Below is a list of 10 things you should let go of to be happy. Happiness really is a choice. It will not come to you from another person, job or experience. Lasting happiness comes from within. If you are angry or frustrated, sad or stressed, the key to your happiness lies in letting go of these negative emotions and replacing them with positive ones. We know this, yet we often choose to hold onto these feelings even though they damage our lives and bring us suffering. Why persist in keeping something which only gives you pain?
Here is the list of 10 things you should let go of to be happy.
1. Let go of the past
I once had a baseball coach whose mantra was “Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda, Blah, Blah, Blah.” Everytime any of us complained about what we did or beat ourselves up he would say this to us and then tell us, “You’ll get ’em next time.” Don’t beat yourself up over the past. You were less experienced then. Try to learn from it and use past mistakes to create a better future. The past does not need to dictate your future. If we live our lives staring at the rearview mirror, we will miss out on life. Learn from your past mistakes, enjoy the journey now and be excited for your plans.
2. Let go of anger
In a moment of anger, the hardest thing to do is to calm yourself down, but it also one of the most empowering feelings in the world to conquer anger. To choose to no longer be controlled by your anger and to release it leaves you feeling strong and powerful. Besides, what destroys a person more from the inside out than intense feelings of anger? Anger solves nothing. It clouds your judgement and ruins your body. Practice letting anger go.
3. Let go of hatred
The stronger cousin of anger. There is nothing that can destroy your composure and calm quite like hatred. But, again, what will it accomplish? If you feel hatred for someone, aren’t you just letting them win? You have given them the power to hurt you. You tie yourself to them with your hatred. If you make the decision to let go of that hatred, you free yourself from the object of that hatred. In doing so, you win.
4. Let go of the need to be right
Wanting to be right means that the other person is wrong. If you feel the need to fight until you’re right, then you are struggling so that someone else can feel wrong and worse about themselves. Is it worth being right to be unkind to another person? If you have travelled the world or spent time listening carefully to others you know that what is right is very relative. There really is no such thing. Why not be kind instead?
5. Let go of blaming and excuses
We blame others and give excuses because we don’t want to take responsibility. Let go of the need to blame other people, things and circumstances for your problems. Let go of the need to make up excuses. Again, it accomplishes nothing. If you want to be happy, you need to be responsible for your own life and your own future.
6. Let go of fear
Fear cripples you, clouds your mind and wastes your energy. In the grand scheme of things, most things are unimportant and most fears never come to pass. Be prepared, but not scared.
7. Let go of trying to control others
First of all, it’s not possible to control other people, especially adults. Second, trying to control others will wither their soul and make them resent you. A plant will grow towards the sun and in a manner that best allows it to thrive. You can try to prune and trim a plant and get it to grow exactly the way you want it to, but you will only be hurting it. The best thing you can do for the health and well-being of the plant is to feed and water it and allow it to grow in its own way. So too with people.
8. Let go of trying to please others
Don’t let others control you. Think of the plant example above. There are certain things you must do in order to thrive and you should follow your inner voice, not what others want for you. You will never please everyone and even if you please some people, your spirit will be withered and you will be unhappy because there is a need within you to grow and develop in a certain way and there is nobody who knows what this way is except that inner voice within you. Let go of what others tell you to do, or what you think they would want you to do. Allow yourself to be yourself. Allow yourself to be free.
9. Let go of negative thoughts
Why live life feeling bad? Life is such a beautiful and grand adventure and we are given such amazing power. We have a mind which can choose its thoughts. Like any muscle, the more you use it the stronger it gets. So, strengthen your ability to choose your thoughts. Only permit positive thoughts into your mind and be amazed at the enormous changes which will come about in your life. To learn how to do this, see How to Become a Positive Thinker. It’s easier than you think.
10. Let go of limiting beliefs
Your life is greatly determined by your beliefs and if you look around and pay attention you will realize that it is not our ability or environment which hold us back, but rather our beliefs. If you believe you can do something, you only need to persist and be patient and eventually you will bend the universe to your will. What if Thomas Edison gave up after his first few thousand attempts at creating a light bulb? What a different world we would all have. He believed he could succeed and he did because he persisted. We only need to study the stories of success to realize that we are only limited by our own beliefs.