Photo by *Zara
Have you ever found yourself standing in front of the mirror and yelling at yourself or hating yourself? Do you understand what it feels like to be completely disgusted with yourself and longing for a change? We often spend time upset about something, allowing our environment and circumstances to dictate whether or not we are going to be happy. The truth is that we can live our lives with happiness and decide that we are going to do whatever it takes to be happy. You can be happy if you have the mind to.
Happiness is something we must do on purpose. In the midst of struggles or difficulties, we must choose to be happy. Happiness does not come from the acquisition of money or things; happiness begins from within each of us. Being happy within ourselves simply means showing mercy to ourselves, forgiving ourselves, befriending ourselves, accepting ourselves, and loving ourselves. It’s a lifelong journey that requires regular self-examination and an ongoing process of making peace with ourselves. It means discovering what makes us unhappy and choosing to live in peace. It means treating ourselves with compassion and kindness. It makes us to begin to enjoy life more and more and celebrate it as adventure in peace. It helps us to live life to the fullest, and help make the world a better place for us and others.
However, being happy within ourselves may be one of the most difficult challenges we will ever face. For some, this challenge may prove too difficult to handle, and as a result, they allow it to rule them. Many prefer to endure the challenges, while others love to overcome them but do not how to get out of them.
If you belong to any of these categories, the following tips could help you experience happiness within yourself.
1. Forgive yourself
Forgive yourself for thinking negatively. Forgive yourself for talking, without thinking twice. Forgive yourself for being rude to your superior, your friend, your parents, or your siblings. Don’t think negative thoughts about yourself for taking wrong steps or making wrong decisions. This kind of thinking puts your focus on the problem and not the solution. It’s better to say good things about yourself than to say negative things. Always saying positive things about yourself is a sign that you have forgiven yourself.
2. Forgive others
If we want to make peace with others, we first need to be at peace with ourselves. Learn to forgive and forget and let go of things quickly. It is not good to resent and hold grudges. People who hold grudges and resent their past incidents often suffer from cardiac and psychological problems. The easiest way to forgive others is to assume that they didn’t offend us in the first place. If you weren’t offended, you wouldn’t have the course to be offended or to forgive others.
3. Stop thinking and talking about your problems
Instead, focus on the good in every situation you face and every person you are in a relationship with – including yourself.
4. Focus on being a blessing to others
Get your mind off yourself and focus on blessing others instead. When you bless others, the blessings will come back to you; it’s a wonderful phenomenon many don’t understand. After all, life is not all about receiving; it’s more of giving.
5. Be busy
The busier you are, the less time you have to think, especially, about something or someone who left you with negative feelings. Being busy is the best way to keep negative thoughts from provoking you repeatedly.
6. Recount the things you have achieved
Take some personal time to be with myself and recount the things you have achieved and the things you have. Counting one’s blessings and achievements makes one feel fulfilled and happy. We often hate ourselves when we feel we have not achieved anything. The best way to count your blessings is to write down whatever you have achieved. No matter what happens in our lives, we have life, air to breathe, food to eat, some friends, family and associates, a measure of wealth and a measure of health.
7. Develop a pastime
Spend your free time on reading, listening to music, watching movies or other activities. This enables you to put your mind off the problems you are facing and the thoughts you have about yourself.
8. Be content with WHO you are
Don’t focus on things about yourself that you have no control over. Don’t strive to be like someone else. Don’t care about what other people think or say about you, when you’re not even sure whether they are right or wrong. When you do this, you relieve yourself of a lot of stress and anxiety. Be content with yourself, while you hope for a better you.
9. Never lose hope
There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel. Hope is something you can never afford to lose. With hope you always have a path towards happiness. Hope reminds you that everything will be ok. With hope, you know that whatever looks terrible is only temporary and that soon enough, things will be just fine.
Randy Stiver once noted that ‘happiness must be pursued by personally choosing the right thoughts, right words and right actions at the right time.’ In short, our happiness depends on us.
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This advice is so wonderful when you are having “one of those days”. It is so important not to focus on what is going wrong in your life, but to focus on what you have. Forgiveness always puts my mind at ease :)
I like to remind myself that the world around me is there for me to play with and explore. The source of my choices are within me and are 100% mine, it is here I choose to be happy within myself.
These are very good tips. It is hard to just stop focusing on your problems; however, it’s easier when you choose to focus on something new and/or exciting. I find it very helpful to workout, complete a puzzle, or go to a festival when things aren’t going well. This keeps me from dwelling on the bad and refocuses my attention on what’s going right in my life.
These are great steps toward happiness, but I’d suggest trading “hope” for intention. Hope to me has always seemed like a wimpy vision of the future. Hoping isn’t the same thing and knowing and believing. I think when we can accept what is about us and our experiences and we can see and believe in and know that it just gets better and better, we create a powerful energy that’s transformational.
Forgiveness is indeed the key to self-acceptance and happiness as a result. When you torture yourself with thoughts depicting how weak or miserable you are, what you do wrong in your life, you will hardly experience a positive development. Forgive yourself and find a distance to what or who you think you are. Humans are supposed to make mistakes and there is nothing to be desperate about.
Thanks, Olusegun! In behalf of the many people out there seeking means to understand themselves and find happiness, I am very grateful for this post. It lists down the basic ideas to find joyful meaning to one’s existence. But most of all, it highlights the truth that happiness is not what other people or outside forces would impact on one’s life. Happiness is within ourselves and we just need to let this ignite a better perspective, improved course of action and higher appreciation of who we really are. That way, we can truly be happy. Thanks again for the nine tips, Olu… Keep it up, puhleez! Many people need this kind of information. Cheers!
Excellent post. Being busy is by far the best in my opinion. I’m always busy and I’m happy as long as it’s a choice busy, i.e. working towards my own goals.
I think this is the best opinion that anyone could take.
After i read this I felt happier than I was before .
After leaving an abusive relationship, I had to forgive myself for staying with this man when I knew from the start he was not a good healthy man to be with.
It was hard toimagine that I would find happiness when losing what I thought to be my true love.
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The best part is when you recover, you find yourself with more joy and happiness you could ever imagine. My self seteem is much stronger than it has ever been. I am truly amazed how strong I have become. I finally see how much this lesson in love has turned my life around into something better than aI could of ever imagined.
I am so pleased for you TBurton.
Wishing you every blessing and much happiness in your new life.
GREATT Advice!!! I am going through something so bad that its messing with my relationship and my confidence! when i am with my other half, i feel like he can see my lack of confidence. I lash out at him accusing him of wanting something more than me, even though i know he does not. this helped me in SO many ways.Just knowing that someone else understands what i am going through and what i need to do to fix it!! Greatly appreciated!
What a nice post, it really help me understand why im so unhappy lately
This advice was lovely! It has really helped me.
Thankyou so so very much :)
Randy Stiver’s quote sounds awfully Buddhist. How nice! It reminds me that we seem to have “universal” means to happiness. Most of the time, I believe that we get stuck in our very narrow minded patterns of thought and action, and need ot realize our connectedness to the rest of the world. I find that connectedness very humbling and comforting.
This article was very good. It hits the nail on the head. Thank you.
So great.Enjoy life.Good every day mindset.
Best wishes for eveyone loving life,best wishes for myself.
Enjoy life is my style….hah…