{"id":56601,"date":"2016-05-26T13:27:22","date_gmt":"2016-05-26T18:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=56601"},"modified":"2026-10-20T13:02:37","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T18:02:37","slug":"podcast-204-how-to-be-miserable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/character\/self-improvement\/podcast-204-how-to-be-miserable\/","title":{"rendered":"Podcast #204: How to Be Miserable"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are tons of books out there about how to improve yourself, how to be happier, how to be more productive, how to be less angry, etc. Often with these books, you&#8217;ll find advice on things you should <em>add<\/em> to your life in order to be happier. But sometimes, the best way to achieve a goal is to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/articles\/via-negativa-adding-to-your-life-by-subtracting\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>subtract<\/em> from your life<\/a> and stop doing the things that are making you miserable.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s the approach psychologist&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.randypaterson.com\/\">Dr. Randy Paterson<\/a> took&nbsp;in his latest book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1626254060\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1626254060&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=stucosuccess&amp;linkId=FSXA3GZUT5SFDAZ4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>How to Be Miserable: 40 Strategies You Are Already Using<\/em><\/a>.&nbsp;Today on the show, Dr. Paterson and I discuss the habits and thinking patterns he&#8217;s seen with his patients that make them miserable and what you can do to eliminate those from your own life.<\/p>\n<p>We also discuss assertiveness. Randy wrote a great book entitled <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/people\/social-skills\/how-to-be-assertive\/\"><em>The Assertiveness Workbook<\/em><\/a>&nbsp;that I referenced in an article about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/people\/social-skills\/how-to-be-assertive\/\">assertiveness<\/a> a few years ago. If you have problems telling people &#8220;no&#8221; or asking for things without experiencing anxiety, you&#8217;ll find that part of the podcast useful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are tons of books out there about how to improve yourself, how to be happier, how to be more productive, how to be less angry, etc. Often with these books, you&#8217;ll find advice on things you should add to your life in order to be happier. But sometimes, the best way to achieve a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":195798,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[502,156,42388],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-character","category-podcast","category-self-improvement"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/204-538x280.png","medium_large":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/204-768x432.png","aom":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/204-372x230.png","reactor-320":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/204-320x180.png","reactor-640":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/204-640x360.png"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.4 (Yoast SEO v28.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Podcast: How to Be More Assertive | The Art of Manliness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you have problems telling people &quot;no&quot; or asking for things without experiencing anxiety, you&#039;ll love this episode.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/character\/self-improvement\/podcast-204-how-to-be-miserable\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Podcast #204: How to Be Miserable | The Art of Manliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you have problems telling people &quot;no&quot; or asking for things without experiencing anxiety, you&#039;ll love this episode.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/character\/self-improvement\/podcast-204-how-to-be-miserable\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Art of Manliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/facebook.com\/artofmanliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-05-26T18:27:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-10-20T18:02:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/204.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@artofmanliness\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@artofmanliness\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Brett\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.artofmanliness.com\\\/character\\\/self-improvement\\\/podcast-204-how-to-be-miserable\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.artofmanliness.com\\\/character\\\/self-improvement\\\/podcast-204-how-to-be-miserable\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Brett\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.artofmanliness.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/84a51044fb965564cde35d18f7e0a832\"},\"headline\":\"Podcast #204: How to Be 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