How To Live A Happy Life

 21 Things We Must Stop Right Now

Today we are significantly richer than our previous generations. Material possessions have possibly improved 10 times then what we saw in our childhood days. Still, there seems to be so much insecurity and unhappiness in our generation.

Are there few things that we should stop doing to make us live happier?

These are 21 points that I have collected from my personal experiences. I trust most of us would find value in what I practiced consciously.

Stop Going To Bed With Our Phone At The Side

Today social media runs every second, 24/7, 365 days a year. Keeping our phone next to our pillow is only going to disturb our sleep, make we unhealthy and unhappy. Keep our phone on silent mode, keep them away in a different room when we go to bed.

Stop Spending Too Much Time On Social Media

In today's hyper-connected world, it's so easy to be immersed in social media 24 by 7. Social media is the new cigarette. Someone is sharing something interesting 24/7, possibly every second. Most of it is meaningless. Often forcing us to compare ourselves with what others are doing (Many of it could be fake as well and we trust them as gospel truth). We create unhappiness for our ourselves. It may not be possible to completely be away from social media but try limiting it to 30 minutes a day at the maximum.

Stop Reading Newspaper In The Morning

Newspapers are controlled by commercial interests and they also tried to take away our attention from our priorities to their priorities. If we must read the newspaper, then possibly read it towards the end of the day by which we have already completed our day's ask and we are not going to be influenced by what the newspaper. Most of the newspapers are being sensationalized to improve their readership.

Stop Worrying Excessively

Lot of us confuse worrying as thinking. We need to think to decide whether something is good for us or not good for us, or how do we get out of a problematic situation. But often it gets converted into a worrying factor which has no end. Excessive worrying can actually paralyze our ability to make informed decisions. Stop worrying excessively.

Stop Expecting Favors From Our Old Friends

Things changed dramatically in few years. The same person that we lived in our hostel room or worked together might be a very different person today than we are. Expecting favors from someone can make we unhappy as the person at the other end may not be in a position to help we due to some conflict of interest or the person’s interest have changed. Friendships come with an expiry period of 2 to 3 years unless our interests match.

Stop Thinking ill Of  Others

If we think ill of others, someone with thinks ill of us. Thinking ill of others is like keeping a burning charcoal in our mind. It spoils our own peace and happiness. Think good of others, something good will happen to us.

Stop Criticizing Others

When we criticize others, we are essentially generating a lot of negative energy for ourselves. This negative energy is going to make us weak and will make us feel that we can't achieve something in life. So stop criticizing others. Others have their own parameters by which they take their decisions which can be very different from the parameters with which we look at things. Start focusing on our own attitude, work and plan rather than criticizing others.

Stop Watching Television

All the media is trying to promote some organizations products or services. They have an interest in making we buy something. They hypnotize our minds with free commercial entertainment. When we watch a lot of television, we are allowing somebody else to program our mind and make us feel miserable, aspire to their products or services. Watch television to the bare minimum possible.

Stop Procrastinating

Many of us get into a habit of procrastinating and not making any progress towards our desired future. To get anything done in life, one must stop procrastinating. If we keep procrastinating, we are not going to make a start and we are going to be in the very same pitiable place as we are today.

Stop Living Only For Self

True happiness comes from our ability to help others. Practice helping someone less fortunate. It will bring immense joy to us.

Stop Giving Excuses

Most of us do not accept responsibilities for our own task and we start giving excuses. Excuses are not going to make us stronger. Let's accept our own weaknesses and work on them. There is nobody on earth who doesn't have any weaknesses, so don't feel bad or sad about having some weaknesses. In fact, recognizing the fact that we have some weaknesses, will be the starting point to overcome the weaknesses.

Stop Giving Unsolicited Advice

This is a habit that lot of us cultivate where we give advice to somebody when the person has not asked any advice. We are making ourselves vulnerable by giving advice when the person has not asked for it. Remember unless somebody asks us about something, it is better to stay quiet then give unsolicited advice.

Stop Trying To Change Parents

There are many aspects of our parents which we may not like. But remember they were born in different circumstances, they had a very different childhood than us (often with much less affluence), they have different societal expectations.

Trying to change our parents is a futile exercise as having already spent a large part of their lives. So let’s try to change ourselves a bit to live with their expectations to make them comfortable with us. Remember, our parents will possibly the very last set of people who will support us when we run into any major problem.

Stop Thinking Low Of Ourselves

Rest assured own abilities are much higher than what we are performing today. A systematic investment in building our own capabilities can go a long way in making ourselves valuable to our family and organization.

Stop Blaming Past

Many of us have a tendency to blame our past, place where we were born, where we studied, what kind of college we went to. But past is past and we can't change an iota of the past. So blaming past doesn't help at all. Let’s think we are at Ground Zero today, and this is what we have and we have to cover this much ground, and how do we go about achieving the same.

Stop Blaming Others

Lot of us have a tendency to blame others for our situation. Remember we all our product of our past decisions. Our future will be based on our current decisions. We can't change our past decisions, so what we can change is only our current decisions. Let’s focus on what we are thinking and doing today and see if it is going to help we in achieving our future or make us weak overtime.

We all our product of our past decisions.

Stop Bad Company

A man or a woman will think in the same way that his on her company thinks. If we happen to make friends with people who have no ambition, have low self-esteem, it will come to us as well. Let’s try to surround ourselves with people who are positive, who want to make a difference to themselves and to the world. We will be surprised to see a positive change in ourselves.

Stop Fighting With Your Spouse

We spend a majority of our time with our spouses. If we pick up a fight every day with our spouses, we would have wasted a major part of our energy and time. This will not allow us to be successful in life. So let’s understand how both of us can make the best use of the time that we have together to build something wonderful for our family and society at large.

Stop Fighting With The Manager

Most of tend to believe that our managers are stupid. This is mainly due to fact that our visibility is much less than those of our managers. What seems to be right to us could actually be wrong and vice-versa. Instead of fighting, ask for an explanation for manager’s decision.

Stop Fighting With Children

This is again a tendency that many parents start developing when children grow up as adults. If we don't like our children, we should look at ourselves. Often we expect our children to earn a lot of money. Earning a lot of money could include activities that they should not be doing. Let’s set our own expectations right and see that we inculcate right values in our children. Stop putting a wrong sense of expectation on children equating money as the sole criteria for a person's success.

Stop Comparing Ourselves To Others

This is possibly the most important factor which makes us unhappy. We may have a Toyota car but we will still compare with somebody who is driving Ferrari or Merc.

Remember there is always a bigger boat. If we start comparing our material possessions with somebody else's, we will never be happy because there is no end to a man's (or woman’s) greed.




There is always a bigger boat (or a house).

I am a professional BA, trainer, coach, and author. If you like my posts please like/share/comment and spread the word in your network. I would love to connect with fellow professionals. You can also reach me at LN@AdaptiveUS.com About my organization, Adaptive US
We provide training, study guides, question banks, necessary PDUs for ECBA, CCBA, CBAP certifications. For more details, please visit www.AdaptiveUS.com.

Wishing all of us a happier life.