10 Habits That Keep Most People Miserable, According To Psychology
Happiness doesn't just happen to you.
Syda Productions | Canva Happiness comes in so many different forms that it can be hard to define. Unhappiness, on the other hand, is easy to identify; you know it when you see it, you know the habits that make you unhappy, and you know when it’s taken hold of you.
Unhappiness is lethal to everyone around you, just like second-hand smoke. The famous Terman Study of 1921 from Stanford followed subjects for eight decades and found that being around unhappy people is linked to poorer health and a shorter life span.
Happiness has much less to do with life circumstances than you might think. A University of Illinois study in 2004 found that people who earn the most (more than $10 million annually) are only a smidge happier than the average Joes and Janes who work for them.
Life circumstances have little to do with happiness because much happiness is under your control — the product of your habits and your outlook on life. Psychologists from the University of California who study happiness found that genetics and life circumstances only account for about 50 percent of a person’s happiness. The rest is up to you.
Here are 10 habits that make you miserable, according to psychology:
1. Waiting for the future
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Telling yourself, “I’ll be happy when...” is one of the easiest unhappy habits to fall into. How you end the statement doesn’t really matter (it might be a promotion, more pay, or a new relationship) because it puts too much emphasis on circumstances, and improved circumstances don’t lead to happiness.
Don’t spend your time waiting for something that’s proven to not affect your mood. Instead, focus on being happy right now, in the present moment, because there’s no guarantee of the future. Research tells us that staying in the present moment can lead to a more positive life.
2. Spending too much time and effort acquiring things
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People living in extreme poverty experience a significant increase in happiness when their financial circumstances improve, but it drops off quickly above $20,000 in annual income.
There’s an ocean of research from The Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin that shows that material things don’t make you happy. When you make a habit of chasing things, you are likely to become unhappy because, beyond the disappointment you experience once you get them, you discover that you’ve gained them at the expense of the real things that can make you happy, such as friends, family, and hobbies.
3. Staying home
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When you feel unhappy, it’s tempting to avoid other people. This is a huge mistake as socializing, even when you don’t enjoy it, is great for your mood. Having, and spending time with friends can boost your mood and improve your health, research from the American Psychological Association confirms.
We all have those days when we just want to pull the covers over our heads and refuse to talk to anybody, but understand that the moment this becomes a tendency, it destroys your mood. Recognize when unhappiness is making you antisocial, force yourself to get out there and mingle, and you’ll notice the difference right away.
4. Seeing yourself as a victim
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Unhappy people tend to operate from the default position that life is both hard and out of their control. In other words, “Life is out to get me, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
The problem with that philosophy is that it fosters a feeling of helplessness, and people who feel helpless aren’t likely to take action to make things better. While everyone is certainly entitled to feel down every once in a while, it’s important to recognize when you’re letting this affect your outlook on life. You’re not the only person that bad things happen to, and you do have control over your future as long as you’re willing to take action.
5. Pessimism
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Nothing fuels unhappiness quite like pessimism. The problem with a pessimistic attitude, beyond it being hard on your mood, is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you expect bad things, you’re more likely to get bad things.
Pessimistic thoughts are hard to shake off until you recognize how illogical they are. Force yourself to look at the facts, and you’ll see that things are not nearly as bad as they seem.
6. Complaining
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Complaining itself is troubling as well as the attitude that precedes it. Complaining is a self-reinforcing behavior. Complaining can actually make you dumber, one Stanford study claims.
By constantly talking — and therefore thinking — about how bad things are, you reaffirm your negative beliefs. While talking about what bothers you can help you feel better, there’s a fine line between complaining being therapeutic and it fueling unhappiness. Beyond making you unhappy, complaining drives other people away.
7. Blowing things out of proportion
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Bad things happen to everybody. The difference is that happy people see them for what they are — a temporary bummer — whereas unhappy people see anything negative as further evidence that life is out to get them.
A happy person is upset if they have a fender bender on the way to work, but they keep things in perspective: “What a hassle, but at least it wasn’t more serious.” An unhappy person, on the other hand, uses it as proof that the day, the week, the month, maybe even their whole life, is doomed.
8. Sweeping problems under the rug
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Happy people are accountable for their actions. When they make a mistake, they own it. Unhappy people, on the other hand, find problems and mistakes to be threatening, so they try to hide them. One study from the University of Iowa shows how making mistakes actually increases our neural connectivity.
Problems tend to get bigger when they’re ignored. The more you don’t do anything about a problem, the more it starts to feel as though you can’t do anything about it, and then you’re right back to feeling like a victim.
9. Not improving
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Because unhappy people are pessimists and feel a lack of control over their lives, they tend to sit back and wait for life to happen to them. Instead of setting goals, learning, and improving themselves, they just keep plodding along, and then they wonder why things never change. Research from 2021 shows how setting goals can provide motivation and give people direction in life.
10. Trying to keep up with the Joneses
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Jealousy and envy are incompatible with happiness, so if you’re constantly comparing yourself with others, it’s time to stop. In one 2008 study, most subjects said that they’d be okay with making less money, but only if everybody else did too. Be wary of this kind of thinking as it won’t make you happy and, more often than not, has the opposite effect.
Changing your habits in the name of greater happiness is one of the best things that you can do for yourself. But it’s also important for another reason — taking control of your happiness makes everyone around you happier too.
Dr. Travis Bradberry is an award-winning author, and the cofounder of TalentSmart, the world's leading provider of emotional intelligence tests. He has been featured in Newsweek, BusinessWeek, Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, Inc., USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Harvard Business Review.