3 irrational beliefs that lead to unhapiness in life
@a_jerobon (2304)
Eldoret, Kenya
October 26, 2020 4:19am CST
There are many advices out there that advice you on what to do in order to achieve hapiness in life. But most of those do not tell you what causes unhapiness. There is alot of research that has been done in this but the one I like most is what the late Albert Ellis, a psychotherapist and a bestselling author concluded about the main cause of unhapiness. That is negative thoughts that lead to irrational thoughts and beliefs. There are many irrational thoughts but Albert Ellis categorizes then into three irrational beliefs;
1. You must do well and win the approval of others.
This is an irrational belief that leads to what many know it as perfectionism. You make goals that are too high for you to achieve just because you want to win the approval of others. When you fail or make a mistake, you critisize yourself so harshly and in the end you become so depressed and unhappy in life. An alternative to this would be Unconditional Self Acceptance where you fully accept yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, your mistakes and fallibilities. You stop placing your worth on how well you perfom.
2. You must receive good treatment from the people around you.
This irrational belief makes you expect so much good from people. But we all know that people don't always treat us well. So with such a belief, you will feel extremely unhappy when people treat you badly. An alternative to this would be Unconditional other acceptance where you accept others exactly as they are. You do not expect too much from them and even when they do bad to you, you don't put your focus too much on revenge and trying to get back at them, that leads to too much unhapiness.
3. Belief that the conditions in life should always favour you.
This is an irrational belief in which you don't accept life as it is with all the ups and downs, challenges and uncomfortable experiences. It is what is known as low frustration tolerance. You get swept by unfavourable life conditions and loose track of problem solving skills. An laternative to this is the practice of high frustration tolerance where you accept life exactly as it is. Then when problems occur, you focus more on problem solving than on overthinking and victim hood.
7 people like this
9 responses
@Butterfingers (66583)
• India
26 Oct 20
Very good dear. Life is full of challenges so every day won't be the same
2 people like this
@RebeccasFarm (90529)
• Arvada, Colorado
26 Oct 20
Oh I can still find time for a little happiness despite experiencing all of those 3 on an everyday basis to my detriment.
2 people like this
@arunima25 (87852)
• Bangalore, India
26 Oct 20
This is a beautiful post and thanks for sharing it. I fully agree with all the three reasons here. I sometimes tend to overthink and focus more on the problem than the solution.
2 people like this
@sherlysherly (304)
• Indonesia
26 Oct 20
thanks for sharing,
yes I'm always seek approval from other and it lead my life to be unhappy. its hard to accept myself, but I'm trying hard
2 people like this
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
26 Oct 20
Actually, Ellis identified four 'irrational beliefs' as being the root cause of unhappiness:
1) "Demandingness" (turning 'wants' and 'desires' into 'needs')
2) "Dramatization" (believing that a negative event into 'the worst thing that could happen')
3) "Low frustration tolerance" (believing that an event cannot be tolerated)
4) "Low self-assurance beliefs" (believing that oneself, others or the world in general are of less value than they really are.)
Of these, 'demandingness' is the one from which, he claims, all the others are derived, such that people elevate their preferences into things they "must" do in order to win approval from others (and from themselves); things others "should" do to comply with a code of standards held by the individual and things that "ought to be" in order for their life to be happy.
Actually, nobody can be said to be a truly rational thinker and we all have some irrational beliefs, whether we think so or not.
1 person likes this