Eliza Hartley
Unhappiness is your fault.
Ha! Kidding. I just wanted to wind you up a little. You should have seen the look on your face.
The truth is that unhappiness is a combination of many complex factors, from our socioeconomic background to our family dynamics, genetics, luck, talent, intellect, and context.
As the journalist Malcolm Gladwell says in his brilliant book Outliers, “Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities.”
He also says that “who we are cannot be separated from where we’re from.”
Still, though. There *is* an element of personal agency and autonomy where happiness is concerned.
In fact, a great deal of happiness doesn’t come from external sources – it arises internally. From within.
While your habits are only one part of the story, they play a huge role indeed.
Therefore, if you feel deeply unhappy in life, these 6 habits could be to blame.
1) You expect motivation to kick in before action
The first colossal mistake that many unhappy people make is that they assume action can only ever be preceded by motivation.
If you don’t feel motivated, that’s it. End of story. Instead of going to the gym, you end up lounging on the sofa.
But as the author of the bestselling book Atomic Habits, James Clear, says, “Motivation often comes after starting, not before. Action produces momentum.”
Have you ever felt too lazy to get started on a task just to finally sit down, begin, and realize it’s actually not so bad?
Yep. The truth of the matter is that making the first step is often the hardest part. I can’t even count the number of days where I haven’t felt like writing, exercising, or cooking, just to push through and realize the activity was actually really freaking fun.
Oftentimes, you don’t need motivation to take action. You just need to either grit your teeth and push through or trick your brain into co-operating (for example by using the Pomodoro technique or by giving yourself a very small and easily achievable goal).
In fact, it is action that tends to give rise to more motivation, creating a positive feedback loop that keeps you going in the long run – that is, momentum.
Think less and act more.
2) When you feel rubbish, you actively make it even worse
Do you know that feeling when you’re lying in bed, too lazy to do anything, watching Netflix and browsing a food delivery app to see what’s on offer even though you have plenty of ingredients in your cupboard?
Don’t get me wrong, days like this are essential sometimes. It’s nice to just chill in bed once in a while.
But let’s face it – more often than not, you aren’t actually all that exhausted. You just feel rubbish and unmotivated.
But instead of doing something to lift your spirits, from taking a shower or dancing around your bedroom to cooking yourself lunch and going on a walk, there you are, giving in to the rubbishness of it all.
What’s more, you’re making it all worse by taking actions that only add to the misery.
You order fast food right to your front door, eat it in ten minutes, and realize the money really wasn’t worth it.
You binge-watch a TV show for six hours and end up with a headache that makes you even crankier than before.
You lie in bed for so long that you fall asleep and screw up your sleep cycle.
Individual happiness has a lot to do with your daily habits. If you notice yourself slipping into a lazy and dissatisfied mode, you can choose to either go with it or do something to offset it.
It’s up to you.
3) You daydream but don’t pursue
Speaking of taking action, I know far too many people who talk the talk but don’t do the deed.
They may have great dreams of traveling the world, starting a business, or changing jobs, and they spend a great deal of time thinking about all the different paths they could take in life.
But when it comes down to it, they stay right where they are.
Unmoving. Comfortable. Low-key miserable.
It’s strange that comfort can go hand in hand with deep unhappiness, and yet that’s precisely what often happens – when you choose to stagnate out of fear, your true self suffers. You may be safe, but that doesn’t mean you’re fulfilled on a deep level.
It is through growth, through doing the scary thing, and through stepping out of our comfort zone that we make our dreams come true.
If you don’t turn your dreams into goals, that’s all they will remain. Dreams.
Make concrete plans. Put stuff on your to-do list. Take small steps forward, day by day.
Make it happen.
4) You do what’s expected of you rather than what you really want
And here comes the crux of the problem, doesn’t it?
Sure, you could go travel the world by picking up odd jobs and helping out strangers around the house through Workaway and such, but what would that do for your career?
You could start a small business, but what would you do if it failed?
What would people think of you and your trajectory in life? What would you have to show for all those years of adulthood? And what would you do once you go back to “the real world”?
For many people, listening to their intuition and following their dreams isn’t at odds with what society expects of us. But for others, that very much isn’t the case.
I’m a freelance writer, so I know what I’m talking about. For most of my life, people doubted me and tried to steer me in a more traditional direction where my career and lifestyle were concerned.
But I knew what I wanted and I went after it. I now live the life of my dreams.
Sometimes, you’ve got to divert from the norm to reach true happiness. What other people think about you is their own business.
Your job is to do what you feel is right.
5) You underestimate your talents and skills
Why don’t you go after what you want? What’s stopping you?
You might feel lost, not knowing what your purpose in life is. You might have a few options in mind but aren’t quite sure how to achieve those goals.
Whatever it is, there’s a high chance you’re probably underestimating your own knowledge, skills, and talents.
Just look. Look and see.
Whatever your dream life, there are already plenty of people who are living it – people who may have been much less experienced than you when they started out, people who aren’t as talented as you even now, five years into their career, people who decided to just go for it and believe in themselves.
Confidence is half the battle.
You can always learn new skills along the way. When you don’t know something, you can always research it online.
The ability to believe in yourself is the main ingredient in the cocktail that is success.
In other words, fake it till you make it.
6) You listen to your fear rather than your intuition
Far too often, unhappiness is born out of fear.
Well, that’s not entirely correct. Fear and happiness can co-exist. What matters is whether you choose to go ahead in spite of that fear or if you give in and stay in your comfort zone.
Every time you need to make a major decision that could change your life, there are two voices at the back of your mind: your fear and your intuition.
Each gives rise to different sensations within your body. In her book The Selfish Romantic, life coach Michelle Elman walks us through an exercise where we learn how to distinguish between the two.
Close your eyes and think back to a situation from your past where you should have listened to your intuition and didn’t. Try to visualize it in as much detail as possible.
Now imagine that the voice of your intuition is telling you to make the decision you didn’t make. What does it sound like? Where is it coming from? Where within your body can you feel it most?
Next, think back to a situation where you did, indeed, listen to your gut instinct, and it worked out well. Check that it’s coming from the same place.
Now get up and shake your whole body. Sit back down, close your eyes again, and venture into a memory of a time where you listened to your fear. Again, ask yourself where in your body that fear is located, what it sounds like, and how it feels.
Personally, this exercise has helped me a great deal. While listening to my fear feels comforting yet heavy and disappointing (like covering my eyes and pretending people can’t see me), listening to my intuition feels light and free with jolts of anxiety in the mix (because I’m about to do something scary).
The key to long-term happiness is to act in accordance with your intuition.
Giving in to fear is easy. Following your gut feeling, though…
That’s hard. And so very worth it.
