Why You’re Unhappy

Welcome to Format Free Friday, the one day a week when I break the format of answering your questions and I dispense that which we rarely welcome in life: Unsolicited Advice.

If you’re unhappy, it all boils down to 1 reason: The way you think and act isn’t working. It isn’t attracting the people you want in your life and in fact it’s attracting life circumstances that you don’t want.  Essentially, you have ineffective coping mechanisms.

Coping mechanisms are the ways in which we think and behave when we’re in distress. We all have them. Most of us use the same ones we learned as children despite the fact that they are ineffective. There are 3 primary ways humans attempt to cope with discomfort:

1.  We try to push negativity away. People who do this tend to respond with anger or heightened dramatics in an attempt to push their discomfort away. These people are prone to anxiety.

2.  We try to block negativity. People who do this tend to be isolators. They withdraw when faced with discomfort. They are prone to depression.

3.  We distract ourselves from negativity. People who do this tend to be the aholics: Workaholics, alcoholics, drug addicts, overeaters, sex addicts, etc.

There is a common denominator among these three groups of people: They all see their problems as caused by external events and believe that if they can manage to stop the negative stimuli from touching them, life will be good.   And herein lies the root of their problem:  Their mistaken way of thinking.

Negativity lies in the eye of the beholder. What constitutes a horror to one person, another person finds meaning in; a life lesson.  I believe that the solution to our happiness involves raising our tolerance for discomfort. I believe that it is unreasonable for our happiness to be contingent on the world being as we wish it were.  As soon as this happens, I’ll have peace. As soon as I get over that life hurdle, I’ll feel better. If your life is anything like mine, there is always some excuse to postpone happiness.  But who would want to postpone happiness? It’s not that anyone wants to postpone happiness. People want to postpone doing the hard work on themselves. People, by and large, would rather blame discomfort on external events than take responsibility for finding happiness in this very minute, whatever that minute may look like.

Imagine if you could be at peace no matter what was going on in your life. What would that be like? I’ll tell you what it’s like: It’s like having a superpower. And it involves raising your tolerance for discomfort. So how do you do that?

Start by changing your expectations. Let whatever happens be OK. Stop wishing for what you don’t have. Stop waiting for life circumstances to be different. Find gratitude in what you have. As Dale Carnegie said, “Happiness is wanting what you get.”

The bottom line is this: If you’re unhappy with any aspect of your life, you’re going to have to adopt new ways of thinking in order to get different results. Continuing to think as you have will result in more of the same. It’s that simple. I’ve seen countless clients who’ve crossed the threshold of my office, claiming to want change but who were unwilling to embrace new ways of interacting in the world. In essence, they wanted me to validate that the way they think and behave is fine and that it was the people and the circumstances of their lives that needed to change. I’m here to tell you that nothing could be further from the truth. There’s a price to pay for having the life you want, and that price involves change. Your change.  So tell me: What are you grateful for today? Post on my wall: Facebook.com/DoctorDarcySterling