Are You Weighed Down Because You Dread Your Life Right Now?

There are days when life overwhelms you with a flood of emotions. Remorse, bitterness, frustration, helplessness, guilt, shame, and other feelings can take you to a very dark place really fast. 

Insecurity and uncertainty rise within your soul, giving way to feelings of hopelessness and fear, causing you to feel a special kind of “aloneness.” 

You can feel so weighed down by despair or regret that you lose an appreciation for your life. 

During these moments, remind yourself there is a way out even though you can’t see it. Your emotional situation is temporary. Perhaps this moment is an invitation to do a little soul searching – to get to the root of your unhappiness to see what might need to change and make course corrections. 

Self-Awareness: Identify the Root of Your Unhappiness

If you’re unhappy, the first step is to start practicing self-awareness and stop living in denial. If you’re unhappy, admit it. 

Happiness is a choice, yes. But feelings of unhappiness are prompts to evaluate your life and situation. 

The goal is to find and create true joy and fulfillment. 

But that process may require you to decide to change, some hard work, and short-term pain or disappointment, which is why some people avoid the true nature of their situation and choose to be “happy” when they’re really not.

Unhappiness will eventually seep into every area of your life unless you deal with it; it’ll trap you within its own special kind of suffering that saps your motivation.

The good news is that things can turn around! But are you ready and willing to do the work to make it happen? 

Here’s an easy example. It’s common for people to dislike their jobs. If you hate going to work and force yourself to show up every day, why stay in a situation that makes you miserable most of the time when you can look for a new job? 

If your intimate relationship lacks emotional or physical intimacy or both, why continue feeling lonely, unwanted, and unhappy when you can choose to face and address the situation instead? Do whatever it takes to heal and restore the relationship. If that doesn’t work, you have some difficult choices. But at least face the situation.

Remember, you take control of your life when you take control of your choices.

You deserve to live your greatest life! You’re stronger than you realize, more caring than you know, and deserve love, joy, fulfillment, and happiness. 

There are certain things you can change immediately and others that will require you to initiate a process that eventually leads to the change you seek. 

Replace feelings of hopelessness with the belief that you’ve come through things successfully before and will emerge in a better place again because you’re resourceful, determined, gifted, and guided.

Focus on the better vision for your life and how much better things will be; things will turn out better than you ever imagined!  

Hopeful anticipation is a choice; it’s called faith. This dark moment is an invitation for you to have faith in yourself and God.

Design a Life that Demonstrates Your Values & Goals

It’s easy to become unhappy when you allow yourself to be distracted from pursuing your dreams and goals. 

Even if you haven’t written a formal list of goals on a piece of paper or in a journal, the important ones rest deeply within your heart and mind. And you know when you’re missing the mark. 

You feel anxious and unsettled when your life doesn’t reflect your values and goals because you’re not making what matters most to you a priority. Worse yet, sometimes, you knowingly make decisions and choices that compromise who you are, which makes you feel even unhappier.

But instead of living your authentic self, you turn a blind eye to your situation and keep struggling through life, moving even farther away from your hopes, goals, and dreams.  

Sometimes you care too much about what your family and friends think or what society values. Everyone shares their opinions freely and tells you how to live. 

It’s easier to just go with it than to endure the headwinds that come with charting your own path.

But chart your own path you must. You have goals, dreams, hopes, aspirations, boundaries, and expectations about how you want to live and what you want to get out of life. 

You get one life. It’s important for you to know what you stand for and what you stand against.

You have the freedom and privilege to determine what matters most to you. You get to choose your values, dreams, and goals. You have the freedom to organize your time and invest your energy into what’s most important to you! 

Be true to yourself. Live your life. Press forward. Believe. And know the sun is there even when you can’t see it through the darkest clouds that obscure hope’s warmth. 

Exercise hope even when you don’t feel like it because hope is, first and foremost, a choice.

Choose Self-Compassion

Many of your greatest fears are rooted in childhood experiences, and past influences from “authority” figures you listened to.

Those thoughts and beliefs that programmed your mental and emotional operating software are often corrupted.

You go through life feeling you’re incapable, lacking, not good enough. 

You form beliefs about yourself that become self-determining truths like coordinates programmed into a missile.

Consider your unhappy situation. How much of it do you think was shaped by your childhood programming or by society’s influences? How much of your “programming” is coded with self-doubt, negativity, and pessimism?

Guess what. It’s time for an upgrade. 

It’s an upgrade that only you can make. 

It’s time to choose “programming” that shapes you into the person you’ve decided that you are and are becoming and moves you in the direction of your hopes, goals, and dreams.

You’re a generous person who’s helped others in their time of need. The time has come for you to give yourself a little help, too. Show yourself some compassion.

Self-love isn’t selfish unless rooted in feelings of superiority or inferiority.

Love your life. Care about that which is most important to you. Give yourself quality time and beautiful words of affirmation. 

Choose to be one of your very own best friends!

You’ll stop resenting or, even worse, hating your life! 

You’ll stop living in complacency, apathy, or indifference! 

You’ll start seeing things differently because you’ve begun seeing yourself with kind eyes instead of the narrow eyes of unfair, underserved criticism.

The next time the clouds of unhappiness start forming in your heart, choose to focus on something good; return thanks for two or three blessings; and imagine your vision for your life turning out even brighter than you dreamed! 

Take charge of your mind, feelings, and focus.

You can always focus on what’s bad and on horrible outcomes. But you can always choose to focus on what’s good and successful, happy outcomes. 

With time, it’ll be easier to overcome cancerous thoughts that destroy your worth and sabotage your hope and achievements.

A Final Note

If you feel unhappy or dissatisfied with your life today, good! It’s an invitation, an opportunity to do some digging to uncover why you feel this way. 

Once you’ve identified why you feel the way you do and have analyzed and evaluated the situation to see if your feelings are justified, it’s time for the next step. If they are warranted, it’s time to shift your thinking from focusing on the negative to focusing on the positive by taking control of your mind and taking charge of your life! 

Make a list of two or three things that need to change. Make a simple plan and start taking action. If your intimate relationship needs to improve, perhaps the plan is to have a loving conversation with your significant other and explore counseling. 

The absolute worst thing you can do when you’re unhappy is nothing. Doing nothing is a breeding ground for fear and worry.

So do something, even if it’s the wrong “something.” Adjust course along the way. Don’t wait for things to be perfect before you start.

Although transformation doesn’t happen overnight because it’s a process, you can change direction instantly at this very moment! 

Be bold and believe in yourself! And do something today to make your life better, even if it’s simple as drinking more water today! Start forming the habit of self-love. 

Your life matters. You deserve to be happy. Make today count. With wisdom and diligence, start living the life you dream of today. And watch miracles happen.