Although it’s supposed to be a simple concept, being happy and content with oneself is a reality that is foreign to most. Being happy with ourselves simply means that we show mercy to ourselves by forgiving, accepting, befriending, and most importantly, loving ourselves. A person that is happy from within will allow themselves to grow from their mistakes– enabling a more fulfilled life. This person will also be more appreciative of what they have, their abilities, and their surrounding environment, which will encourage better discipline and better choices.
People that are not happy with themselves live in a perpetual cycle of constantly comparing their own circumstances to those of other people, and in the end, they ultimately forget to live their own lives. Knowing how to be happy with yourself. It is such an important factor on the journey of becoming your best self, but it is often a long and grueling road.
Your happiness is solely your responsibility. It is not contingent upon others, your circumstances, or what you own. So, how can you be happy with yourself? If you’re struggling to love yourself, you’re not alone. In this post, we’ll explore how to be happy with yourself through self-love and acceptance. We’ll also dispel some common myths about happiness.
Factors That Affect A Happier Life
Self-love and acceptance are two important components of happiness. They aren’t the only things that are important. though. Let’s consider some additional essential aspects.
Positivity is an essential component. This means looking at the glass as half full. It includes searching for a silver lining in every situation. Instead of constantly pondering on what you still need, it means enjoying what you currently have.
Another important factor is having positive relationships. You should do this by surrounding yourself with supportive and loving individuals. It means being kind and understanding to yourself and others. It means forgiving yourself and others.
Last but not least, it’s critical to look after your physical needs like eating healthily, staying active, and getting enough sleep. It just basically means taking care of your body so that it will extend to your mind. There are tons of health benefits that come with combining positive emotions with your own happiness and well being.
This is not just about losing weight, but becoming a happy person by making sure to practice mindfulness as a human being, reconnect with family members, and spending time in your daily life doing things that affect your overall happiness and self-confidence.
Common Myths About Happiness and Self-Esteem
Myth #1: Happiness is contingent upon others, your circumstances, or what you own.
That’s just not true at all! Happiness develops internally– it comes from within. It is not something you can pay for or receive from others.
Myth #2: You need to be perfect to have a happy life.
Again, this is not true! Happiness is not about being perfect. It’s about being kind to yourself, having a positive outlook, and taking care of yourself physically and emotionally.
Myth #3: Happiness is a destination.
Happiness is not a destination. It’s a journey. It’s something that you experience every day.
Myth #4: You need to be happy all the time.
No, you don’t! Happiness is not about being happy all the time. It’s about finding joy in the everyday moments, even when things are tough.
Myth #5: Happiness is elusive.
Happiness is not elusive. If you actively look for it, you will eventually discover it.
How Can You Tell if You’re Not Happy With Your Own Life?
If you’re struggling with happiness, it can be hard to tell. Here are some signs that you might not be happy with yourself:
- You’re always comparing yourself to others. This is a dead giveaway that you don’t feel good about yourself. When you compare yourself to others, you’re only setting yourself up for disappointment.
- You’re never satisfied with what you have. If you’re always wanting more, it’s a sign that you’re not really satisfied with what you already have. This can be detrimental to your happiness.
- You’re constantly putting yourself down. If you’re always putting yourself down, it’s a sign that you don’t love yourself.
- You’re always chasing after something. If you’re never happy with what you have, you’ll constantly be looking for more. This can be exhausting and will only lead to more unhappiness.
- You’re never present. You are not in the now if you are always dwelling on the past or worrying about the future. Achieving happiness within yourself may be more challenging as a result.
Small Things You Can Start Doing
Part of improving how we judge ourselves involves conscious and deliberate learning. We need to learn how to talk to ourselves in a new and different way– which often means exposing ourselves to a better inner voice. We need to hear constructive but kind voices often enough and around difficult issues until such time that they come to feel like normal and natural responses. And eventually, they become our own thoughts.
A good internal voice is almost like a genuinely decent judge– someone who is impartial; someone who can effectively separate the good from the bad. Consequently, they should be someone who can always be merciful, fair, and accurate in understanding what’s going on. Not that we should cease criticizing ourselves; rather, we should improve our self-evaluation skills.
Here are some easy steps you may take to improve your self-awareness and, ultimately, find happiness with yourself.
Be A Friend To Yourself
Another thing you can start doing in order to be happy with yourself is to become your own friend, even in an imaginary kind of way. It sounds odd, but hear me out. Naturally, we imagine a friend as someone else entirely– a completely different person. This concept is valuable because it shows how we treat our own friends with sympathy and imagination that we don’t extend to ourselves.
When a friend is in trouble or has done something wrong, your first instinct is probably to find a solution and how you can help them. If you’re the one who’s in trouble and has done something wrong, your first instinct is to tell yourself how stupid you are for committing it.
When a friend complains that their significant other is not treating them well, you don’t tell them that they deserve it. Instead, you try to reassure them that what they’re thinking may not be the case and that things will probably work out if they address it with their partners. This kind of empathy is something that we don’t often do for ourselves. When someone isn’t treating you well, you might shift the blame on yourself and think of all the things you’ve done to deserve this kind of treatment.
We are instinctively capable of using strategies of wisdom and consolation when it comes to friendship. However, with regard to ourselves, we often forget, or stubbornly refuse, to use these strategies. It is ironic that we usually know how to be a better friend to other people than we are to ourselves. There is hope in the fact that we already possess the skills that are necessary for friendship, but we have yet to learn how to direct them toward the person who probably needs them the most– ourselves.
Give Yourself Permission to Be Happy
Don’t be so hard on yourself– it’s important to give yourself permission and allow yourself to truly be happy. Many times we can be our own worst critics– we can be so unnecessarily hard on ourselves that we forget to give ourselves permission to be happy. If you’re not happy with yourself, it’s time to give yourself permission to be happy.
Start by being gentle with yourself. And most importantly, forgive yourself. Don’t dwell on your mistakes. Everyone makes them. Forgive yourself and move on.
Additionally, it’s crucial to treat yourself to something new each day. This might be as simple as having a warm bath or reading your favorite book while relaxing on your porch. It doesn’t have to be a major undertaking. Simply carry out an action that makes you feel happy.
Remove Negativity From Your Life
To be truly happy, you need to get rid of the negativity in your life. This includes negative people, negative thoughts, and negative situations. You don’t need negativity in your life in order to be happy. Get rid of it and create space for happiness to flourish. Consequently, you need to surround yourself with positive things. This includes positive people, positive thoughts, and positive situations. When you fill your life with positive things, happiness will naturally follow.
Be Grateful For What You Have
No matter how far you think you should be already, always remember how far you’ve come to be where you are today from where you originally were. As the saying goes, “There was once a time when you wanted everything you have right now.” Remember to thank the person you are today, with all your current capabilities, considering everything that you have gone through.
In order to be truly happy, you need to be grateful for what you currently have. Be thankful for all your blessings– no matter how big or how small. No matter how cliche it sounds, be thankful for the challenges you faced. Because of them, you know what you’re capable of. When you’re grateful for what you have, happiness will naturally follow.
It’s not necessary to feel joy all the time to be happy. It’s about finding joy in the everyday moments, even when things are tough. Start by looking for happiness in the little things. Find joy in your everyday moments and you’ll be on your way to a happier life.
Embracing Self-Pity
In theory, we are all dead against, and even, to a point, afraid of self-pity. Because self-pity fails to put our personal suffering in the correct perspective in relation to the overall scope of human history, it exposes egoism in its most fundamental form. We wail in sorrow about our small disasters, yet we remain cold to the greater tragedies that surround us. If we are completely honest, we often feel self-pity, but no one likes to admit it. Even more so, no one wants to admit that sometimes, it’s a rather sweet emotion.
Even if you have all the material things you could ever want, life is still undoubtedly horribly hard in many ways. Our talents are never fairly recognized, we waste the best years of our lives over trivial things, our best years will necessarily drift away, we won’t find all the love we need, and the greatest regret of all– not outrightly telling someone you love that you appreciate them… until it’s too late. But the fact remains that we deserve much more sympathy than is likely to be shown to us by others.
We need to show ourselves sympathy because we deserve it and no one is willing to offer it to us. In the grand scheme of things, the operative cause might seem to be a bit ridiculous. However, these are merely convenient occasions for focusing on a far more important issue: the basic pains of living, for which we actually deserve the most loving compassion.
If we didn’t feel sorry for ourselves, can you imagine how things would be? We would most likely be depressed. The ability to be self-aware, and thus, be able to self-pity, is lost in a depressed person. They have become too rigorous with themselves. The act of self-pity is an expression of compassion towards oneself. A more developed part of the self comforts and massages the weak and lost portions of the mind, letting them know it recognizes and understands them, and that they are genuinely beautiful but misunderstood.
The Bottom Line
In the end, there is no real formula to happiness. Happiness is a state of mind that we all strive to achieve and there aren’t exact steps and exact things you can do in order to be happy permanently.
It’s a journey, not a destination. It’s not something that you can just achieve and then keep forever. Happiness is a journey that you take every day. It’s the sum of all the small moments and choices that you make. Happiness is the sum of all the small moments and choices that you make. So if you’re not happy with your current situation, remember that you have the power to change it.
Of course, the journey to happiness is not always easy. There will be ups and downs. There will be days when you feel like you’re never going to find your way. But don’t give up. Just keep moving forward, and eventually, you’ll get there.