If you think about it, we all do this. We all allow unhealthy, little things into our lives that we justify or dismiss. However, over time they end up adding up and can really have a negative, if not harmful, impact on our overall mental health, well-being, and happiness. Therefore, today I am talking about these 3 unhealthy or “harmless” habits that are killing your happiness and how to break them. Because if you leave them unchecked, it can oftentimes lead to harmful things such as anxiety, depression, chronic stress, panic, and serious overwhelm!
Not to mention, these 3 things can really get in the way of us liking ourselves and our lives as a whole! With that, let’s get into them!
1. Saying yes when you really want (and need!) to say no
Oh my gosh, I am 100% guilty of doing this! When it comes to extra responsibilities, or extra jobs, or extra projects, or extra expectations, or extra things that people are wanting from you, but you don’t feel like you can say no or that you don’t have a boundary, you oftentimes find yourself saying yes to things that you actually need to be saying no to. In many scenarios, this can happen when we don’t want to disappoint, upset, hurt anyone’s feelings, or let someone down. Therefore, we tend to jeopardize our own feelings, wants, and needs to make them happy.
And oftentimes, we say yes to people who are sort of on the periphery of our lives. Meaning that they’re not always the people that are closest to us. In most cases, if you really think about it, you’re saying yes to acquaintances or even sometimes strangers. Think of your boss, a coworker that you’re not particularly close with, or even someone in the grocery store.
With this, what can happen is that we say yes to people which inadvertently takes away our time, emotional capacity, and energy away from the people who need it most. Like the ones nearest and dearest to us, such as our family, friends, partner, children, parents, etc. Instead, we give our time and our “yes” to those who do not need us the most. And yes of course, sometimes we find ourselves saying yes too often to those who are very close to us, and we can find ourselves getting sucked in, overwhelmed, and stressed out by saying yes too often and feeling obligated.
Not to mention, it takes away our happiness as well.
Especially when we really feel like saying no, yet choose to say yes in order to not let anyone down. Therefore, learning how to say no and giving ourselves that permission to say no is incredibly important for our happiness! It doesn’t mean that you need to say no all of the time and turn down every request that comes your way. Instead, allow yourself to project your time, energy, and emotional wellbeing by letting yourself say no sometimes, and get out of that habit of always saying yes. Remember, saying no to someone is saying yes to yourself and to those who truly need your “yes” the most.
2. Staying around others who don’t want to progress
Now I don’t mean staying around others who might be struggling. Struggling with grief, loss, a difficult time, etc. I have more than enough time for someone who might be struggling and who needs me! However, I am talking about people who almost want to stay stuck and do not want to grow or progress. Those who don’t want to do anything, be in a negative mindset or don’t want to change and grow as a person. It can be extremely draining being around people like that. You know firsthand if you’ve ever gone through that and felt like you had to hang around that particular person who was draining all of your time and energy while not trying to fix themselves. Not to mention, it can also be extremely difficult.
With that, I know you are not one of these people. The fact that you chose to read this blog post is proof that you want to grow, learn, break bad habits, and progress further! Therefore, you aren’t somebody who simply wants to stay where they are and not do anything about whatever it is that you’re going through, dealing with, or struggling with.
But if you are someone who’s wanting to grow, yet you keep yourself around too many people who just want to stay stuck, who maybe bring you down, and deplete your energy, then they can really play a big part in negatively impacting your overall happiness and wellbeing. Of course, there are people in our lives that are truly struggling and it doesn’t mean that if someone is going through something that we should brush their feelings under the rug and move on. But if we really watch our energy and if we pay attention to how many people we have in our lives that are needing us – remember that we all need people too – you’ll be able to give your energy and time to those who truly need it and aren’t just trying to use you for it.
Therefore, getting rid of the habit of keeping yourself around too many people who might be bringing you down and making sure that you are taking care of yourself is crucial! Especially if you are in a place right now in your life where there are people who need a lot from you or asking a lot from you.
3. Not prioritizing or protecting your self-care
I get it! It’s very easy to say (or believe) that taking care of myself, finding time to relax/recharge, and doing things for myself is a “luxury” or not as important as other things that I have going on. Or you think to yourself that you’ll do it IF you have time. Yet, in most cases, you end up not having the time or completely forgetting. With that, you result in feeling drained, depleted, stressed out, overwhelmed, frustrated, etc. Just like when you say yes to everything, you take everything on and you have your plate too full all of the time which in the end makes you feel like you’re just going through the motions of life.
Therefore, you need to know that taking time recharge, adding self-care into your daily routine, and allowing yourself to have time for yourself isn’t a luxury – it’s an essential thing that we all need!
I want you to think about the cost of not prioritizing or protecting your self-care… The cost is that we end up being stressed out, overwhelmed, depleted, and angry. And sometimes, we even take those emotions out on the people who deserve it least. We snap at those who don’t deserve it because of the fact that we no capacity to cope with what’s going on because we have hit our limit – since we’ve taken so much on!
With that, getting out of the habit of taking so much on and never taking time for yourself is necessary!
We need to be able to have that “no space.” Your “no space” is the time you want to schedule each day that is off-limits to anyone. This is the time of day that you dedicate to doing something that you enjoy or that benefits yourself and your personal goals. Personally, I even write it in my planner! For example, if someone asks me to do something at a time that I scheduled to be my “no space,” I simply say no, that I have plans. They don’t need to know that my plan is to maybe do nothing, go for a walk, do some meditating, or whatever it is to simply recharge and rejuvenate.
The important thing is that you protect your “no space” and the time you set aside for your self-care! Because if you don’t protect your self-care and set-aside that scheduled time, you are going to have no space to cope with the day-to-day stressors or to simply feel good and well.
Getting rid of these 3 harmless habits may seem like small things, yet, they are huge things that make a mighty impact on our lives, wellbeing, relationships with others, and our happiness! Maintaining healthy boundaries and learning how to say no may be tough, but there are ways to learn and grow! Just take baby steps!
With that, I hope you enjoyed this post and I hope you feel inspired and motivated to work on breaking these “harmless” habits and start putting your needs and your happiness first! 💛
What did you think about these 3 harmless habits that are killing your happiness?
Let me know in the comments!
xo, Cydney
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