Sometimes it’s easy to complain, blame others or compare what you don’t to what someone else has when life isn’t going quite right. But doing this will only really make you even unhappier. Trust me, I’ve done all of these and still catch myself doing them sometimes still. But knowing is power, and once you recognize something that you do that you can change, your moments of unhappiness, frustration or stress can be shortened. Because life is just too damn short to be unhappy.

STOP COMPLAINING

Nobody likes a negative Nancy. It’s true. And let’s be honest, complaining about things in life doesn’t really accomplish much. Yes, it might make you feel better about something, but it doesn’t fix the problem at all. In life, we’re meant to to given curveballs or problems, that’s just how life is. Overcoming them, dealing with them, adapting; this is how become the people we are. Many times, we look back at these problems we spent time complaining about and realize how far we’ve come, and how much stronger and confident we are because we overcame them.

STOP COMPARING

The saying goes, “comparison is the killer of all joy,” or something like that. But you get the idea. For the most part, I am fairly happy with my life, where I’m at and everything I have going on. But as soon as I start comparing myself to someone else, whether it’s their new job, or they’ve lost 10 pounds, or their hair or outfit looks amazing today, I instantly start finding everything that’s “wrong” with me at that moment. And then it snowballs.

Over the past few years, I realized that this happens to me (and I know I’m not alone) and while it’s not jealousy, it’s still something that obviously affects my happiness. I’ve learned to acknowledge when it’s happening, and try to stop it when I can, and ask myself, why am I doing this? I also in that moment, try to reverse it as well and view it as admiring someone for their accomplishment, or their killer outfit.

STOP AVOIDING YOUR PROBLEMS

In fact, instead of avoiding them, take them head on. And no, it’s not going to be easy, in fact, I’m pretty sure no one’s ever been able to handle everything easily that’s been thrown their way. The whole purpose of living is to face problems, fears and issues, learn from them, adapt and solve them over time – this is how we become who we are. Personally, this is sometimes how I’ve learned more about myself and become more confident.

STOP BEING SO HARD ON YOURSELF

This is hard. And even after acknowledging that I do this and need to stop it, I know it will be a hard habit to change.

I do believe there is a fine line between being hard on yourself and finding opportunities in your life that you can improve upon. It’s once you find an opportunity, how negative are you about it. Knowing that we as humans, are imperfect beings that will never be at 100% (whatever that means to each of us); we all make mistakes, we all screw things up, we all have our ugly and bad hair days, it’s what makes us human.

STOP WORRYING ABOUT THE SMALL STUFF

In fact, start enjoying the “other” small things in life instead. Too often we look back and realize it was the small moments in life that meant the most to us. Whether it’s nights in watching your favorite TV show with roommates, or those crazy moments with your family at Thanksgiving dinner. Instead of enjoying these small moments, we worry about the other small things that have little importance in the grand scheme of things. Worry isn’t going to take away any of the burden, it just robs you of your joy and happiness, plainly put. One way I battle this since I too get caught way to often worry about this stuff, is to think, is this going to matter in a year? Will my worrying about it now make a difference in the future?

STOP BLAMING OTHERS

Yes, I’m sorry, sometimes it is your own damn fault. There are so many moments where it might be easier to blame someone else for you not getting results on something, your diet, your fitness plan, the project at work, the house not being cleaned. But in the end, there are times where the result, or lack of one, is due to our own behavior and choices. And I know, I’ve been there; where deep down inside you know it’s because of you, but you don’t want to admit it due to shame, guilt, embarrassment, or that it’s easier to do than face the full realization that it’s because of you.

But only when we are truly honest with ourselves, and others too, and take the blame for something, it’s when we really can learn how to prevent it from happening again in the future. So next time it happens, admit it, take note of what happened, learn from it and tuck it up under your belt and move on. You’ll be a lot happier when you start doing this.

STOP LIVING IN THE PAST OR THE FUTURE

Not living in the past is easy for me—it happened, it is what it is, and nothing can change that. Living in the future however is a different story. I’m a planner. I need to like to have things scheduled out in advance, and in doing this, I tend to make tentative schedules in my mind about things as well. In doing so, I set myself up for change, and quite possibly disappointment as well.Being present and living in today ensures that your focus is on the task at hand, or the moment, or the emotion, and not on something that could happened tomorrow or 6 months from now.

Did we miss anything? Comment below and let us know what you think should be on this list.