt of, and for that, it is natural to want money, but money should not be the only focus in your life.

When you chase money, all you think about is how you can earn more, and for that, you are even ready to do something you are not comfortable with; that is, there is no job satisfaction.

What happens due to that is you don’t follow your passion, or do something you have always wanted or are comfortable with, and don’t let the money follow, which sucks your happiness even more.

When you keep on tolerating a toxic relationship

The more you tolerate a toxic relationship, the more toxic it gets. A toxic relationship is one where you don’t feel valued and respected.

You feel that you are there and you are the one doing everything required to keep it intact, whereas the other person never puts in any effort and tries to sort misunderstandings.

A toxic relationship can make you traumatized to the extent you will be scared every time you try to trust someone, and this sucks in all your happiness, so getting rid of it as early as possible is the best thing to ensure your happiness.

When you get ruled out by your ego

Your ego is insecure and is easily influenced and bruised by other people’s opinions. It is the social mask that prevents you from being your real self in front of others and allowing others to know the real you.

You must learn to dive into the depths of your soul, the eternal essence, which is beyond all the labels people might assign to you like rude, insecure, egoistic, arrogant, and so on.

When you look into your inner self, you understand who you are, the loving and caring nature of your true self.

When you ignore your intuition and what your heart says

There is a constant conflict between your mind and heart many times. This conflict makes you confused as to what you must decide to do so that you are successful in your attempt.

Most people never listen to their heart; they do whatever is there in their minds, influenced by others’ decisions maybe.

You must follow your intuitions and your heart, that is the best guide in your life, and when you follow what your heart says, you enjoy it even more.

When you constantly dwell on your past

Dwelling on the past is never fruitful for anyone. Yes, you may take examples of the moments wherein you did well, you combatted hardships, but remembering the moments which broke you is of no use literally. That only makes you weaker and more afraid of facing reality.

Constantly thinking about what you could have done better in the past will not help you. Instead, you should focus on your present as to how you can do better than what you did back in the day, and learn from your past mistakes, so that you don’t repeat them.

Related: Discover Happiness Within You

When you have a perfectionist mindset

Another trait which you may think is really benefitting you but, in reality, is just pulling you down and making you someone who is hard to get on with is the perfectionist mindset.

People possessing this kind of mindset are usually the ones who want everything to be the way they want them to be.

Not everyone is the same in this world, and not everyone does things in the same way or has the same way of thinking, so how can someone be the same as someone else? Also, having a perfectionist way of thinking makes you more afraid of failures and facing reality.

When you live in your head

Many a time, you will notice that your mind is somewhere else, in a different zone, and you are somewhere else.

You and your mind are nowhere close; you are living in the present rather than existing merely in the present moment, whereas your mind is either wandering in the past or has time-machined into the future.

You must learn to get this control over your mind to let it wander and get either into a problem-solving or worrying mode; just get it back to the present moment you are living in and make the most of it.

When you prioritize lesser important things

Staying in touch with the procrastination point, when you prioritize other unimportant tasks more than the ones you need to complete on time, other than just simply being lazy and lackadaisical, you procrastinate.

And as you already know the downsides to procrastination. Neither does it make you more productive nor more efficient; it only gives you anxiety and pressure at the last moment.

Save more time for the things and tasks that will progress your life and take you closer to your goals.

When you worry about the future more often.

Yes, it is better to think about what could happen in the future instead of dwelling in the past, which is of no use, but when you are constantly thinking about what could happen in the future and how you must combat them, you are once again pressurizing yourself and getting stressed out for the moments which are not even there in your life yet.

It is always best to live in the present moment, not the past, not the future. You should be prepared about what could happen and work for it rather than just worrying, which will not be fruitful.

When you don’t take ample care of your health

This involves taking care of both your physical and mental health. When you don’t take care of your diet and whether all the nutrients are taken by you in the required quantities, you devoid yourself from a healthy living.

Also, when you avoid exercising regularly, you are not up to the ark with your health physically.

You must take care of these issues as your health and your body is all you have got at the end of the day, which is solely yours, and you are the only one who can look after them the best way.

When you do not express gratitude

You are seriously missing out on a beautiful life when you don’t express gratefulness. When you show gratitude, it doesn’t mean that you are weak or have no self-respect of your own.

When you show respect and gratitude to someone like a sweeper or a peon in the office, or a bus driver, you are not degrading your image in any way.

People who show gratitude come out as more stable and less stressed-out people, who are way more attractive than the others.

Also, when you are grateful for your failures and tough phases of your life, you learn from them so that you don’t repeat your mistakes, rather than just regretting them.

When you do not portray patience

You must learn to have more faith in divine timings more often than not. There is a particular time and place for everything; you just can’t have everything on your plate at the same moment. So, as a result, you must build patience in yourself.

Good things do take time, so you must wait to get those positive outcomes you have been waiting for. When you rush with things, just because you are impatient, you will notice that things get ruined that way.

When you limit your beliefs

Since childhood, many of you may have come across many such beliefs like there are only two ways of succeeding, and that is if you either become a doctor or an engineer.

You may have also come people telling you that the only way to do something is this way and that all other ways make you appear abnormal, and so on.

You are living in the 21st century now; stop dwelling on these limiting beliefs and start spending your time trying to replace and release them.

When you are overtaken by shame and guilt

Everyone in this world makes mistakes. It is normal to make errors and fail in life or to put someone down who believed in you, provided you tried to succeed.

As human beings, everyone you see around has made mistakes or done something which brought them utter shame and made them feel guilty. Does everyone recall those moments and feel the same way still?

No, not everyone feels the same way they used to because that is not their original self. The same goes for you. You are not what you did back then; you are what you are from within as a person.

Verdict

From the above points, it can be concluded that there are several ways one can feel that his/her happiness is being prevented, but most of the time, those things are inside them.

One just needs to figure out what is it that is hurting their happiness and work on it the way it has been discussed above to restore their happiness once again.