If You Want to Be Happy, Leave Behind These 5 Bad Habits
To create good, start by getting rid of the bad
Self-improvement is a continuous process—one which lasts your whole life.
Once you start the journey, it is addictive. Seeing continuous progress is the most motivating thing you could ask for.
When improving your life with the goal of happiness, there is one extremely common question.
“Where do I start?”
Like with any other self-improvement journey, the easiest way to start is to leave behind bad habits.
These 5 are the most important bad habits to get rid of.
1. Excessive drinking
The weekend is around the corner, and you, like most others, are excited to enjoy a drink. Or, if you’re like me, you likely look forward to letting yourself go at an awesome party.
This is your happy moment. This is what you are looking forward to.
Problems arise when you delay feeling happy until a moment in the future. Especially when that moment is dependent on a substance, which is a depressant and a poison.
This becomes even more of a problem when you drink excessively.
Ironically, the drinks you look forward to could very well be the reason you aren’t happy during the week.
You’re hungover, tired, your body is filled with a depressant, and you’re unhealthy.
Cut excessive drinking if you want to be happy.
2. Late nights (bad sleep)
Studies have shown that those who get 7-9 hours of sleep report higher levels of happiness.
Regardless of what the studies show, we all know this to be true from experience.
Going to sleep late and at inconsistent times will negatively affect your sleep, leading to unhappiness.
That one is obvious.
What isn’t as obvious is how, even though you were asleep for a good amount of hours, the quality of your sleep might not be at a good level.
What affects the quality of your sleep?
The most obvious is alcohol.
The common myth of having a brandy to put yourself to sleep turns out to be false, for example.
But some have caffeine too close to bed. Some people get used to this and can still fall asleep. Little do they know that the quality of their sleep is not optimal.
Change this behaviour and others like it to improve your sleep and, with that, your happiness.
3. The comparison trap (negative self-talk)
My regular readers are probably sick of hearing about this. The sad part is that no matter how much we hear about the comparison trap, we often still fall into it.
The constant scrolling on Instagram and TikTok leads to us comparing ourselves to others who live lives in completely different ways.
Not to mention that 20-year-old with a Lamborghini likely rented it!
All the comparison leads to negative self-talk.
Our mind turns against us. We blame ourselves for not being where this other person is in life, or not looking like the photoshopped model.
This is a bad habit you need to drop.
Drop it and watch your happiness increase.
4. Avoiding problems
The obstacle is the way. At least, that is what Ryan Holiday will tell you.
He is onto something, though.
Too many people have a bad habit of avoiding problems. They see them, put them off or dodge them altogether.
This creates more problems down the road.
When you face a problem head-on, you build the skills, discipline and confidence to be able to face future problems.
Quit dodging problems, and you’ll be happier in the long run.
5. Lacking gratitude
The negative self-talk plays a role here.
For example, you’re playing a game and hit the wrong number. You complain about how nothing ever goes right for you. You end up lacking gratitude.
Continuously telling yourself things aren’t going your way or you aren’t lucky will compound your unhappiness.
Essentially, the more you lack gratitude, the less happy you will be.
And that’s why you should practice gratitude every day.
It’s a skill you can build and a skill that will get easier the more you practice. So, start today.
Closing thoughts
There are many more bad habits you could cut that we could add to this list.
For me, cutting these 5 created the quickest and most effective increase in my happiness levels. That’s why I wanted to share them with you today.
What are some bad habits you’ve cut that have helped your levels of happiness?
Thanks for reading