7 Reasons We Become Unhappy With Ourselves

Such as myself, I’m sure there were moments where you were unhappy with yourself. It could be the moment you disappointed someone or the moment you realized your life wasn’t where you want it to be. Happiness then starts to resemble a complex idea to grasp.

We question how to achieve happiness and develop a nasty jealousy whenever we see someone who seems to be filled with positive energy. It’s worse when you’re not even sure why you’re depressed in the first place because you do have a career, a family, and the basic needs of a human being.

But happiness is more than just the possessions you have or the lifestyle you acquired. The true form of happiness derives from your own perspectives and where you direct your thoughts. Without these tools guiding your behavior, you receive an unsatisfying desire to only want more.

When people first think about happiness, they envision it as becoming wealthy, becoming a superhero or getting married. But that’s only because society has crammed that concept into your head every since you were a child. But if we take a look back at a simpler time before marketing and billboard advertisement became a reality, Aristotle said that happiness is the only thing humans desire for its own sake.

Rather than developing a mindset that happiness relates to your own perspectives, which then leads to riches and relationships, they chase after external factors they believe happiness is hiding in. Remember, the search for happiness is route that many people start blindly in, but very few are able to see.

Without a proper perspective that lets you feel satisfied with your own life along with a willpower to continue growing, you get lost in your own journey. You forget that it’s not buying a new expensive car that’ll bring you happiness, but the buildup that led you there. Whether or not they recognize the source, a major source to their positive feelings is the buildup on how they got there.

People develop low self-esteem when they’re constantly used to expecting results within a short time frame. And if they don’t see the results they want within the first week or month, they quit and move onto the next idea.

To avoid setting yourself up for disappointment and an unhappy life, think of your goals as a meal you’re cooking in the oven. Heck, let’s make that meal a giant turkey, which requires numerous hours before it’s finished baking.

You can’t expect the turkey to finish cooking after the first five minutes. It’ll still be raw and nasty, thus upsetting anyone you serve it to. (Not to mention you’ll get sick.) Nor can you expect the turkey to completely bake after one hour.

Sure, it’ll taste a little better than the turkey that was cooked for just five minutes, but you and your guests will still get sick because the turkey wasn’t in its final form. But after waiting the appropriate several hours with patience and self-discipline, the turkey will not only taste great, but you’ll be praised by your guests for fixing such an amazing meal.

That’s how success and happiness work together. Like a giant turkey waiting to get cooked. Except rather than waiting merely hours before it gets done, it takes weeks, months, or even years. It all depends on the size of the goal, your knowledge in the field, and your willpower.

When you’re overcoming those unhappy thoughts about yourself, use these 7 methods to transform your perspective on life and general purpose.

Before you can remove a thorn from your finger, you need to know where it’s located. From there, you can take it out and watch the blood spill. It might hurt such as the truth will, but after covering your wound with a band-aid, all you need is time and patience before your cut heals itself and your finger returns back to normal. Such as that thorn, spot the areas in your life that you’re suffering with and take immediate action to change it.

1. Having Daily Regrets and Never Moving on:

Millions of people live in regret because of what they missed out of in life. They then give themselves excuses such as blaming they’re too old to do anything, they don’t have enough money, or they simply don’t have the motivation.

The longer you continue dwelling on the past, the more regrets you add into your list. We all have regrets because we didn’t take the action to do something, but never let those regrets control your future.

You may not be able to change what you’ve done in the past, but you have all the power to make a change this very second. Read that book you kept neglecting. Ask that girl out you’ve been eye-stalking everyday in class. Start the business you’ve always daydreamed about.

Don’t live your life by planning out the future but never making any actions to get there. Start today so you could remove one more regretful thing in your soul.

2. Dwell on Failed Relationships:

All it takes is one bad relationship to haunt you for days, weeks, or months. People who contemplate over failed relationships live in the past and associate their happiness with the partner that left them.

When you trap yourself in the memories of your past relationship, it prevents you from establishing new relationships. There was a man who made this mistake. I’ll call him Jaden to keep his identity safe.

For years, Jaden secluded himself from the rest of the world after a failed marriage that ended horribly. His children were taken from him and he was left alone. Reliving his past like a broken record player, he constantly posted his past relationship on Facebook, seeking sympathy and support.

And despite the numerous positive comments given to him, he never changed his persona. He lost focused on why he should continue living because he assumed life was pointless and there was no chance at love again.

As sad as this story is, this situation occurs to people everyday. After one failed relationship, they lost focus on their own life and seek the support of others without the willpower to change. They transform into energy vampires and toxic people.

Instead of dwelling in the past, get yourself more involved in activities that interests you. Distract yourself from pity and self-destructive thoughts by actively jumping into new hobbies.

This gives you the opportunity to enhance your mind and meet new people. Don’t focus on your own pain. Read about the life of those who have less than you in other regions of the world. It’ll suddenly make the difficulties in your life seem less troubling.

3. Not satisfied with life decisions:

People make the mistake of assuming their failures are the reasons they can’t find happiness and joy. An example is High School student who believe their life is ruined when they don’t get accepted in the college they aimed for. I still recall the amount of seniors in the High School who became overly depressed because they weren’t getting accepted into the top schools they marked on their list.

Another form of regret people live with are the mistakes they made as teenagers and young adults. Take for instance those who suffered from drug addictions, alcoholism, or personal bad choices. By the time they escape those bad habits, they assume it’s too late to better their lives because society won’t give them a second chance.

Just because you made a mistake doesn’t mean it can control your destiny. Sure, you might have to make a few readjustments towards the path you’re aiming for. But by committing to a plan and sticking to it, you’ll suddenly find those past mistakes as small concerns.

It first starts by shifting your mind to knowing you could create a better future. From there, think of the necessary steps that’s required to reach it. Don’t assume you need to go to a certain college to receive the best education possible. There’s a variety of online resources that can enhance your skills in about anything you have a passion for.

Are you worried no one will hire you because you have a criminal record? If no one is willing to hire you, hire yourself. Look for ways to establish your own business. Read books about people like Warren Buffet who built billion dollar businesses for inspiration and guidance.

Remember, mistakes are part of life and we become stronger by learning from them rather than allowing them to hold us down.

4. Hate their self-image:

Thanks to the modern age of social media, it’s not hard to feel extremely self conscious about our self-image. We’re surrounded by the belief that we need a sex appeal body to be wanted by others.

But everyone doesn’t have the ability to maintain such a standard and every time they look in the mirror, they’re reminded of how imperfect they are.

To beat this mindset, start with self acceptance and knowing there are people who appreciate you for how you look already. You may have an unwanted desire to have the perfect body, but you wouldn’t want that wish to be granted even if it was possible.

Those who only rely on their looks alone tend to lose focus on building their mentality and a true personality that people can generally enjoy. Marriages and relationships never survive off the basis of looks alone. It may stir up an attraction faster than the average person, but those flames often blow out quicker without anything to support it.

Instead, focus on new subjects that enhances your thoughts. Find ways to build your social skills and how to communicate better. If you need support on how to keep a conversation alive and actually interesting, read that article because it provides great examples. Because those are the real factors that forms confidence.

5. Focusing on negative people words:

Every 20 praises you receive seem to equal one negative comment someone says about you. People say that sticks and bones don’t break our bones, but they could hurt the heart and that’s even worse.

When someone is verbally abused, it makes it hard for them to make life decisions because all they’re constantly dwelling if someone is going to judge them. People critique themselves all the time about their appearance, attitude, personality, and intelligence. They may hold a strong image to the rest of the world, but they’re continuously dwelling on their small hands they assume the rest of the world can see. And by the time that one negative person makes a comment about those small hands, they forget the thousand praises they received and solely focus on that one comment.

People doubt their ability to think properly because of the mistake of wanting to please everyone. They forget the people who’s already on their side and try to please the ones against them.

But a saying I’ve received from a man named Tai Lopez was that you can’t please all the people all the time. He reminded me that it’s perfectly healthy to have controversy topics people are willing to disagree with you on. That’s how you discover your true followers and supporters. If you try to please everyone, you’ll only gaining a crowd of random people who’ll be willing to drop you the moment you stop pleasing them.

To overcome this mistake, start ignoring the world by reassuring why you’re smart, why you’re special, and what makes you different than other people. Accept your flaws for what they are and ignore the losers who have nothing better to do than to push their hatred onto you. The only negative people you’ll want to keep focus on are the ones who bring constructive criticisms through proper debates and evidence.

Don’t just say that you’re intelligent. Tell yourself that you’re intelligent because you received good grades in school, you constantly read, or you know how to play an instrument.

6. Holding restrained emotions:

Most people tend to restrain their emotions after tiny negative events that happen to them everyday. It could be random occurrences such as the time they were irritated by what someone said to them, or they didn’t like the way someone took advantage of them.

They never say anything or confront their true emotions because that’ll either start an unwanted controversy or discomfort from within themselves. Therefore, they stuff those negative feelings somewhere in their soul. Whether it’s anger, bitterness, or resentment, these emotions do eventually destroy anyone who continues bottling them up.

Get rid of those negative emotions by speaking to someone about them. If you’re not comfortable about speaking to someone, write them in a diary. If you don’t have the patience or desire to write it down, at least meditate or pray about them. Whatever helps, practice it so it releases those unnecessary burdens taking control of you. Or else, one day you might just explode with anger and frustration.

7. Lying to themselves:

People lie to themselves whenever they want to give themselves an excuse for why they can’t chase after their goals. Common lies people tell themselves is that they’re happy with their career or their marriage when there’s obviously an elephant in the room.

However, they know in the back of their mind they’re not satisfied with life and want to make a change. They question their purpose and this sends them into a mid-life crisis. That’s normally the time they realize lying to themselves is only inflicting self-harm and they search for ways to change their life.

To get escape that mindset, simply ask yourself challenging questions that will make a difference in your life once you applied it. Maybe you want to quit your job in pursuit of something more meaningful. Maybe you want to write a book that shows the world your thoughts and creativity. The moment you stop living in a false reality is the moment you start living.

In final thoughts….

These 7 steps are the first steps to overcoming those unhappy thoughts. If you’d like more information on how to overcome depression, a good recommendation is this guide. If you want to discover the warning signs of depression, this is a good educational source:

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