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A Dozen Ways to Make Yourself Miserable

To appreciate how proficient you are at making yourself miserable, take this quiz. After considering each question honestly, rate yourself. After completing the quiz, add up your score. Anything more than 15 means you could do better.

1 = Not typically me
2 = On occasion this is me
3 = Yup, that’s definitely me!

How often do you:

1. Want what you can’t have?
2. Feel stuck with where you are in life?
3. Answer your every thought with a second thought, then a third, ad infinitum?
4. Find it tough to come to any satisfying conclusion?
5. Refuse to accept your limitations?
6. Gnaw at what “should” have been?
7. Distress yourself with useless worrying?
8. Try to make someone else over in your own image?
9. Doubt yourself on a regular basis?
10. Keep looking for water in a dry well?
11. Hold a grudge for any length of time?
12. Expect more from others than they can give?

Well, how did you do? Are you miserable just thinking about how miserable you are? If so, revisit the questions in which you scored “1” and give yourself a pat on the back. There’s something you’re doing right!

Then revisit the questions in which you scored “2” or “3”. Now, try to create a goal in which you reverse the tendency to do what you usually do. Let’s take question #1 as an example. If you responded, “Yes, I frequently want what I can’t have,” change that to “I will hone in on being satisfied, even grateful, for what I do have.”

Can it be as simple as all that? Of course not. It’s not easy to change! But it’s a beginning.

Though adopting new ways will feel uncomfortable at first, if you view change as an opportunity to grow and not as an unwanted burden, amazing things can happen. If, on the other hand, you refuse to entertain the possibility that you can change, your unhappiness will become more intense, not less. We all grow older. but we don’t all grow happier or wiser.

So, let this pop quiz help you grow a happier self. Let it be the catalyst for a brighter future. And here’s the best news of all. The payoff for making yourself less miserable will not be limited to one area of life.

Guaranteed, it will also enhance your career, expand your confidence, enrich your relationships and empower your well-being. Wow, what a payoff!

“One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions."

Copyright 2010:  Linda Sapadin, Ph.D.  is a psychologist in private practice who specializes in helping individuals, families and couples overcome self-defeating patterns of behavior.

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