10 Mental Habits that Make Life Harder
In this article, discover how these negative 10 mental habits that make your life even harder can suppress your cognitive skills.
Sometimes life seems more complicated than normal but, on many occasions, it’s our own mind that makes us see things that way. This is because we have certain mental habits that make life harder.
We can’t always choose to stay away from toxic people, for example. Also, we sometimes have to face moments of huge loss or difficult situations. If everything is already complicated, it’s important that our mental habits don’t complicate things even more.
Discover the mental habits that make your life harder
Many people have developed a strong attachment to negative emotions. This makes them suffer more than they need to. In fact, this is how those awful mental habits start to form.
Thinking that everything revolves around you
Although you might feel tempted to think that everything revolves around you, this just isn’t true. If you have an egocentric view of things, you might end up complicating your life even more.
Don’t expect people to reply to your texts immediately or give up everything just to please you. This is called the spotlight effect and it has been studied by experts at Cornell University. It’s been proven to be harmful and painful.
This is another habit that ends up becoming your enemy. In the world, few things are either black or white. Thus, thinking in extremes is a source of frustration.
According to a study carried out by Waseda University, all-or-nothing thinking creates irrational expectations, which leads to very disappointing outcomes.
Procrastinating instead of making important decisions
The Case Western Reserve University studied procrastination and discovered that it isn’t always our enemy, given that it helps to lower stress levels momentarily.
However, when you have to make an important decision, it’s normal for you to feel scared. In these situations, procrastination will only end up feeding your anxiety and blocking you.
It’s one thing to complain about something specific and another to complain constantly. If you turn complaining into a permanent conduct, it loses its cathartic effect. It can become a nightmare capable of producing changes in your brain that incite you to focus only on the negative.
Yale University neuroscientists demonstrated that people who are often depressed or enraged have a lower neural renovation rate. It’s as if their brains slowed down over time.
Having irrational expectations
Just as it’s not good to see the negative in everything, neither is having unrealistic expectations. A certain degree of positivity helps us keep our head held high, but too much of it will only result in disappointment that can lower our self-esteem.
If we have very high expectations, we’ll probably feel frustrated if we don’t meet them.
Other habits that suppress your cognitive skills
In addition, there are other habits that make life harder for the simple reason that they suppress your cognitive skills:
- Rumination. It’s not good to reproduce frustrating events over and over in our heads. This tends to lead to emotional turmoil.
- Guilt. Feelings of excessive guilt or shame keep you from freeing your emotions. Thus, they become a distraction.
- Thinking excessively about rejection. If you stop to analyze every single time someone rejected you, you’ll turn into your own worst critic, which is harmful to your self-esteem.
- Worrying. It’s important to worry about some things, but try not to make a habit of it. If you only focus on worrying, you can fall into a negative emotional state.
- Constantly comparing yourself to others. It’s not productive to focus more on other people’s life and achievements. Strive to be better every day and use others as inspiration.
Some habits help us be productive and happy. However, it’s worth eradicating those mental habits that attack your well-being and keep you from accomplishing your goals.