How to Stay Calm: 17 Tips for Stressful and Frustrating Situations

“The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.”
Sydney J. Harris

The stress is rising. You’re starting to feel frustrated with situation you’re in. Or angry. Or maybe sad and like you just want to pack up and go home.

But at the same time you also know that you need to keep calm.

To be able to think clearly. To not overreact, make the wrong decision or to not say the wrong thing in a moment of anger, overwhelm or confusion.

I’m sure you – just like me – have been in situations like these many times.

So this week I’d like to share 17 habits and strategies that have helped me to keep calm and to keep moving forward.



1. Just breathe.

This is pretty much always step one for me.

Just take a few deep breaths and focus fully on them to calm down a bit. If you have the time in the situation you’re in then I recommend sitting down for 1-2 minutes to do this. Only focus on the air slowly going and out and nothing else.

2. Then think of the consequences.

If you’re in a situation where you need to reply to what someone just said then follow up your few deep breaths with thinking about the consequences if you reply with overly tough words or if you back down instead of calmly standing your ground.

If you have an email or a phone message you need to reply to then consider taking more time to cool down – anywhere between 10 minutes to the next day – to get yourself into the right headspace before you reply.

3. Remember: It’s not always about you.

If someone attacks you with harsh words in a conversation or via email or phone then remind yourself that this may not even be about you.

He might be going overboard or overreacting because he’s having a bad day with a sick child or just a lot of things going wrong. Or she may lash out because she’s unhappy with her job, marriage or haven’t had a good night’s sleep in a while.

This reminder helps me to not take everything so personally and to think for a minute and calm down instead of being reactive and escalating the situation.

4. Take it just one small – or tiny – step at a time.

If you feel overwhelmed and stressed out then don’t make the classic mistake of thinking you have to do everything at once to solve this situation.

Just focus on making a start. On one small step or even just a tiny one you can take to move forward.

I find that when I approach a situation like this then I rarely get stuck in analysis paralysis and my mind calms down when I know I only have to do one small thing at a time.

5. Question your perspective.

If you feel that you’re starting to get really frustrated, angry or sad about a situation then question your perspective before it goes any further.

Ask yourself:
How would I think and feel it if I were in his or her shoes? This one can help you to go from negative emotions to empathy and understanding. And that tends to help to both calm down and to find a solution for the both of you.
Will this matter in 5 years? Or even in 5 weeks? This one grounds me and helps me to stop sweating all the small stuff and to not make mountains out molehills in everyday life. And it helps me to once again focus my time and energy on what truly matters in my life.

6. What would someone else do?

Another way to change your perspective in a tough situation is to get outside of your own head a bit.

Do that by asking yourself: what would X do in this situation?

Some good people or characters that you could use for the X and this question are:
Winnie the Pooh.
Mom or dad.
Your calm and wise friend.

Find a person in your life or someone from a book, movie etc. that you truly like and ask yourself what he or she would do to find a new perspective.

7. Cycle fully focused work with 100% rest.

This could be a solution if you’re stressed today.

But it is more importantly a long term solution to reduce stress levels and to consistently put yourself in a better headspace to handle the inevitable setbacks and crises that will happen at work.

You need to clear boundaries for this to work though.

Here are three such boundaries I use in my own life.
A start time and stop time for my work day. And that’s 8 o clock in the morning and 7 o clock in the evening.
A break every 45 minutes. Usually, after about 45 minutes of work I take a 10-15 minute break. If I have trouble with following that guideline and work too much then I use the alarm function on my smart phone to stick to my work/rest cycle.
No work on weekends. I stay away from the work computer except for doing one quick check of my inbox. And I only reply to emails there that are urgent. The rest can wait until Monday. If you use a work phone then leave it at your job. Or at least keep it off and only check the messages 1-2 times per weekend.

8. Remember to keep things extremely simple.

Here’s a reminder that I’ve used more time than I can count: “Keep things extremely simple”.

It used to be at the top of my white board for over a year to remind me to not overcomplicate and to think of situations and solutions in the simplest way I could. Overthinking is a big contributor to stress and to spending too much time and energy on things that aren’t really that complicated.

I quite often sandwich this reminder between first focusing on my breathing and then following it up with focusing on one small or tiny step forward.

9. Ask instead of guessing.

Trying to mindread someone can quickly amplify stress and frustration. Because it’s pretty much impossible to do.

Plus, it can easily lead to a much worse scenario in your mind than what is actually going on in the other person’s head.

So communicate and ask what you want to ask.

10. Be 10 minutes early.

Not much help when you’re already in stressful situation. But a good reminder for tomorrow and next week.

Plan a bit ahead so that you can – as often as possible – let transportation time between meetings and destinations during your day become a small window where you can fully relax and rejuvenate so that you’ll be able to do fully focused work or be truly engaged when you arrive.

11. Reduce your to-do list.

A big or seemingly endless to-do list can cause a ton of overwhelm and stress.

To calm down simply ask yourself: what would I work on if I only had 2 hours for work today?

Then work on that task one step at a time.

This one helps me to quickly find my focus and to get started with doing one of truly most important things when I’m stressed. And it helps me to be selective with what I put on my to-do list for the day and week in the first place.

12. Go for a 5-15 minute laugh break.

When you feel overwhelmed and it’s hard to think then you can take this somewhat odd but effective kind of break.

For maybe 5-15 minutes focus on having fun, smiling and laughing.

Laughing and finding some fun breaks stress and tension. It helps your mind to relax.

You can do this by just spending a bit of time with someone at work, in school or at home that you know you’ll have fun with.

But I also recommend having a small mental or physical folder of things that you know will make you laugh.

For me it’s for example episodes of the Simpsons or comics by The Oatmeal and Jim Benton.

After that break you can return to your work or the situation that you’re trying to figure out with a lighter mind.

13. Take some time for yourself in nature.

A more conventional alternative to laugh breaks is to take a break where you go out in nature and spend some time in silence there to recharge yourself.

I usually take these breaks by going out for a slow walk in our nearby forest where I take in all the sounds, sights and smells for a little while.

14. Ask for help.

You don’t always have to go it alone in these situations. You can ask a friend, family member or even someone you may not know that well for a bit of help.

You might not always get it but you may be surprised at how helpful people can be if you just ask.

15. Just take care of today.

It’s hard to keep calm if you look at all the things you may have to get to done to solve a situation or to overcome a challenge.

That’s why I’ve already shared a few tips that help you to concentrate on a much smaller part of the situation. Such as when you focus on just one small or tiny step or when you ask yourself the question about what you’d work on if you only had 2 hours for work today.

Here’s another one of those tips and habits that help me.

What you do is simply to tell yourself: just take care of today.

Concentrate only on that. Forget about all the tomorrows for now. Narrow your focus and take care of only today.

Tomorrow will come in time and you can take care of it then.

16. Had a setback? Then be your own best friend.

Don’t let a temporary setback drag you down into a thought spiral of defeatism and negativity.

Instead, ask yourself this to keep going on a healthier track even if you don’t feel so good at the moment:

How would my best friend or my parent support me and help me in this situation?

Then do things and talk to yourself like he or she would.

17. Listen to yourself.

If you feel you’re having more trouble than usual with staying calm in several situations and you’re really frustrated in general and drained of energy then listen to yourself.

Step back before you run right into a brick wall and do or say something you really wouldn’t usually do.

Schedule more time to just take care of yourself.

Spend one evening – or a few – in bed and just watch your favorite TV-shows or movies. Take a trip over the weekend and just focus on relaxing and doing what you think is fun or fulfilling. Spend more time out in nature for a few days or a week.

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Taking Charge Of Your Life Right Now

What does it take to take charge of your life? When does it make sense to make the kind of changes that taking charge of your life implies? When you want to take charge of your life, you have questions you need to answer.

Courage and Confidence

It takes courage and confidence to take charge of your life. You might not feel an abundance in these areas right now if you're looking at taking charge of your life. Yet you have been courageous and confident during previous times in your life. Life requires courage! Life demands confidence!

Courage enables you to consider what might be a better set of choices. Courage gives you the get up and go to pick yourself up and take action. Courage does not replace fear. Instead, courage allows you to go forward despite fear that might be suggesting that it's too risky to move in the direction of your dreams.

Confidence allows you to use your talents and abilities in new ways. Confidence puts your skills to work in different circumstances. Confidence does not remove doubt. Rather, confidence allows you to do what you know how to do. Regardless of the doubt you may be feeling. In spite of reminders that today's circumstances are not precisely identical to how you've used your skills in the past.

Change.

Change is inevitable. Life is filled with changes. Over the course of your lifetime, you'll live in an environment that presents many things to you, sometimes overwhelming you with the sense that your entire life is filled with change. As you face challenges and deal with change, it makes sense to adapt to the new situations that arise.

Taking charge of your life has to do with adjusting to the change as it occurs. Dramatic sudden change can leave your mind spinning. That's one time when taking charge of your life demands that you reach for all the courage and confidence you can muster.

Skills.

You'll need to learn new skills. Times of change instill new skills. You can decide that you're willing to use your courage and confidence to gain the skills you need.

In fact, deciding is taking charge of your life. Because that makes it happen. I've found that when I reach deep for courage and confidence, I can decide to take action. I take charge of my life! I find that leads to happiness.

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4 Components Towards Becoming A Better SELF

How can anyone become the best that he can be, unless and until he commits fully to enhancing his  or her personal persona? Whether one merely wants to take a true, objective, introspective look, or if he wants to perform to the peak of his potential, until one becomes ready, willing and able, to take an honest look at himself, it becomes nearly impossible to perform as well as possible. Far too often, many individuals proceed through life seeking to fool themselves into believing they were someone they were not! If you hope to become the best you can be, these four mnemonic components might help you become a better SELF.

1. The primary objective of maximizing potential is probably doing all we can to maximize our assets, so that we look at options from a position of strength rather than the far - more - often position of compromise and settling for good - enough! When we are strong, it permits us to focus on developing a systematic way to optimize performance. Combined with genuine and sympathetic mindset, we then become capable of developing the best strategy or strategic plan. When we look at things with confidence and expertise, we feel better about our-self because the experiences become far more satisfying.

2. While sympathy might be a genuine, needed emotion, we only grow as individuals when we utilize empathy. This means rather than merely feeling sorry for others (often after the fact), we get to better understand and appreciate their plans, priorities, preferences, and needs (in other words, we see things through their eyes). When we enhance our own education (not solely book - learning but actual expertise and development), everything we do becomes more enriching, which potentiates our energy, and thus produces our best efforts. Yet, it means we begin by committing to better knowing one's self.

3. Learning is the key to achievement. Only when we love what we do (and understand why we are doing it), are we willing to let others in, and thus objectively look deeper within ourselves.

4. Find your inner voice (and motivation), and then fully focus on what is most important and essential to you. Do you know how and what you truly feel? Then fight for your views, and become capable of freeing yourself from the obstacles and limitations created when you begin with pre - conceptions rather than open - mindedness.

How much impact and how good do you really want to be? When was the last time you took a genuine look within? Hopefully, using these four components will help you really, honestly, and objectively, know your SELF.

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7 Small Habits That Will Steal Your Happiness

“Simply put, you believe that things or people make you unhappy, but this is not accurate. You make yourself unhappy.”
Wayne Dyer

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”
Marcus Aurelius

It is usually pretty easy to become a happier person.

It is also quite easy to rob yourself of your own happiness. To make yourself more miserable and add a big bowl of suffering to your day. It is common thing, people do it every day all over the world.

So this week I’d like to combine these two things. I want to share 7 happiness stealing habits that I have had quite a bit of trouble with in my own daily life (and I know from the emails I get that many of you do too).

But I’d also like to add what you can do instead if you find yourself being stuck in one of these destructive habits.


1. Going for daily swim in a sea of negative voices.

This one can be quite subtle.

You just go around in your daily life like you usually do. Hang out with the same people. Listen to the same podcasts or radio shows, watch the same old TV-shows and read the usual blogs, books and magazines.

But what influence do these things have over your thinking and the limits you set for yourself and what you feel you deserve in life?

What to do instead:

Make a list of the 5 people you hang out with the most and the 5 media sources you spend most time on during your week.

Then ask yourself this for each of these 10 things/people: is this one dragging me down or lifting me up in life?

Consider spending less time with the ones that drag you down (or cut them out completely) and to spend more of your time with the people and sources that lift you up and make you feel good, motivated etc.

If you have trouble getting started with this one, then go smaller. Take a few minutes to think about what one person or source that has the biggest negative impact on you. And how you can start to spend less time with it/him/her this week.

2. Waiting for just the right time.

When you have a dream then it is so easy to get lost in planning how you will accomplish it. To drift away in daydreams about how it will be. But also to get stuck in fears about failing with it.

So you make a common choice and wait – and wait and wait for maybe years – for just the right time to take action and get started with making that dream into something real.

What to do instead:

Sure, not every dream is something you can get started with right now. But there are many that you can get going with. Dreams that only fear is holding you back from.

So make things easy on yourself. You don’t have to dive in a big and extremely courageous jump. If that was the case then only the bravest people in the world would do and achieve what they want.

Instead, take a small step forward. Take one small action. That is it. Then tomorrow you can take another small step forward. The important thing is that you get started and get going instead spending so much time on just waiting and feeling more and more frustrated and unhappy about the state of your dreams.

3. Letting criticism get under your skin time and time again.

When someone criticises or verbally attacks you then it may just roll off you like water of the back of a duck.

But if it on the other hand gets under your skin pretty much every time and drags you down into hours or days of self-doubt or self-beatings then you have a problem.

What to do instead:
Let it out. Talk it over with someone close to you to let the inner tensions out. And to find a healthier perspective on what happened together.
Remember: it is not always about you. If your self-esteem is low them it is easy to start thinking that all the negative things people tell you are your fault in some way. That is however often not the case. People will attack or harshly criticise to let their own steam out. Because they have had an awful day, week or simply do not like their lives that much. So don’t think it is all about you. There are two of you in this situation.

4. Focusing on the wrong people and getting lost in envy and powerlessness.

When you spend much time in your day thinking about what other people have and do and you compare your life to theirs then you have a good recipe for unhappiness.

Because you spend the attention and energy in the wrong place.

What to do instead:

Focus on you. Compare yourself to yourself. See how far you have come. The obstacles you have overcome. How you have improved in small or sometimes bigger ways. Appreciate that and yourself.

Focus not on what others have but on what YOU deep down want in your life.

And ask yourself: what is one small step I can take today to get the ball rolling with this goal/dream?

Keep your focus on yourself and what you can actually do to raise your self-confidence, to start walking on your own path and to spend your limited daily time and energy on something that will actually pay off.

5. Not allowing yourself times of peace and rest during your day.

When you are busy, busy, busy all the time and give yourself no time to recharge then you soon become fatigued.

And so each step and each thing you do starts to feel heavier and you do not get much enjoyment at all out of pushing and pulling yourself through it.

What to do instead:
Take a break every hour. Try setting the timer on your cell phone for 45 minutes. During that time-period just focus on doing your most important task at the moment. Then, as the bell rings, set the timer for 15 minutes and step away from your work space. Have a snack, talk a walk or stretch a bit. By cycling rest and fully focused work like this you’ll get more things done, do a better job and it will be easier to keep the optimism and motivation up.
Be 10 minutes early. Transform those travelling times during your day into relaxing breaks instead of passages of time and space that only increase your stress levels and other negative feelings.

6. Never trying anything new.

This one can be sneaky.

It can make you think that things are pretty OK. You have your safe and comfortable routine. I know, I have been there for long stretches of time.

But during those times there was also denial of feeling dissatisfied. A vague feeling of standing still that sometimes bloomed up into a big burst of undefined, negative feelings directed towards the world or myself.

What to do instead:
Remind yourself of the past times when you tried something new.And how you most often did not regret it one bit but had an exciting, interesting or fun time.
Go small. You don’t have to try skydiving. Just take one small step and try some new and different music, a movie or book you would normally not go for or the vegetarian dish if you usually have the beef or sausage for lunch.
Say yes just once this week when your mind says no. If a friend invites you to go out running, doing yoga or to go fishing or to a party and your mind goes “let’s say no, that is not what I usually do” then stop yourself for a second. And reconsider. You don’t have to say yes to every suggestion you get this week to try something new, but give it a shot and say yes to just one of those things.

7. Taking things too seriously.

When you take life too seriously then it is easy to become so afraid of making a mistake and of stumbling a bit that you get paralysed in analysis.

When you take yourself too seriously then, in my experience, it becomes difficult to fully enjoy the moment and what is happening, to let go of the past and to laugh about yourself and life when you need it the most.

What to instead:
Put up a reminder. When I wanted to develop a lighter mindset quite a few years ago one thing that helped me was a simple note on fridge that said: Lighten Up! This reminder helped me to snap out of overly serious thoughts several times a day until this way of finding a lighter perspective became more and more of an automatic thought habit.
Surround yourself with lighter mindsets. As mentioned in the section about habit #1, what and who you surround yourself with will have a big effect on how you think. No matter if it is a positive or negative aspect they add. So one powerful thing to do is to add lighter mindsets via people, books, the internet etc. to your daily life.
Raise your self-esteem. I have found that as my self-esteem has gone up I can laugh about myself more because I am less defensive. I have more trust in myself and so I fear a temporary failure less. And I like myself more and so I am less concerned about getting everyone else to like me all the time.

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10 Habits That Lower Self-Esteem and Cause Depression

When our self-esteem is low, which is typical of codependency, we're at greater risk for depression. Codependency is learned, and so are self-esteem and the beliefs and habits that cause both low self-esteem and codependency. Self-esteem is what we think about ourselves. It includes positive and negative self-evaluations. Good self-esteem is a realistic, positive self-concept. It reflects self-respect and implies a feeling of worth that's not determined by comparison to, or approval from, others. Self-acceptance (which some writers include as part of self-esteem) is even deeper. It's a feeling of being good enough, neither perfect, nor inadequate. We feel we have worth and are lovable, not merely because of beauty, talent, achievement, intelligence, status, or popularity. It's a sense of inner contentment.

We each have intrinsic value, not based on how we perform or what we do or give. Just as every baby and breed of animal are unique and worthy of love, so are we. Unfortunately, as codependents, many of us grew up in families where love was nonexistent, conditional, or had to be earned. We believed that we had to earn or win the love of a parent. As a result, we're afraid to be authentic for fear we may be disliked. We may pursue people who cannot love and reject those who love us. We "over-do" or "over-give" in relationships and at work, and end up feeling resentful, used, or exploited.

Habits that Damage Self-Esteem

If you conclude that self-esteem is essential to enjoying your life and enjoying enduring, healthy relationships, you're right! The following bad habits, typical of codependents, can make you feel insecure, ashamed, anxious, sad, and hopeless:

Negatively compare yourself to others

Find fault with yourself

Tyrannize yourself with "Should's"

Project self-criticism onto others and imagine they're judging you

Don't try new things to avoid failing

Procrastinate

Doubt your instincts and decisions

Ignore your needs and wants

Don't set boundaries and allow abuse, criticism, or exploitation

Refuse to forgive yourself

When we compare ourselves to someone else, whether favorably or unfavorably, we are measuring ourselves by an external standard. Feeling "better than" someone is really a means to compensate for underlying shame and low self-esteem. The lift we get is false. It would be more helpful to wonder why we need to compare ourselves to someone else. When we compare ourselves negatively, it's self-shaming. We feel inferior, lose confidence, and like ourselves less. It depresses our mood and discourages us.

An active "inner critic" besieges us with what we should and should not do and second-guesses what we've already done. Habitual fault-finding can cause us to assume others see us as we see ourselves. In this way, we project our critic onto others and anticipate and feel the effects of criticism or judgment that we imagine, even when none occurs.

Lowered self-confidence causes us to fear making mistakes, looking foolish, or failing. Our self-esteem is always on the line, so it's safer not to try anything new to avoid appearing incompetent or not succeeding. This is another reason we procrastinate tasks or experiences that are new or challenging. At the same time, we nag and criticize ourselves for failure to accomplish our goals. Rather than take a chance, we make ourselves wrong for not trying, which ensures "failure" and low self-esteem.

Accommodating others from an early age leaves us unsure of our values and beliefs and encourages reliance on others. Decision-making becomes difficult, even paralyzing. Low self-esteem and shame heighten our fear of making mistakes, leading to self-doubt, insecurity, and indecision. Instead, we procrastinate or look to others for validation, opinions, and answers, which further undermines our self-trust and self-esteem.

Accommodating others also alienates us from our needs and wants. By not acknowledging, expressing, and meeting our needs and wants, we're admitting to ourselves and others that they're not important; ergo, that we're not important. On the other hand, taking responsibility to meet our needs and/or ask for them (such as asking for a raise) builds self-esteem. When we don't, we feel helpless and a victim of circumstances and other people.

Not feeling worthy of love and respect - which we deny to ourselves - makes us vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. We don't feel worthy of being treated well, and deny, excuse, or rationalize being abused or disrespected. Dependent upon others' approval, we're afraid to set boundaries lest we alienate those we love or need. We're quick to blame ourselves and readily accept blame from others, because we're guilt-ridden due to shame. Although we forgive the mistakes of others, especially if we receive an apology, we're not as kind to ourselves. Apologies to ourselves don't count. In fact, we can punish ourselves or hold a grudge against ourselves for years over past mistakes.

Treatment for Low Self-Esteem and Depression 

Fortunately, we can grow our self-esteem and increase our capacity for self-fulfillment. It will enhance our creativity, ambition, physical and emotional health, loving relationships, and resilience in the face of adversity. It is the key to success.

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Investing In Yourself Is A Must For An Extraordinary Life

If you are not investing in your personal development, you are brutally limiting your true potential.

Personal development impacts your entire life, not just your work life, business life or your personal life.

It's shocking how many people don't try to improve themselves and sadly, these are the exact people who often complain how unfair life treats them and wonder why they are always dwelling in mediocrity.

In brief, here are some guidelines to follow when you embark your personal development journey:

#1 Imagine How You Want to Design Your Life

Without a vision, men perish.

You need a clear picture of where you want to go in order to determine what kind of life you want to live.

Success is change. You need to pre-determine the kinds of changes you must go through professionally and personally in order to arrive the Promised Land you've never reached.

What you practice in private will emanate in the public. Personal and professional lives always intertwine with each other.

For example, if you imagine yourself being more compassionate and forgiving to others, this trait will exude and impact both of your lives.

Also, if you wanted to develop your leadership skill for your local community, such improvement of skill will easily be transferrable to your professional career as well.

The key is to identify and imagine the kind of person you have to become in order to achieve your goals.

#2 Have A Reality Check

Before you resolve to any changes in your life, make sure you know where you are standing right now.

Discovering your current strengths and weaknesses will help you formulate a plan of action to make the necessary changes meaningful and effective.

#3 Set Ambitious Yet Realistic Goals

Once you know what your strengths and weaknesses are, create both long-term and short-term goals that you need to achieve in order to move towards your ultimate destination.

Never set goals without an action plan. You must set concrete, quantifiable, manageable milestones with clear deadlines so that you feel the urgency to take action and get things done.

#4 When Things Don't Work Out As Planned, Change

Change is the only constant in the Universe.

When plan A doesn't work out, you need to try plan B, plan C and so on until you succeed.

Planning doesn't guarantee success because no one can predict all the uncertainties that are shaping the future.

So don't be discouraged when your initial personal development plan fails. When you hit a roadblock, it simply means it's time for alternative solutions.

#5 Track & Evaluate How You Are Doing

When you have a small victory, have a look how you did against the plan of action steps.

This is critical because you always want to learn from any potential mistakes and subtle lessons along the way. Be brutally honest and truthful when you do your self-assessment.

Be okay if you suck at anything in the first few times. Mastery of anything takes years or even decades to develop.

Alternatively, have someone else perform this objective evaluation for you. It will definitely sound painful and ego-busting when you hear the brutal truth, but the benefits will well worth it.

Finally, remember to keep your personal development simple.

Don't overwhelm yourself with unobtainable goals that are setting yourself up for failure.

Sure, push yourself, expand your limit and keep going every day.

But always be aware of your current capabilities so that you are motivated enough to stay in the long game instead of giving up too early.

If you are committed to your daily tiny investment on yourself, you'll be assured to lead an extraordinary life very soon.

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7 Common Habits of Unhappy People

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”
Marcus Aurelius

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
Marcel Proust

Circumstances can certainly make life unhappy. But a part – often a big part – of unhappiness comes from our own thinking, behaviour and habits.

In this article I’d like to share 7 of the most destructive daily habits that can create quite a bit of unhappiness within and in your own little world.

But I’ll also share what has worked, what has helped me to minimise or overcome these habits in my life.

1. Aiming for perfection.

Does life has to be perfect before you are happy?

Do you have to behave in a perfect way and get perfect results to be happy?

Then happiness will not be easy to find. Setting the bar for your performance at an inhuman level usually leads to low self-esteem and feeling like you are not good enough even though you may have had a lot of good or excellent results. You and what you do is never enough good enough except maybe once in a while when feels like something goes just perfect.

How to overcome this habit:

Three things that helped me to kick the perfectionism habit and become more relaxed:
Go for good enough. Aiming for perfection usually winds up in a project or something else never being finished. So go for good enough instead. Don’t use it as an excuse to slack off. But simply realise that there is something called good enough and when you are there then you are finished with whatever you are doing.
Have a deadline. I set deadlines every time that start with a new premium guide. Because about a year ago, when I was working on my second e-book, I realised that just working on it and releasing it when it was done would not work. Because I could always find stuff to add to it. So I had to set a deadline. Setting a deadline gave me a kick in the butt and it is generally good way to help you to let go of a need to polish things a bit too much.
Realise what it costs you when you buy into myths of perfection.This was a very powerful reason for me to let go of perfectionism and one I tell myself still if I find thoughts of perfection pop up in my mind. By watching too many movies, listening to too many songs and just taking in what the world is telling you it is very easy to be lulled into dreams of perfection. It sounds so good and wonderful and you want it.
But in real life it clashes with reality and tends to cause much suffering and stress within you and in the people around you. It can harm or possibly lead you to end relationships, jobs, projects etc. just because your expectations are out of this world. I find it very helpful to remind myself of this simple fact.

2. Living in a sea of negative voices.

No one is an island. Who we socialise with, what we read, watch and listen to has big effect on how we feel and think.

It becomes a lot harder to be happier if you let yourself be dragged down by negative voices. Voices that tell you that life will in large part always be unhappy, dangerous and filled with fear and limits. Voices that watch life from a negative perspective.

How to overcome this habit:

Replacing those negative voices with more positive influences is very powerful. It can be like a whole new world opening up.

So spend more time with positive people, inspiring music and books, movies and TV-shows that make you laugh and think about life in a new way.

You can start small. For example, try reading an uplifting blog or book or listen to an audio book while eating your breakfast one morning this week instead of reading the paper or watching the morning news on TV.

3. Getting stuck in the past and future too much.

Spending much of your time in the past and reliving old painful memories, conflicts, missed opportunities and so on can hurt whole lot. Spending much of your time in the future and imagining how things could go wrong at work, in your relationships and with your health can build into horrifying nightmare scenarios playing over and over in your head. Not being here right now in life as it happens can lead to missing out on a lot of wonderful experiences.

No good if you want to be happier.

How to overcome this habit:

It is pretty much impossible to not think about the past or the future. And it is of course important to plan for tomorrow and next year and to try to learn from your past.

But to dwell on those things rarely help.

So I try as best as I can to spend the rest of my time, the big part of my time each day, with living in the now. Just being here right now and being fully focused on these words I am writing and later as I cook and eat my lunch and work out be fully focused on doing that.

Whatever I am doing I try to be there fully and not drift off into the future or past.

If I do drift off then I focus only on my breathing for a few minutes or I sit still and take in what is all around me right now with all my senses for a short while. By doing either of those things I can realign myself with the present moment again.

4. Comparing yourself and your life to others and their lives.
One very common and destructive daily habit is to constantly compare your life and yourself to other people and their lives. You compare cars, houses, jobs, shoes, money, relationships, social popularity and so on. And at the end of the day you pummel your self-esteem to the ground and you create a lot of negative feelings.

How to overcome this habit:

Replace that destructive habit with two other habits.
Compare yourself to yourself. First, instead of comparing yourself to other people create the habit of comparing yourself to yourself. See how much you have grown, what you have achieved and what progress you have made towards your goals. This habit has the benefit of creating gratitude, appreciation and kindness towards yourself as you observe how far you have come, the obstacles you have overcome and the good stuff you have done.
You feel good about yourself without having to think less of other people.
Be kind. In my experience, the way you behave and think towards others seems to have a big, big effect on how you behave towards yourself and think about yourself. Judge and criticise people more and you tend to judge and criticise yourself more (often almost automatically). Be more kind to other people and help them and you tend to be more kind and helpful to yourself.
Focus on the positive things in yourself and in the people around you. Appreciate what is positive in yourself and others. This way you become more OK with yourself and the people in your world instead of ranking them and yourself and creating differences in your mind.

And remember, you can’t win if you keep comparing. Just consciously realising this can be helpful. No matter what you do you can pretty much always find someone else in the world that has more than you or are better than you at something.

5. Focusing on the negative details in life.

Seeing the negative aspects of whichever situation you are in and dwelling on those details is a sure way to make yourself unhappy. And to drag down the mood for everyone around you.

How to overcome this habit:

Overcoming this habit can be tricky. One thing that has worked for me is to kick the perfectionism habit. You accept that things and situations will have their upsides and downsides rather than thinking that all details have to positive and excellent. You accept things as they are. This way you can let go emotionally and mentally of what is negative instead of dwelling on it and making mountains out of molehills.

Another thing that works is simply to focus on being constructive. Instead of focusing on dwelling and whining about the negative detail. You can do so by asking better questions. Questions like:

How can I turn this negative thing into something helpful or positive?
How can I solve this problem?

If I am faced with what I start thinking is a problem I may use a third solution, I may ask myself: who cares? I most often then realise that this isn’t really a problem in the long run at all.

6. Limiting life because you believe the world revolves around you.

If you think that the world revolves around you and you hold yourself back because you are afraid what people may think or say if you do something that different or new then you are putting some big limits on your life. How?

Well, you can become less open to trying new things and growing.You can think that the criticism and negativity you encounter is about you or that it is your fault all the time (while it in reality could be about the other person having bad week or you thinking that you can read minds). I have also found that my own shyness used to come from me thinking that people cared a great deal about what I was about to say or do.

How to overcome this habit:

Realise people don’t care too much about what you do. They have their hands full with worrying about their own lives and what people may think of them instead. Yes, this might make you feel less important in your own head. But it also sets you free a bit more if you’d like that.
Focus outward. Instead of thinking about yourself and how people may perceive you all the time, focus outward on the people around you. Listen to them and help them. This will help you to raise your self-esteem and help you to reduce that self-centred focus.

7. Over complicating life.
Life can be pretty complicated. This can creates stress and unhappiness. But much of this is often created by us. Yes, the world may be becoming more complex but that doesn’t mean that we cannot create new habits that make your own lives a bit simpler.

How to overcome this habit:

Over complicating life can involve many habits but I’d like to suggest a few replacement habits to what have been a couple of my own most over complicating habits.
Splitting your focus and having your attention all over the place in everyday life. I replaced that complicating habit with just doing one thing at a time during my day, having a small to-do list with 2-3 very important items and writing down my most important goal on white board that I see each day.
Having too much stuff. I replaced that habit with regularly asking myself: have I used this in the past year? If not then I will give that thing away or throw it away.
Creating relationship problems of any kind in your mind. Reading minds is hard. So, instead ask questions and communicate. This will help you to minimise unnecessary conflicts, misunderstandings, negativity and waste or time and energy.
Getting lost in the in-box. I spend less time and energy on my email in-box by just checking it once a day and writing shorter emails (if possible not more than 5 sentences.)
Getting lost in stress and overwhelm. When stressed, lost in a problem or the past or future in your mind then, as I mentioned above, breathe with your belly for two minutes and just focus on the air going in and out. This will calm your body down and bring your mind back into the present moment again. Then you can start focusing on doing what is most important for you again.

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