When all is said and done, it’s an undeniable fact that everyone wants to have the greatest possible level of overall wellbeing, regardless of what it is they do for a living, or what their other goals in life might be.
Of course, a sense of wellbeing goes hand-in-hand with good mental health overall, and the field of Positive Psychology, for example, has a lot to say about the best ways to optimise wellbeing and happiness and to balance these things with goal attainment, and other uplifting and focused actions.
There are a lot of good guides out there that can give you a decent degree of insight into the sort of things you should do to boost your sense of wellbeing. Here is something different – a list of some things you might routinely do that can ruin your mental health and sense of well-being, things that you should become aware of and stop.
Always opting for maximum choice and complexity
Believe it or not, more choice is not always better – even though we all tend to assume it is, often without really investigating the assumption very deeply.
In his book, “The Paradox of Choice,” the psychologist Barry Schwartz looks at some incredible evidence that an abundance of choice can actually be a major source of psychological harm, rather than a psychological benefit.
While it’s definitely better to have some choice than no choice, research subjects who have an abundance of choice often end up becoming highly stressed out and anxious, and end up in a state of passivity where they would rather not make any decision whatsoever.
Sometimes, reducing choice and complexity in your life is one of the best things you can do for your overall sense of wellbeing.
Being committed to “winging it“
If you have a particular household issue that needs to be dealt with – such as a broken fridge, for example – it’s likely that you would call a fridge maintenance company to help resolve that issue as quickly as possible.
If, on the other hand, something went wrong in a more personal dimension of your life, there’s a good chance that you would just try to “wing it” rather than coming up with a dedicated plan of action.
Many people don’t dedicate much if any, time or attention to setting and pursuing their goals in an intentional and focused way. But if you’re constantly “improvising” from one moment to the next, it’s very likely that you will always be a step behind, and more stressed than you need to be.
Believing that knowing something in theory, is the same as knowing it in practice
It’s quite easy to “know” something about a huge number of different topics, in the abstract – or “in theory.” It’s far more difficult to “know” things in practice.
One of the things that most often leads to people feeling trapped and overwhelmed, is the sense of false knowledge that comes from having everything “worked out” on paper. This often leads to refusing to take action and see how things play out in reality.
Take action instead – you might be amazed at how different things actually turn out.
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