Life can be complicated. However, sometimes our behaviors contribute to making life more complicated than it really needs to be. Here are twenty lessons that I have learned to help life become less complicated.
- You aren’t being authentic. You find yourself trying to fit in, not cause trouble, swaying towards the opinions of the people around you rather than being authentic to your beliefs. As a result you end up taking on beliefs and actions that aren’t consistent with who you are. This is your life. By being authentic, you allow yourself to live the life you want.
- You look for validation. Everybody wants and needs appreciation at some point. However, always needing validation is a sign that you aren’t focused on a life that makes you happy. You are spending too much time looking for other people to verbally approve of your life. Find validation within yourself. Live the life that you want for yourself.
- Your expectations are too high. You want the perfect girlfriend, the best job, great friends who never let you down and like the same things as you, and you can’t stand certain people because they aren’t meeting your expectations. Every so often it is good to reassess your expectations. You might be chasing a fantasy or even worse, not realizing the great things right in front of you. By chasing unrealistic expectations you are cheating yourself of the opportunity of seeing the wonderful things currently in your life.
- You spend too much time in toxic friendships and relationships. Life is too short to allow toxicity. When someone is disrespecting you then you need to let go and move on. Saying goodbye to someone in your life can be difficult, but more often than not, you’ll wish you did it sooner. Start the process of surrounding yourself with loving and supportive people.
- You enjoy drama. Knowing that you enjoy drama may be hard to catch, especially since you may feel that you hate drama or like to avoid it. However, many of your actions tend to promote drama. Maybe you enjoy gossiping or spreading rumors. Perhaps you tend to have emotional and public outbursts. You might be attracted to relationships and friendships that have drama. You might find that you are judgmental of others. The best way to escape drama is to be positive about your interactions and to learn to walk away from any situation that feels dramatic.
- You can’t forgive. Being unwilling to forgive will fill your life with resentment and negativity that occurred years ago. Forgiveness doesn’t mean you have to forget or be okay with what happened, but forgiveness allows you to let go, move on and release any present feelings of negativity. By holding onto the fact that your ex-wife had an affair or your best friend stole money from you, will only keep those feelings of anger and resentment alive and strong. You’ll be constantly living in the past and reliving horrible experiences/ Learn to forgive. Not only will you be able to move forward, but you’ll feel better too.
- You are too negative. When something goes good, you continue to notice the negatived. Nothing people do or say is ever right. Even when things are going great, you tend to dwell on the one thing that isn’t going so well. Life will always have its ups and downs. There will be negatives and positives all around you.
- You over commit. Your life is filled with activities. You can’t remember the last free weekend you had and you have an ongoing to-do list of activities, events, chores and things you always need to do. Many of us glamourize being busy. You feel that being busy is a positive reflection of your life. Being busy isn’t bad but the issue with overcommitment is that you are often committing to things that aren’t meaningful to you. You devote more time to things that ultimately don’t really matter, which leaves no space for the things that do matter. Try to not commit so much. Sure, you’ll have less to do throughout the average week but you will free up time for the things that add value to your life.
- You aren’t patient. Great things take time. Most things take time such as change, reaching goals, mastering a skill, improving relationships or networking and making new friends. Most things in life require time. By not being patient you risk giving up too early or sabotaging something that could be great, because it isn’t happening on your own time line. Work on staying patient when things aren’t going so well. You’ll see improvement once you allow yourself time.
- You struggle to do the right thing. Not doing the right thing can involve cheating on a subject that you are struggling with or lying about something to get ahead. Doing something wrong may seem like the best solution. You might feel that little harm can come from lying, cheating, stealing or misrepresenting yourself. However, being authentic to yourself requires that you do the right thing and make authentic choices. You’ll minimize the risk that something will come back to haunt you and you’ll build relationships based on trust and respect as a result.
- You avoid confrontation. I’m not going to deny that having tough conversations can be difficult. However, avoiding confrontation can destroy an important relationship. Furthermore, you might destroy something even great by avoiding important conversations. A tough conversation allows an opportunity for growth, understanding, resolutions and moving forward. When confrontations are avoided, you’ll find that a relationship can’t move forward, which is why it may dissolve instead. You’ll find that the more you have honest conversations, the easier it will be to have successful conversations with others.
- You need to be right. Having an opinion is great, but you treat your opinions as facts. You like to feel like you always have the answer. If someone doesn’t agree with you, then you feel this is a direct criticism or hit to your own beliefs. Truthfully, all of us will be in situations where we are right, wrong or somewhere in between. You’ll make your life less complicated by accepting that you won’t always have the best answer for a situation.
- You are stuck in the past. Instead of moving forward, you continue looking back at what has happened in the past. You spend too much time consumed with past mistakes, regrets, lost loves, mess ups in your career and so on. Now is the time to start taking steps to move forward. You can’t change the past but you can control how today goes which can help pave the way for how your future will go.
- Your priorities aren’t straight. Loved ones are important to you but you spend a large majority of time working. You want a more successful career but you keep not doing the work and not making deadlines. Priorities help us understand how our time is best spent. If your priorities are off, you are likely investing energy and time into the wrong things. Get into the habit of regularly checking if your priorities are straight.
- You can’t say no. It can be very difficult to say no when you are used to always saying yes. You feel you might be disappointing your friend if you tell them you can’t make the birthday dinner because your final exam is the following morning. You feel like you’ll be disappointing the boss when you mention that you can’t stay back and work late today because of other commitments. If people ask you for help, you feel guilt about the thought of saying no. Not being able to say no means that you’ll invest more energy into things that you shouldn’t. Eventually you might feel resentment over the situation, especially as you realize that you are living a life on other people’s needs and not your own needs.
- You procrastinate. Everyone is capable of procrastinating. In small quantities, procrastination is not really a bad thing. However, if you find yourself neglecting important things or just barely meeting or missing deadlines, then procrastination may be a bigger problem in your life than you think. Instead of spending time thinking about what you should do and finding reasons to avoid doing it, just get it done. The more you practice not procrastinating, the easier it will be to choose to not procrastinate.
- You need to control everything. By believing you must control everything, you’ll be disappointed when obstacles outside of your control occur. You’ll beat yourself up for things that are not your fault. Furthermore, you’ll prevent yourself from relaxing and appreciating what you have been given. You can control your behaviors and actions, but you can’t control everything. You can’t change how people respond to you or what events occur in your life. Let go of the idea that you need to control everything. You’ll allow yourself to relax and enjoy life by giving up the need to control everything.
- You give up too soon. Everyone faces unique challenges, however, overcoming challenges takes patience and will power. Often times we sell ourselves too short and believe false thoughts in our head. It can seem tempting to want to believe that we can’t do it or that we are not good enough, rather than having faith in ourselves and our ability to push through obstacles. Keep pushing forward and don’t give up.
- You can’t let go. There are situations where you just need to let go of something. You may need to let go of a toxic ex partner, or the idea that your career has to go a certain way or let go of the pressures and expectations that you put on yourself and others. Letting go is required to get you out of a cycle that isn’t going anywhere. By letting go you are able to move forward on your journey.
- You don’t allow yourself to change. One of the beautiful things about life is that we are all capable of change. Whoever we were yesterday doesn’t have to be the person that we are today. Being unwilling to change makes your life seem less complicated, but you actually complicate your life further by not changing. People change all around you and the world changes too. When you don’t allow yourself to change, you allow yourself to be stuck in old habits and behaviors that will continue to hold you back.
Life doesn’t have to be complicated. One thing to always remember is that we are in full control of our own reactions and behaviors to things. Once you realize what you are fully in control of your own decisions, you’ll stop yourself from making life more complicated than it needs to be. As you start to actively work on uncomplicating your life, you’ll start to eliminate habits and behaviors that make your life more complicated. What have you done recently to try and uncomplicate your life?