15 Bad Habits You Should Break For A Happier Life

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Every action we take in our day-to-day life often has one major reason behind it, and that is achieving happiness. In essence, we just want to be happy. But there are some bad habits you should break that could be impacting your happiness without you realizing.

It is not always about the physical things we acquire or the people we have in our lives, but also what we do with this life.

While you may believe that it’s only becoming successful or falling in love that will make you happier, do you know that a little self-development factors such as a healthier (and sexier) body or a more positive brain (some of us need really need this) can have an effect on a happier life?

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15 Bad Habits You Should Break As Soon As You Can

There are some actions we unknowingly take which not only slow down the process of attaining happiness, but can even bring it to a complete halt. No one wants to be unhappy. I mean, there’s absolutely nothing pleasant about unhappiness. It can deteriorate your mental state leading to no progress in any area of your life.

Now, there are certain habits that, when adopted, can make or break you as an individual. Bad habits in the long term can become so unbreakable that they affect your happiness. Some of the actions you’ll see here are bad habits you should break immediately in order to live a happier life.

1. Ignoring responsibilities

Ignoring things you’re responsible for (such as mowing the lawn, keeping up with child support…oh and showering!) will take a very negative toll on you.

Sure, you could ignore the little tasks for a while, but know this – if you leave droplets of water to keep dropping on the same spot, eventually even concrete will crack.

In this case you are the concrete and these little tasks or opportunities you shun are the droplets of water. Give them time and they will eventually start affecting your happiness, which is the very thing you’re trying to avoid.

You ignore these responsibilities, and this makes you temporarily happy, but such happiness does not last. So, my lovely friend, please start handling those responsibilities. It doesn’t matter whether it’s big or small, you have to allocate a sufficient amount of time for each and every task.

2. Deceit

Ever heard that the end justifies the means? In some cases, this may work, but in most cases the end will leave you damaged.

Whether you were deceitful to push your ideas or simply to protect yourself, you end up harming yourself in the process. Your integrity gets stained and you might end up regretting the entire thing.

The end result is sure to affect your happiness in more bad ways than good if you got there using unethical means. In order to avoid this, try your best to be as truthful and honest about anything you’re involved in so you can give your happy meter a boost!

3. Acting bossy

Imagine being disliked by everyone around you, how would that make you feel? I bet you’d feel terrible no matter how much you tell yourself you don’t care. No love coming from everyone close to you would put you in such a slump that it could affect your happiness permanently. In fact, extremely bossy people often have the saddest lives, live alone all their lives and yep, die alone. Nobody wants to be treated like trash, remember that.

Just because you’re put in a position of higher power than other people around you doesn’t mean you should make them feel inferior. This could, I repeat, COULD, perhaps make you happy in the beginning. But over time your happiness is sure to die out, turning you into a very bitter person, which could in turn make you lose out on different opportunities.

Who knows, eventually you might even lose that position of power. It’s okay to be a little sassy, but being outright rude, wicked and spiteful will have you on many people’s “Death” list (just make sure you don’t end up on John Wick’s list!) Cut off the bossy act and see how much happier that makes you as a person.

4. Stop criticizing

So, someone else achieved something you haven’t or is trying out something you’d never think of doing. That shouldn’t give you room to undermine his or her efforts. Remember, you have no idea what a person must have been through before getting to the level they are at the moment.

Don’t let selfishness affect your relationship with a friend or colleague; the time and energy you spent criticizing could have been used to improve your own skills. Stooping as low as criticizing a person’s work proves only one thing; you are unhappy and insecure about yourself. So if you had a habit of doing this in the past, be sure to break this bad habit in order to keep living happily.

5. Continuously seeking approval

As a human, seeking approval or validation comes almost as second nature. You want your work to be accepted, or maybe it’s your character you want others to approve of, either way, we easily tend to seek approval.

Doing this constantly will actually drop your motivation level instead of boosting it. There is always negative energy somewhere around us, so always asking others to rate the value of what you’ve done might become a very big problem. Meeting the wrong parties (haters) while seeking validation can be very fatal (only emotionally; you won’t literally die from hateful words…hopefully), as they would be sure to bring out every negative review they can think of, demoralizing you and most certainly making you unhappy.

The question is, can we stop this? Well as I said before, it’s almost second nature to seek approval or validation, besides the fact that it is very helpful to get feedback on what you’re doing.

So for this, I advise you create an internal group of highly trusted people; they may not necessarily be close to you in case you’re looking for honest replies, just some good and trustworthy people will do. That way, you sieve the negative crowd and can improve in your craft with the feedback from trusted associates, making you much happier as a person.

6. Mimicking (doing what others do)

Mimicking others is thought of as a good practice only in some circumstances; like mimicking what a celebrity, successful businessman or a well-known genius does in their day to day lives could be good to an extent. But the key words here are “to an extent”. Don’t copy others to such an extend that you lose yourself and no longer know who you truly are.

Be yourself. Try coming up with your own original work and ideas. Sure, there is bound to be the fear of failure but that’s exactly where your mentors come in. Instead of copying them, how about just taking a few lessons from them or the way they go about doing things? Input those newly learned lessons into your own work and you’ll be amazed at the outcome.

7. Trying to be perfect

You have to come to terms with your flaws because almost nothing and no one can be perfect. You are absolutely 100% worthy and lovable just the way you are. And believe it or not, you are often your own worst critic. No one expects you to be perfect, most likely it just you being hard on yourself.

So quit aiming to achieve perfection. Breaking the habit of trying to be perfect is sure to boost your happiness!

8. Procrastination

This, as they say, is the enemy of man; “Don’t worry, I’ll do it later” has stopped so many great ideas right in their tracks.

Is there something you’re meant to be doing that you’re not doing? Why not? If you don’t have any valid reason, like you’re ill or a loved one is ill, then I suggest you get cracking!

Leaving chores or activities you’re supposed to be doing and just lying around is something that will kill your happiness bit by bit until there’s none left.

As sad as it is, you’re not alone in this sinking ship of procrastination—at least 20% of the population have a serious problem of procrastination. Do yourself a favor, jump off that boat and swim as fast as you can to the floating ship of happiness that is pro-activeness.

9. Being selfish

Not being able to give out is a very serious problem; doing this reflects your level of unhappiness. If people see you as a stingy or selfish person, they tend to have negative feelings towards you. And negative feelings will affect you, believe it or not.

It doesn’t matter what is shared, as long as it benefits the other party then do the right thing and share. But as they say, too much of a good thing can turn bad, so be sure not to go overboard.

10. Allocating blame to everyone but yourself

You need to learn to take the blame for whatever is actually your fault and not push it to another innocent party who actually has nothing to do with the situation at hand. Doing so would only cause hatred from the accused person and that is certainly going to deliver unhappiness straight to your door.

11. Self-doubt

This is one of the worst things you could ever do to yourself. You have to have a little faith in yourself and like Nike, “just do it”.

If you continue doubting every move you make, you’ll only end up never achieving anything. You need to keep believing and trust the process for a chance at a happier life.

12. Cut down on social media

Social media can be considered a good thing at times, but definitely not all the time.

Be sure to cut down on social media from time to time as there are several negative or too-perfect posts that could put you down and affect your happiness. When you’re feeling inferior or pressured by social media, always remember, even Kim Kardashian has bad pores and dark circles.

13. Always complaining

You should learn to stop complaining about situations and instead try to take control of them. Pull up your pants and handle your problems. This will definitely give you a happier life seeing as every problem around you would be solved by you.

14. Always rejecting

Okay, rejection can be good because as a person you should have standards, but you really shouldn’t dismiss every opportunity given or shown to you. You never know which of them could be the game changer. One of those opportunities might be the one to give your life that turnaround it needs.

15. Stop avoiding water

It might seem unnecessary but honestly nothing beats staying hydrated. Water should be like your best friend, not an ex you only text when you’re drunk!

If you truly desire a happier life, try with all your might to eliminate these 15 bad habits you should break!

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