8 Ways You're Making Your Life Harder Than Necessary
On a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being incredibly easy and 10 being extremely challenging, if I were to ask you to rate the current level of difficulty to your daily life, what score would you give it?
I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of you that have been drawn to read this article would score your life as at least a 6. But even if your score did fall below this bold prediction of mine, I'm sure that none of you have ever stated the phrase: "man, I wish my life was harder."
But what if I told you that despite never stating this desire, far too many of us are actually quite unintentionally proficient at fulfilling it.
In hopes of giving you the keys to a simpler life, here are 8 common ways you could be making your life harder than necessary in both video and written form:
1. YOU BOTTLE THINGS UP INSIDE
When it comes to things that are largely insignificant, you'll open up to pretty well anyone and everyone. But when it comes to addressing the substantial and deep-seated issues you keep them to yourself and adapt the "you against the world" mentality.
While all change does ultimately need to come from within, we can't forget about the incredible power that can also be found in opening up to and seeking the advice of others. Even if the person you open up to may not have much of value to offer in return, just the release of your feelings alone can work wonders in helping you work through it.
2. YOU OPEN UP TO THE WRONG PEOPLE
An extension upon number one that could be further complicating your life, is that when you do decide to express yourself you're choosing the wrong people to open up to. Rather than seeking out the council of someone you can trust and know will give you honest feedback, you instead find yourself turning to the people you either tend to not see eye-to-eye with, or even worse those that are likely to only further feed the drama you are looking to move beyond.
The vast majority of us have people in our life that we know we can safely turn to for different issues, but if no one comes to mind, don't feel any shame in seeking the support of a professional.
3. YOU HOLD ONTO, RATHER THAN LEARN FROM THE PAST
We've all dealt with our fair share of hardship, and one surefire way to make your life even more difficult is to hold onto that hardship to such an extent that it pollutes the present moment. Rather than basking in victimhood, resentment, regret or anything else that your previous challenges may have mustered, choose to focus on what you learned from each experience.
We may not be able to control whether or not we are struck with hardship in the future, but we can better equip ourselves for it by applying what past experiences have taught us.
4. YOUR DESIRES ARE DOMINATED BY IMMEDIATE GRATIFICATION
You have the long-term goal of getting in shape and have been hitting the gym with somewhat regularity to help you get there. But when that delicious tasting sweet -that you know is only going to set you back further from accomplishing it -is offered, you simply can't refuse.
Whether it be our taste buds, our laziness, or our sexual desires we all know what it's like to have our decision making run by what will provide us with immediate gratification. It's not to say that these things need to be completely avoided, it's just to point out how they can be making the accomplishment of certain goals that much harder to attain.
5. YOU'RE ALLOWING YOUR ATTENTION SPAN TO SHRINK
This is without a doubt a byproduct of social media. Whether it's the consistent scrolling through news feeds or the 7-10 second videos, we are all allowing our attention span to shrink in favour of consuming as much as possible as quickly as possible.
While this may seem beneficial to our productivity, a short attention span can also be detrimental in accomplishing anything that requires persistence or God forbid patience.
6. YOU BLAME FIRST, REFLECT SECOND
Something unfortunate happens and before you can even fully process it you're already looking for something, somewhere, or someone to blame for it. While this may come with the immediate benefit of potentially getting you off the hook, it can long-term wreak havoc on your ability to take responsibility for your actions.
Challenge yourself to regularly take the time to reflect on things that happen and don't be afraid to own up to what you are responsible for.
7. YOU NEGLECT GRATITUDE
There is nothing that has had a more profound positive impact on my life than daily gratitude (FIND OUT MORE). And a great way to make your life a lot more difficult than necessary is to completely neglect everything that you actively can be grateful for.
Being grateful may not solve problems or make your issues disappear, but it can work wonders in changing the mentality that you apply to them. Feel stuck? Challenge yourself to list off at least 10 things you are thankful for in life and then re-approach what's stopping you. You may be surprised by what a grateful mind is capable of thinking of and solving.
8. YOU BELIEVE YOUR EXCUSES
Our minds are incredibly powerful tools capable of concocting some of the most elaborate stories, ideas, and belief systems. For creative purposes this is a remarkable superpower that we all have access to and regularly use, but for personal issues our mind can be quite the "over-complicater".
Before you can even begin to piece together what you'll need in order to do something that comes to you, your mind will likely already have a dozen reasons why you shouldn't even bother. This seeming "gift" is not the issue, the challenge lies in your willingness to buy into what your mind tells you.
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