Incredibly Easy Things to Stop Doing to Be Happier continues the series on Incredibly Easy Ways to Improve Your Life.
See here for what this series is about, and scroll to the bottom or click here for a list of other entries in the series. Also see the end of the post for details on submitting your own incredibly easy life-improvements.
Incredibly easy things to stop doing to be happier
Last week’s article discussed incredibly easy things you could do to increase your happiness.
But there are likely things you’re doing that make you unhappy.
Simply stopping them would be another incredibly easy win.
It’s always great when you can make your life better by not doing something instead of doing something.
You get extra energy, time, and effort back, on top of all the other benefits.
There are many bad habits that are hard to break, such as quitting smoking.
But there are also a lot of ways people sabotage themselves, can’t get out of their own way, or make themselves miserable, that are easy to change.
Perhaps you’re stuck in a routine you’ve never really thought about.
Maybe you do something because it’s “what you’re supposed to do,” when you don’t really have to.
Or maybe you listened to bad advice, and you just need someone to say, “Hey! That’s bad advice! Stop doing it!”
This won’t be the case for all your problems, but it’s the case for some of your problems.
Here are 11 incredibly easy things to stop doing to make yourself happier.
1. Stop arguing on the internet
I’ve written many articles about this, so I won’t go into too many details.
Arguing on the internet is an enormous waste of time.
It makes you miserable, hurts the causes you’re trying to help, and gives you a negative outlook on the world that is disconnected to reality.
It also makes you more hateful, less informed, and an all-around worse person, while simultaneously destroying your mental health and keeping you from doing anything useful.
Stop doing it and you’ll be much happier, less stressed, and have much more free time.
2. Stop watching the news
The goal of the news media is not to inform you.
It’s to get your attention so they can sell ads. And what grabs the most attention is hate and horrible stuff.
The media poisons your mind in order to make money.
Instead of watching for-profit hate and soul-destruction, subscribe to a morning news briefing e-mail. Then only skim the headlines to see if there’s anything you absolutely need to know. Avoid any other news sources throughout the day.
I recommend 1440, which is free, and the only news source I’ve ever found that seems to be legitimately fair and unbiased.
As a bonus to improving your mental health, this will also give you more free time.
3. Stop listening to self-help that insults you
I talk about this more in Don’t Challenge Yourself, but there’s a certain style of self-help that is actively harmful to your mental health.
This is the type that says, “if you aren’t amazingly awesome, you’re a pathetic loser.”
“If you don’t follow my methods, you must not want it hard enough, and should hate yourself.”
“Look at all those pathetic sheep working 9-5s like chumps when they could have financial freedom. Buy my book to learn more.”
Anyone who shames or bullies you is trying to manipulate you.
Just assume they’re a scam artist, ignore them, and move on.
4. Stop doomscrolling and catastrophism
I already said to stop watching the news, and in 10 Incredibly Easy Ways to Improve Your Happiness I suggested you clean up your social media feed. (You can buy my guide for how to do so for $2.99 here.)
But at the very least, stop with the doomscrolling and catastrophism.
Doomscrolling is when you keep looking through news and social media to find bad news.
Catastrophism is when you keep reading about the worst news.
Stop doing this.
You aren’t accomplishing anything.
And it’s terrible for your mental health.
5. Stop pretend-helping, such as “educating yourself” or screaming at the internet.
There are a lot of terrible problems in the world.
If you can do something to make the problem better, that’s great. But often, you don’t know how to help.
Instead of accepting that you can’t help, you do things that feel like helping, even though they aren’t.
Like reading lots of details about the problem and depressing yourself further.
Or screaming at the internet about the problem, which depresses you and also upsets or annoys your friends.
If you can’t think of anything helpful to do, accept that you can’t do anything to help.
That’s better than making yourself miserable, or actively making the problem worse, just so you can feel like you’re doing something.
6. Stop doing things that make you unhappy
(Suggested by Kelley Lind)
This is an obvious one, but it’s worth pointing out.
Stop and think about the things you regularly do that make you unhappy. Do you have to do them?
Often you do – You can’t quit going to work, paying bills, or changing your baby’s diapers because you find it unpleasant.
But other times you may realize you’re doing it out of habit, and there wouldn’t be any negative consequences if you stop.
So stop.
Or find a less unpleasant alternative to accomplish what needs to be done.
7. Stop expecting people to be mind-readers, and instead tell them what you want
(Suggested by Robin Dowds)
Your friends, loved ones, and coworkers aren’t psychic. They can’t see inside your head.
It would be nice if they automatically knew what you wanted.
But they’re seeing the world from their own mind, busy with their own thoughts.
While your world centers around you, their world centers around them.
Your desires that seem so obvious to you aren’t as obvious to them as you assume.
So say out loud, in words, what you want.
Don’t hint, don’t imply, don’t decide it doesn’t need to be said.
Just tell them what you want.
I have to admit I often make this mistake.
I’ve developed a mantra for when I get frustrated over people not knowing what I want. I learned this from friends who are parents of a three-year-old:
“Use your words.”
8. Stop getting upset over imaginary things
This is another one I’m often guilty of.
Sometimes we picture someone wronging us. Or an existing disagreement escalating. Or something some politician might do in the future.
Then our lizard brain forgets the situation we created in our head isn’t real.
We have a visceral reaction of anger, frustration, or sadness.
We picture things spiraling out of control. Imagine what we’ll say or do. How they’d respond. Get even more angry and indignant.
All over a fantasy playing out only in our heads.
When you find yourself doing this, remind yourself that the scenario you’re picturing is imaginary, and snap your attention back to reality.
9. Stop wishing things were better or dreaming up solutions to problems you have no power over
I have another mantra, to go with “Use your words” and “Don’t get upset over imaginary things.“
“As long as I’m dreaming, I’d like a pony.“
It’s a reference to this Calvin and Hobbes comic:
It’s a reminder that fantasy is as pointless as wishing for a pony.
It’s something I say to myself anytime I start to think “things ought to be better” or dreaming up solutions to problems outside my control.
From Covid to climate change to the student debt crisis to “people should be kinder to each other on the internet,” there’s no value to wishing things outside my control were different.
That just leads to frustration and unhappiness.
Things I personally can do to make the world better are worthwhile.
But hoping for the government or everyone else in the world to change is just dreaming of a pony.
One note on this:
This is more dismissive and snerking than I usually am. I don’t mind snerking at myself.
But that’s me, and you may be different.
For a more positive way to frame this, see #5 on the Incredibly Easy Ways to Be Happier list: When feeling overwhelmed by an intractable problem, improve the world in some tangible way. (Even if it’s unrelated.)
10. Stop spending time around toxic people
An unfortunate fact is that there are jerks in the world.
You probably know people who make you unhappy whenever you interact with them.
They’re obnoxious, stir up drama, or turn every conversation into an argument.
These people drain your happiness.
You’re not going to change them, prove them wrong, give them a comeuppance, or beat them at their own game.
Any attempt to try, or to engage with them at all, will only stress you out and drag you down.
So minimize how much you interact with them.
Unfriend/unfollow/mute them on social media. Don’t invite them to parties. Duck conversations with them.
Your peace of mind will thank you for it.
Take a broad view of “toxic” when you avoid toxic people. It’s not just those who treat you poorly.
Someone is toxic if they treat third parties poorly, constantly complain, are needy, clingy, jealous, manipulative, or always gossiping.
You don’t need that negativity in your life.
11. Stop taking it personally when someone’s a jerk
You can’t eliminate toxic people from your life entirely.
Maybe they’re a coworker, family member, or classmate, and it’s not feasible to avoid them. Or you bump into someone and can’t get away.
Then the obnoxious jerk will be obnoxious. They’ll yell, insult, bully, cruelly point out flaws, and make unfair demands.
It’s natural to feel upset, hurt, and unhappy about this.
So remind yourself that them being a jerk is their problem, not your problem.
The way they’re treating you has nothing to do with you, or any flaws you may have.
Even if they’re specifically yelling about your flaws.
Their actions are based entirely on what is happening in their own head. They’d treat another person exactly the same as how they’re treating you.
Replace any feelings of self-blame or shame with pity over how miserable they must be, or eye-rolling over how immature they are.
Important note: Keep your pity/eye-rolling internal. Don’t express it to them. That would only escalate things and make them worse.
Just let them throw their tantrum, tire themselves out, and do your best to avoid them moving forward.
Bonus entry: Stop being toxic yourself
I didn’t include this on the list, because it’s not incredibly easy.
It’s hard, both from an effort and emotional standpoint. But it’s important.
Stop being toxic yourself.
You don’t think of yourself as toxic. Nobody does.
But everyone acts like a jerk sometimes. That includes me. It includes you.
Here’s a quick way to see if you’re being toxic: Do people come away from interactions with you glad that they had them?
Are they eager to interact with you in the future?
Build the habit of looking back on conversations asking this. If the other person didn’t enjoy it, ask yourself where you went wrong, and how you can do better in the future.
The next step is to build the habit of doing this during conversations, to keep them pleasant.
Obviously not every conversation can be fun. If you’re laying someone off or telling them they have cancer, there’s no way for them to walk away happy. But at least minimize the unpleasantness.
Nobody’s perfect, and we all make mistakes. No matter how hard we try, sometimes we’ll slip up and be obnoxious to people.
Don’t beat yourself up, but learn from it and try to do better in the future.
And if appropriate, a good apology works wonders.
Conclusion
With these eleven incredibly easy things to stop doing to be happy (plus one hard one), you should be able to make a dramatic improvement to your life with minimal effort.
And you’ve given yourself extra of your most previous, irreplaceable resource: Time.
Use that time however you wish: Improving yourself, quality time with your family, being productive, making money, or doing something fun.
Or goof off and browse Facebook. You’ve earned it.
Just make sure that while browsing Facebook, you aren’t arguing, doomscrolling, engaging with toxic people, being toxic yourself, reading the news, screaming at the internet, or suggesting solutions to problems outside your control.
And don’t use Facebook if it makes you unhappy.
Do you have any thoughts on the items on this list?
Or suggestions of others to add?
I’d love to hear from you.
If you have suggestions of incredibly easy ways to be happier, or any other ways to improve your life, please send them to me so I can include them in a future entry. You can comment here, e-mail stevenraymarks at gmail.com, or tweet/DM to @YourselfHelping. I’ll give credit, and if you wish, link to your (family-friendly, non-scammy) Blog/webpage/product.
Other entries in the Incredibly Easy series:
- The Incredibly Simple, One-Sentence Guide to Investing
- 10 Incredibly Easy Ways to Improve Your Health
- 10 Incredibly Easy Ways to Be Happier
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