If you’re unhappy and want to stay unhappy…keep thinking these 9 things!

If you’re unhappy and want to stay unhappy…keep thinking these 9 things!

Positive psychology and cognitive therapy before it proffer that how we feel (including whether or not we feel happy) depends at least on part on how we think. 

Thoughts largely create emotions. 

Hence optimistic thoughts are one of the biggest contributors to happiness; and pessimistic thoughts are one of the largest contributors to unhappiness and misery. 

Some people keep thinking the same thoughts despite the fact they cause unhappiness and distress; here are 9 beliefs that will keep you unhappy if you keep thinking them…

by Hannah Braime from LifeHack

How we think has a huge effect on how we feel. When we’re feeling down, it can be hard to imagine that we’re capable of pulling ourselves out of the slump. We can do it, however, and this post highlights nine beliefs that make unhappy people stay unhappy, plus how you can change them.

1. It needs to be perfect.

Perfection is rarely an obtainable standard, yet it’s the standard that so many of us strive to meet (and feel miserable when we don’t).

Rather than striving for perfection, we can make life a lot easier for ourselves by deciding in advance what “good enough” looks like for any given task and give ourselves permission to be satisfied with that.

2. I shouldn’t be feeling [X].

Nothing will bring us unhappiness faster than trying to convince ourselves that we shouldn’t feel a certain way. Whenever we say something that is shouldn’t be the way it is, we’re denying reality.

Every feeling we experience occurs for a reason, even if that reason isn’t rooted in the present moment. While we might not enjoy the full spectrum of our emotional experience, we’ll be a lot happier if we stop trying to change things we can’t change.

Next time you feel an emotion and hear an internal voice saying you shouldn’t feel that way, tell yourself that you’re feeling exactly the way you’re supposed to feel and see how that alters your experience.

3. I don’t deserve [X].

While it’s true there might be times when we don’t deserve this or that, the moment this phrase stops being situational and becomes a belief, it’s going to affect our happiness.

The belief that we don’t deserve something doesn’t usually exist on its own. If we unpack this belief, we’ll usually find that several beliefs around our sense of worthiness feed it, for example, “I’m only worthy if I’m always busy,” or, “I’m only worthy if I make a lot of money.”

…keep reading HERE for 6 more unhappy beliefs and the full & original article