15 Things to Give Up If You Want to Be Happy

21 June 2021

Who Doesn’t Want to Be Happy? We Are Giving Away Tips on How to Achieve Happiness.

If the weather was cold, would you try and change the weather or would you put on a sweater? Same applies to your life. You can’t always change the circumstances, but you can change how you react to them, or you could “give up” something that could help you be happy, and we have 15 suggestions for you in today’s article, 15 things to give up if you want to be happy.


If you don’t want to waste your precious time, give up reading this long article and switch over to the video version instead:

With that done, let’s move forward with the article.


Give Up Wanting to Be Right

How great it is to win an argument, how sweet the victory! Or is it? Often when we prove someone wrong, they exit hurt and despising us. So really, we are just right and alone. Working with people successfully and maintaining happy and healthy relationships includes a good amount of compromise. Finding the exact right answer isn’t always the solution, but often the most comfortable or acceptable solution is right, and the one that leads to a happy life.

As self-help author, Wayne Dyer, puts it: “Would I rather be right, or would I rather be kind?”

You can listen to Wayne Dryer’s Number 1 New York Times Best Seller the Erroneous Zones on Audible for free by going to alux.com/freebook.


Give Up Judging – Yourself and Others

In an article for Psychology Today, Doctor Rubin Khoddam suggests that “the language we use to describe “things” easily becomes the same language we use to describe ourselves.  

He uses the example of a movie that two people watch. For one it was the best movie, to the other, it was awful. So, which one was it? Was it the best or worst movie in the world? The truth is that it can be both because judgement is only based on perspective. It isn’t necessarily fact, nor does it take the power or position from that thing. The movie still exists, but we might be changed.

But what is interesting is those judgements of a movie lead to different experiences. One encourages conversation, the other kind of puts people off. And once one thing is awful, how easy is it for the weather to be awful too, and then your job, and actually you suddenly feel that you’re awful too.

Judgement doesn’t bring us any nearer to truth, nor fact and definitely not happiness. So, ditch it.


Give Up Comparisons

Along a similar flow of thought, comparisons could also be robbing you of happiness. Give up your need to compare yourself and your life to other people. We are all on our own journey. No one route can be identical. There is nothing to compare your life to.

Comparing won’t get you there any faster. It just takes energy, it is rarely a motivation, and it distracts us from our own responsibilities.  So, stick to your lane and forge ahead. And if you needed encouragement, we’ll be the first to say: “You’re doing perfectly fine for you!”


Give Up Limiting Yourself

By now you should be realising that nothing is actually limiting except what you think or believe about yourself. If you want to believe you’re the best at something, nothing is stopping you. The truth is that when you are overcome with limitless beliefs, your horizon becomes a lot bigger and your capacity for problem solving becomes a field of options.

As change therapist Elly Roselle puts its, “A belief is not an idea held by the mind, it is an idea that holds the mind.”

If you want to change yourself to become better, check out 15 Steps to Reinvent Yourself and Start Over.


Hakuna Matata That SH*T AKA Give Up the Past

If a Warthog and a Meercat singing a cute song don’t make you see that the past doesn’t matter, then perhaps looking at the past for what it is, will help. The real reason we like the past so much is because it is known. The present wants something from us, and the future is unknown.

The past is like a comforting blanket, even if it was scary or painful, at least we know it. But the thing is the past can do nothing for us. We know what happened, we contain the knowledge in us, we have already learnt what we need from it.


Give Up Trying to Control What Is Happening to You

Sh*it happens. That’s for sure. Maybe your job is on the line, you are sick, or your year of travelling got cancelled by Covid… Whatever your reality is, we have less control over what happens to us than we would all prefer.

What you can control is what you do with those realities. Will you deal with your illness graciously, maybe learn and even change your lifestyle because of it, or will you leverage your job loss for an even better career path of consulting for your employer or perhaps their clients? Maybe your delayed travel plans mean you can take another opportunity that comes along.

Your reaction to what is happening can be controlled. And that response is what can give you control over any situation, and that is true happiness.


Give Up Labels and Boxes and Stereotypes

Labels are so limiting. The quickest way to ring fence yourself, is to believe that your limit lies at the end of your current title. Same goes for other people.

Perhaps you are a stay home parent, that doesn’t mean you’re not a dynamite entrepreneur. Being from a tough upbringing, doesn’t have to limit you, just the same as graduating from an Ivy League University doesn’t make you a shoe in for success.

If you want a fair and equal chance to be happy, start by dropping all the labels and stereotypes that limit you. And then stop limiting other people in the same way too. You will be pleasantly surprised at how much happier you will be in the freedom.


Give Up Talking Yourself Down

So many of us have a bad habit of being our own worst critic. The world is harsh enough, there is no need for you to be unkind to yourself too. If there IS something you don’t like about yourself, then we encourage you to admit it and change it. But constantly dissing yourself won’t help or fix anything. Drop those bad habits like a hot potato and then be your own cheerleader if you want to be happy.


Give Up Doing Things for Approval

Most of us carry childhood needs into adulthood, and that isn’t good. We need to grow out of those needs to experience true happiness. One childhood need is for approval. Kids want you to watch every cartwheel and offer positive feedback, or it wasn’t worth doing.

Each time they get an adult’s admiration for every minor move they make; it amplifies their need for approval instead of doing things for the pure joy of it. It’s a bad trait that overparented modern childhood teaches kids.

Of course, put down the keyboard, we’re not knocking positive reinforcement or encouragement in your kids., it’s the constant over emphasis that is wrong.

Your adult life should be able to continue without someone acknowledging every minor move you make. Enjoy the cartwheel for yourself, not because it impresses someone else.


Give Up Your Idea of Making Money

This one might seem counterproductive for a community of future billionaires like Aluxers. But hear us out. We’re referring to the advice of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, and they have a few billion each to keep them warm at night.

The concept they both preach is that of giving up making money as your focus. Rather work on providing the best darn service or product you can muster. Musk, in particular, talks about solving people’s problems. That will bring you happiness and satisfaction. Solving an undeniable problem with a brilliant solution will mean money will come.

Find out more about one of these business greats in our video:


Give Up Blaming

Things are never going to be perfect. You can blame covid, a recession, or your schooling, but it won’t get you any closer to overcoming those challenges. You need to unpack the problem, mistake or misfortune, learn from it, and then put that aside and proceed.

You won’t find success or be happy at the end of a long list of all the reasons you have for not succeeding. Ditch your need to rap off blame and look towards the opportunities you do have.


Give Up Waiting for the Right Time

We often think we will be happy in a new job, or with the right partner or when we lose 10 kgs. Aluxers, there is no such thing as the perfect time.

The only thing that makes one time better than another, is your commitment.


Give Up Fear

If you had to draw fear, or describe it, or invite it to a dinner party how would you do that?

You couldn’t really. That’s because fear is made up. It doesn’t actually exist as an entity. No one else can see it, feel it or know it. Franklin D Roosevelt explained that “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.”

Fear itself is the biggest threat, not the thing that you found challenging. That you can do something about if you didn’t have fear blurring your vision. Work on eliminating the nervous twitch to devolve into fear when something happens. Use that creative energy to find solutions instead.


Give Up Attachment

While on the subject of fear let’s talk about attachment. A lot of people think that love and attachment are the same, but one can’t thrive in the presence of the other.  

Feeling attached to people or things comes from fear, fear of losing them, so they need to be owned or labelled. Love is self-less, love is only concerned with giving and nurturing, or being a good curator while associated with that person or item. Love is a knowing that everything comes and goes, and that there is no true ownership of anything.

Lau Tzu explains that in attachment there is no happiness: “By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond winning.”


Give Up Thinking You Understand the World

If we ever get to a point we feel we are better than others because we have reached the apex of success, or possess an ultimate knowledge of the world, we will probably just be…bored.

Paulo Coehlo puts it like this: “You’re always learning. The problem is, sometimes you stop and think you understand the world. This is not correct. The world is always moving. You never reach the point you can stop making an effort.”

The joy and wonder in life is the reason to never get to the end of the understanding of how everything works. You get happy when we realise we actually know very little, and so we will always have something to look forward to.


What would you give to be happy? And what is stopping you?