Summary
Difficult situations and people are not the biggest problems in life. In fact, these challenges could be the reasons why you become a better person when you have helpful attitudes and beliefs.
For example, if you have helpful attitudes and beliefs, you might choose to come up with creative solutions for these difficulties and eventually achieving great successes. In the same scenario, if you have unhelpful attitudes and beliefs, you might choose to surrender to the difficulties because you deem them as insurmountable.
Besides unhelpful attitudes and beliefs, unhelpful habits are killers too. For instance, drowning yourself in sorrow, losing directions in your life, and taking shortcuts towards your goals are bad news for your life and mental well-being in the long run.
Read on to find out examples of unhelpful and helpful attitudes, beliefs and habits as well as ways to go about improving your mental health. If you have any comments or questions after reading, you may send them to me.
In my earlier article, I mentioned this phrase “enlightened view of life” arising from a study which found that “hunger amid plenty hurts more than hunger alone.” The study concluded that being more relatively deprived was linked to more mental health symptoms, lower positive well-being and lower life satisfaction. In this article, I will discuss further what and how attitudes, beliefs and habits affect our mental well-being, and ways to go about improving your mental health.
Unhelpful Attitudes and Beliefs are a Source of Suffering
Williams and Garland (2002) found that “what individuals think about a situation or problem may affect how they feel emotionally and physically and also alter what they do.” I have no doubt you will agree with me that unhelpful attitudes and beliefs are bad for our mental health. However, we might differ on what attitudes and beliefs are considered unhelpful. For instance, is being ambitious considered a helpful or unhelpful attitude? Some might say, “Helpful, because I will strive to achieve my potential. And I will be so happy with my success.” Others might disagree and say, “Because those who are ambitious need to cope with rivalries. It feels horrible to be a loser.” So, who is correct? Neither or both, depending on how you look at it. When you manage to balance the happiness of success with the strain of competition by having an “enlightened view of life”, things should be fine.
Helpful attitudes and beliefs. For example, you think that “Every person has many chances to fail and succeed. Sometimes, I will succeed after working hard. At other times, I can fail even if I have worked hard. I will not stop working hard after successes, neither will I stop after failures. Success does not swell my head. Failure does not shake me. I am enjoying my life journey to discover and to achieve, and I am not aiming to compete with others.” As you can see, this enlightened view can cushion you from negative emotions and thoughts whether you have success or failure.
Unhelpful attitudes and beliefs. On the other hand, you believe that “Other people are successful without even working because they have rich and generous parents. It is so unfair that I fail more often than other people. I do not deserve to fail after working so hard. It is pointless to try again; I will not succeed anyway. I am sure people are making things difficult for me. I know people are looking down on me because I have failed.” Can you see how this view prevents you from pursuing your dreams and traps you in despair?
In conclusion, it is not about being ambitious or not. It is the way you look at setting goals, working for the goals, and handling the outcome of missing or achieving the goals that decides whether your mental well-being is preserved.
Unhelpful Habits are Real Killers
I will use three examples to illustrate what unhelpful habits look like.
Drowning in sorrow. Triggered by setbacks, you drown your sorrows in alcohol, drugs, gambling, and so on. To you, life has no meaning after tasting failure.
Losing directions. You tell people that “I do not know what to do. It is so frustrating that bad things always happen to me.” Sometimes, it is not that you do not know what you should do. It is that you are afraid to try out something in case you fail again. Subconsciously, you might think that “If I do not do anything, I will not have a chance to fail. If I try out and fail, I will be a loser for life.”
Taking shortcuts. You find it meaningless to have to work for success. You say, “It is crazy that I have to wait 10 years to see results.” Thus, you go for shortcuts. Perhaps, you try to ask someone else to do the hard work, try to outsource your school assignment, try to outsmart the law, or try to manipulate a close friend in order to easily or quickly get what you want.
Let us use an example on depression to illustrate how unhelpful habits can destroy you. As a result of having been retrenched recently, you chose to drink away your sorrow and give up exercising. Soon, your behaviour led to unhelpful thinking patterns and low mood which in turn led back to more drinking sessions. In the longer run, you would be feeling less and less confident about yourself and your ability to hold a job properly. Your unhelpful habits, emotions and beliefs have thus condemned you to long-term unemployment.
Some Activities for a Meaningful Life
Meaningful life can mean different things and states of being for different people. It could mean having a house and good food, being safe and healthy, feeling belonged to their social circle, being engaged in a job that they are proud of, being validated by others in their job, scaling Mount Everest, be of service to others, and so on. Now, let us look more closely at some possible ways towards a meaningful life.
Is having no responsibilities good? It is a bad idea to have too much leisure time because Hardeep and his team (2021) found that engagement in meaningful and shared activities could promote people’s well-being which include psychological well-being (life meaning) and subjective well-being (life satisfaction). Instead of staring into empty space, you can try doing something pleasurable or meaningful like playing sports with your friend, caring for your plants, participating in a fund-raising activity for a charity, learning a new skill, and so on.
What about spending time online? Tukel said research findings showed that students who participated in active sports, social, artistic and cultural activities had low smartphone addiction. Moreover, smartphone addiction – extensive usage of mobile devices – among students significantly reduced their leisure satisfaction. He also mentioned that leisure refers to activities that a person voluntarily engages in when they are free from any work, social or familial responsibilities. Overuse and addiction of smartphones seem to be associated with many academic, physiological and psychological problems. For instance, the average of every 93 minutes spent on Facebook decreases the grades of university students by 12 points. This is because excessive use of social media on smartphones destroys students’ discipline and time management habits. Moreover, extensive online interaction leads to many psychological symptoms such as poor social skills, narcissistic tendencies, attention deficit, addictive behaviours, depression, anxiety and loneliness among young people. These problems probably arise because there are less real interactions among university students as well as with their loved ones. Besides, bloggers tend to post photos and videos of their activities to trigger envy from their fans. Hence, internet surfing should not be at the expense of your studies, work attitude or relationships.
How to find meaning in a stigmatising job? In a study by Mercurio (2020), it was found that when the university custodians (namely school cleaners) experienced meaningful work, they were: 1. Enacting a learned, positive approach to the work, 2. Having and experiencing pride in cleaning work, 3. Maintaining meaningfulness, 4. Experiencing ongoing external validation of the self and work, 5. Employing kinds of ongoing self-validation of the self and work, 6. Helping others, and 7. Developing positive and personal relationships.
What is the role of perseverance in life? The increase of high-speed quality internet connectivity and the widespread use of mobile devices has promoted the on-demand, instant gratification world (Keogh, 2018). The trend of instant gratification makes practising perseverance harder. However, perseverance is linked to deeper learning and larger long-term rewards. This means that if people prefer instant gratifications (for example, numbing the pain of retrenchment by getting drunk instead of facing the hard reality of finding a new job) over delayed ones (for instance, finding meaning in a job in a new field), their own future and the whole society’s future would be negatively affected.
In summary, some possible ways towards a meaningful life include (1) persevering in meaningful pursuits, (2) finding meaning in mundane responsibilities, and (3) moderating social media usage.
In short…
Applying helpful attitudes and beliefs to guide our daily actions, and engaging in meaningful activities persistently are ways towards a happier and more rewarding life.
Start developing helpful attitudes and beliefs, and striving to bring out your fullest potential, you will see the benefits after a period. If you want to more information on this topic, you may contact me.