Life can be really hard at times, but unfortunately we can make life harder than it really needs to be. Fortunately you can make your life much easier by changing the way you think and approach situations. Below are some ways you can instantly make your life easier.
1. You have tunnel vision. You have a problem and you believe you have the one and only solution to fix this problem. However, when trying to fix this problem with your one solution, nothing seems to work and you feel frustrated which usually results in you giving up. Let’s say you want to lose a significant amount of weight. Some people get stuck in one solution. You might choose to change your diet completely and opt to partially starve yourself and limit any kind of delicious food as a way to obtain your weight loss goal. However, you have excuses to not exercise or change basic habits such as taking your dog for a longer walk to burn more calories or choosing to make home cooked foods to better control what you eat. Tunnel vision can happen in all aspects of our lives. You can focus on trying to save money one specific way or finding love in one specific way yet you continually fail and cannot figure out why. Usually the issue is that you focus too much on one solution and think that’s the only way to achieve your goal. Make your life simpler by being flexible on how you can achieve your goals. There’s many pathways to getting what you want.
2. Your expectations are unrealistic. You believe finding a job, owning a house or finding love should be easy. You might have a timeline based on superficial factors such as your age or what your peers and family think. For instance, you might believe you should own a home by 30 or find love by a certain age otherwise you feel like a failure. These expectations are hurtful, false and often make it more difficult for us to accomplish our goals. Revaluate your expectations on some of your dreams and life goals. Unfortunately, many things in your life will have challenges, obstacles and be tougher than you imagined. Some things will come easy but many things will be tough. That’s okay. Everyone has to deal with these challenges in their own time and in their own way. Just keep in mind that if you have unrealistic expectations you will feel like life is constantly hard and you will always feel disappointed whenever a challenge arises or something doesn’t work out the way you intended. Stop making life harder than it needs to be and have realistic expectations. Relax and remember that it’s okay if things are harder to accomplish than you thought and it’s perfectly okay if it takes you longer to achieve a goal.
3. Your attitude is too negative. Life is not designed for everyone to be happy all the time. You can create a life where overall you feel happy, content and at peace but life will have it’s ups and downs and you cannot control when that happens. A person with a negative attitude often deals with those down periods improperly and allows them to paint their life in a negative way. You lose your job and you let the anger and bitterness sit with you for many months and years. You start to doubt your own abilities as a worker and might be tempted to give up on finding a new job. A loved one passes away and you try to cope with their death by not coping at all, instead being in denial for far too long, pushing everyone out for an extended period of time or hating everyone and the world for allowing this to happen. Life will throw you some tough curveballs. Life will have pain and tragedy. You will be okay through all this but don’t allow the negative events to make dramatic changes on your attitude. You can move forward, preserve and keep trying to make things better for yourself. Just remember that a negative attitude can often come from a belief that you deserve to be happy all the time and that good things will always happen to you, and that if bad things happen, it’s unfair. Improving your attitude in life will allow you to fully enjoy the wonderful moments in life and cope when life places you unexpectedly in a horrible situation.
4. You assume the worst. Someone cuts you off in traffic and you assume that person is a horrible person. You get criticism at work and you believe you are at risk of losing your job and that nobody appreciates the work you do. Your friend doesn’t text you back and you assume they don’t care about you. Your partner forgot to ask you about that important meeting you had today and you assume he doesn’t love you anymore. Assuming the worst about a situation and the people around you only causes you harm. In some cases, you could end up making irrational life-changing decisions because of your assumptions. You might not apply for a wonderful job that would have hired you because you assume you aren’t qualified or you quit a job before things start to improve because you assume you won’t get that promotion this year. Keep your assumptions realistic. Assume that everyone is human, makes mistakes and don’t take everything so personally. Remember that your worst interpretations of a situation are most likely not true. Make your life easier by keeping your assumptions in check. Relax, take a deep breath and give people the benefit of the doubt.
5. You care too much about what others think. Have you ever been around someone who tries way too hard to impress others? This person usually tries to vocalize their accomplishments, receive praise and bends over backwards to try and look good. How do you feel when you are around a person like that? You probably don’t enjoy being around them because it feels fake. When you care too much about what others think, you are essentially being inauthentic. Instead of focusing on what matters to you, you spend too much time trying to figure out what matters to other people. This is your life, so focus on what makes you happy and being an authentic person. There will people who just don’t like you for whatever reason and that’s okay. That doesn’t mean that person is bad or there is something wrong with you. It just means that you are not compatible with that person. Focus on living your own life and being happy with who you are. You will attract the right people for you when you stop putting so much value into what other people think about you.
6. You surround yourself with negativity. Life is a whole lot more difficult when you surround yourself with negative people, gossip and things that make you feel more negative about yourself and the world. There was a point in my life where I felt like I had way too many people in my life who were negative, depressing and felt very stuck in their life. Looking back I can say that these people were not real friends. They didn’t support me in my life goals and I felt like these people had pretty miserable views on life in general. I found myself engaging in activities such as gossip or talking badly about others. This type of negativity is a two way street and it’s easy to blame the people you are surrounded with, and not realize that you are also actively engaging in the drama. Make your life simpler by removing this unnecessary negativity from your life.
7. You compare yourself to other people. The world is saturated with inaccurate messages about how your life should look. You are surrounded by people who are living their lives in exciting ways and who have their own unique journey to living a meaningful life. That’s great for those people but your life is your own. It’s important to remember that your goals, interests, and passions are significantly different from the people you see on social media, your loved ones, celebrities and your role models. It’s great to feel inspired by people who you feel are accomplishing their dreams but their accomplishments should be an inspiration and not a source of bitterness and jealousy. Stop making your life so hard by focusing on how other people are living their lives and using this as a measurement stick for your life. Instead make things much simpler for yourself by assessing how you feel about your own life and seeing what you need to do to move forward. If you continually try to make your life look like other people’s lives, you might find yourself constantly struggling to attain this lifestyle and being unhappy with the results because their lifestyle is probably not what you genuinely want. Make your life simpler by focusing on how you want your life to look and striving for your own goals.
8. You aren’t taking action with the right attitude. To see great results in your life you have to take action. But action alone doesn’t propel you forward and give you great results. You might see some results but to get great results in your life you have to pair action with a good attitude. When I first started exercising regularly, I did take action. I went to the gym a few times a week, decided to walk to work a couple of days and integrate exercise into my life. I took action and I saw results but I had very self-limiting beliefs. I felt that I could get down to a certain weight but didn’t feel like I could ever be fit or athletic. My beliefs about what I was capable of doing allowed me to just do the bare minimum and aim for just one goal that didn’t even get close to my capabilities. Once I approached my goals with the right attitude, I stopped giving myself barriers. Suddenly I tried running with the right attitude. I had thought for most of my life that I couldn’t run, couldn’t be fit and that I wasn’t strong enough to run more than a mile without stopping. Within 6 months I was able to go from absolutely no experience with running to successfully completing a half-marathon without any injuries and feeling great afterwards. The goals you are trying to accomplish may feel hard because of your own beliefs about yourself. Life can be simplified when you develop a positive attitude about yourself and truly believe that you can be stronger, smarter, more resilient and a better person than you already are.
9. You don’t give back. You have skills, experience and knowledge that is worth sharing to others. Although it can be easy to get caught up in how you can advance and what you can obtain from other people to get ahead, it’s really important to take a step back and see what you can offer to others. Giving kindness helps others and yourself. For instance, if you are always in a habit of taking from others and always needing help, you may find yourself in a dire situation where you desperately need something but people have exhausted too much of their time and resources into helping you and refuse to help. When you give back to others and do them a service, you’ll find that not only do you feel better as a result but you’ll find yourself with a strong and reliable support network. You will also have access to more opportunities and resources because of your ability to give back to the community around you.
Life can be hard at times. You can’t avoid some of life’s tough moments but you can change your habits and beliefs so that your life is much simpler. Recognize when you are purposely making your life more difficult than it needs to be and change your habits and attitude so you can have a simpler and easier life.