There is one thing that we need to realize if we are to be happy-we cannot lead a happy life without self-acceptance. There is nobody like you in the world, and even if you don’t want to, you need to accept yourself-with your fallacies and imperfections.

Many of us are quite tough on ourselves and do not allow ourselves to be happy. If you are not happy with yourself, you will not find peace. Being happy with ourselves is important to live a mentally and emotionally healthy life. We can’t be happy with ourselves without self-acceptance.

As with all important things that take effort, to be happy with yourself is an effort. How do we do that?

Here are 30 ways to be happy with your own self and life in general.

1. Observe self-discipline

A disciplined life is a way to earn your own respect. If you live your days and nights in a manner that you feel you have a certain level of control over your time, you will feel disciplined. You will also end up respecting yourself in the process because it takes effort to observe self-discipline. When you respect yourself, you would feel happy with yourself. Self-acceptance is easier when we are disciplined.

Like respect, happiness has to be earned as well.

2. Maintain a schedule and follow it

All we have is time while we are alive and we don’t know how much we have. Therefore, we must respect time. In order to respect time, we need a schedule to tie our lives into. If we don’t have a schedule, life just goes by in a haphazard manner. If you waste time, you will not find yourself in a happy state because time is everything. The only way we can really use time in a disciplined way is through the medium of a schedule. If you can, schedule as much of your life as possible.

Schedule every possible minute-your work hours, your personal time, sleep and eating time. Tie your life in a schedule, so that there is predictability and certainty.

Life already forces so much uncertainty on us that we should try and create as much certainty as possible. There is so much we can do, but we must do all that we can do to create certainty, where we can.

3. Live Mindfully to achieve self-acceptance

Pay attention to where you are at a given moment in time. Be where you are physically and mentally. It would help if you do things you are interested in. Become a person of passion and that will make it easier for you to live mindfully. It is difficult to be distracted when you are doing thing you are interested in.

However, you can still do a lot of things mindfully in your daily life. When you eat, give your food all your attention. Bite mindfully and chew mindfully. Be in the present moment no matter what you are doing.

4.  Embrace gratitude in your everyday life

As I write this, beautiful winter sunshine is penetrating through the room window. I have always enjoyed winters and the winter sunshine and I am grateful for it. There are always things in life which need improvement, but if you are grateful for things you have been blessed with, you will find happiness in your heart.

5. Heal yourself emotionally

Life is tough and we grow, we collect a lot of wounds. The emotional wounds are way more painful than the physical wounds as physical wounds heal faster. Heal yourself emotionally. Forgive yourself for your mistakes because you did not know better. If you ended up hurting someone, you did not do it intentionally. You were doing what you could with the knowledge and the wisdom you had at the moment.

Only when you heal yourself emotionally, you will be able to wash away the emotional toxicity in your heart and find some joy. This is one of the most important steps in the journey of self-acceptance. If you can heal emotionally, it would be easier to accept who you are.

6. Don’t take your mistakes to your heart

Mistakes are a part of the growing up process and we cannot learn anything without making mistakes. If you keep beating yourself up for making mistakes, you will not find happiness inside of you since you are beating yourself up for something which is a learning lesson. Failure and mistakes are a part of the growing up process. Deal with them accordingly.

7. Make peace with your past to grow in your journey of self-acceptance

All of your past is a lesson. That’s how you look at it. It taught you something. You made mistakes, you fell down, you up, you fell down again- that’s life. Make peace with your past and focus on your present. Give everything you have to your present.

8. Live in your present

If you want to be happy with yourself, you cannot carry the burden of your past or insecurities about your future. You can only live your present and feel grateful about having a present. A lot of people die every day and we are fortunate to be alive. We are fortunate to be able to smell the flowers, the company of our loved ones and do the work we enjoy.

Live in day tight apartments.

9. Plan for your future but don’t live in it

You cannot live in your future. You can only plan for it. There is a great saying that says you should live life as if today is your last day on earth and you should plan for life as if you will live forever.

It makes perfect sense. Do that. We can only plan for the future and live in the now. Have plans even if they are rough and tentative plans. They will give you some guideline about your tomorrows and that helps to know.

However, once you are done with your plan, ensure that you give everything to the present. The journey of self-acceptance is a continuous one, and it moves on with our lives.

10. Do not deal with regret

Do not regret.

Regret is a pointless emotion which shouldn’t exist. As I mentioned earlier, we are always doing our best in situations with the knowledge and wisdom we have at a certain point in time. We cannot do better. If couldn’t do better in a certain situation since we don’t know how a certain decision will pan out in future, regret become a pointless outcome. We can only regret if we could see all the possibilities in front of us and then we chose a painful choice. That’s impossible and hence, regret shouldn’t exist as an emotion. Once you eliminate regret, you will feel much happier about yourself than you did earlier.

11. Stop comparing your life with that of others

self-acceptance is easier when you realize that you are a unique individual who cannot be compared to others. There is no way you will ever feel happy about yourself if you keep comparing your life to that of others. No two lives are unique. Nature hasn’t designed our lives to be unique. All of our lives are concoctions of a unique nature and therefore, you need to focus on your life, its blessings, and its problems and solve them.

Water your own grass. The grass on the other side looks greener because you don’t care about the grass on your side.

12. You are unique and unprecedented. Stop fitting in

You do not have to fit in. Nature has designed you as a unique individual with a unique set of attributes, strengths and weaknesses. Appreciate yourself. You add unique value to the world. See how you can use what you have been given to make the world a better place. Do not try to fit in. You are not a robot.

13. You are your true best friend

When there is nobody, you have you. This is the self-acceptance and self-love mindset. Think about it. Who is your real best friend? Whoever you think is your real best friend besides you would not be there all the time with you. They have your own priorities in life and they can only be there for you at a certain points in time.

You are your real best friend. Take care of yourself like you would take care of your best friend.

14. Practice self-love and care

Self-acceptance leads to peace and self-love. You would not love someone unless you can accept them. Can you? Once you realize that you are your true best friend, you will take care of yourself since you need your best friend. Don’t you? So, please take care of your physical, mental and emotional health since if you aren’t by yourself when you need your best friend, that will be quite lonely.

15. Get used to solitude

Spend time with yourself. Solitude is spending voluntary time with yourself. Loneliness, on the other hand is involuntary solo time. You need solitude to develop your relationship with yourself and grow on self-acceptance. You need to understand yourself, so that you are able to help yourself in your difficult times. Practice solitude and fight loneliness.

16. Health is happiness

Health is everything. If you are not healthy, you will not be able to enjoy life at any level. If you are not physically well, you cannot enjoy physical sports and if you want to play physical sports like football, you will feel unhappy with yourself.

Mental and emotional health are important for all areas of life. In fact, the older I grow, the more I see health as this holistic whole, which is either there or it isn’t. If you really want to be happy with yourself, take care of your health and stay on top of it.

17. Work hard

There is one thing that can really make you feel good about yourself- work hard on something you enjoy doing.

The process of working hard on something you enjoy will bring you joy and happiness. You will realize that work is its own joy and the journey is its own reward. We don’t even need to live for destinations as long as we enjoy the journey of reaching those destinations. Do something you inherently enjoy. That would improve your self-confidence, which is a measure of self-acceptance.

18. Reward yourself

Tear yourself and your loved ones like kids. Although we grow to be adults and live as adults for most of our lives, there is always a child in us.

The child who craves for love, for rewards when he does something right. Reward the child in you. Make sure that you reward yourself when you do something that makes your life progress or even something small. Reward yourself like you would reward a child. Never let the child inside you die.

19. Self-acceptance would lead you to feeling good about yourself

You need positive reinforcements about life every day. You need to feel that you are worth something and that you can achieve your goals. So, whenever you feel you feel low, give yourself a motivational speech. Go in front of the mirror in a quiet room and perk yourself up. Feeling good about yourself is not just an outcome, it’s a prerequisite for a happy life.

20. Ignore toxic people

You really need to root out the toxic people from your life. Toxicity kills all your efforts to be positive and happy yourself. These people are all about you telling you why your life sucks and why you don’t deserve to be happy. You need to ignore these people. They are hurdles in your journey of self-acceptance. If they are close to you, just let their voice pass away from your ears like air. Ignore every word of negativity, no matter where it comes from. It kills all your efforts to lead a happy and fulfilling life.

21. Accept yourself completely

This is quite important if you are to be happy with yourself. You need to accept who you are, your faults, your eccentricities, your weaknesses along with your strengths and optimism.

There are fundamental things about yourself that you just cannot change. If you don’t enjoy socializing, you don’t enjoy socializing. Given, you are an introvert, you are an introvert. If you are a lesbian or a bisexual, that’s what you are. Don’t try to fit yourself to the normal. If nature has made you different, accept it, and live with your life with that acceptance.

It is quite important for you to understand that if you don’t accept yourself, nobody else will. You need to accept yourself for the world to accept yourself. A lot of people, especially in the LGBT community find it hard to accept themselves just because the society makes it so hard. But, the truth is, unless they accept themselves and put their foot down, nobody will make the effort to it for them.

Accept yourself. You will find peace, and happiness.

22. Make friends who allow you to be yourself

It helps to have friends in life. Paradoxically, you cannot have friends, if you are not a friend. Also, once you become mature in thought, you also realize that more than anything, it is important to have friends who share the same values like you do. That way, they and you can practice self-acceptance without feeling the need to change each other.

For example, freedom is a value. If you have a friend circle that values freedom as a value, they are likely to be a bunch of freelancers, entrepreneurs and self-employed people. Freedom is rarely found inside a job where all your actions are monitored in an appraisal sheet at the end of the year.

23. Laugh out loud (LOL!)

I always say that the sound of your laughter is the sound of life in you. Laugh every day even if a little bit. If you can’t find happy reasons to laugh, make fun of your pain. Enjoy stand-up. Watch comedy shows, and make a reason to laugh. When you laugh, you find yourself happy and you are encouraged to find more reasons to make yourself happy.

24. Make efforts to dress up

When you get up in the morning, exercise and make effort to dress up properly and look good. They say that no dress is complete without a smile. If you don’t make the effort to dress up and look good, you will shabby and that will also drive down the level of your joy.

When you look good, you feel good.

25. Prioritize yourself

Selfishness is not a bad thing. Who will think about your happiness if you don’t? As long as you do not hurt other people deliberately while taking care of your happiness, it is a good thing. Prioritize your happiness. Do not sacrifice it. Ayn Rand would agree.

26. Try something new

There was a great question I read the other day- when was the last time you did something for the first time? As long as you are doing new things, you are growing and every time you will do something new, you will feel the spark in your life come back again. Do that every now and then, and you will not stop feeling excited about your life.

27. Be the kind of person people look up to

The world needs more and more positivity. If you are a happy person who looks happy and gives out positive vibes, people would want to be with you, work with you and help you. Be the kind of person you would love to hang out with.

28. Fight your way out of negative thoughts

The only way to really get out of a negative rut is to fight it and get through it. Work hard, exercise and nip negativity in the bud. When negativity becomes overpowering, you feel that you may need medical help, in which case go out and seek medical help. Fight it through.

29. Help others find their joy

If you want to feel happy, spend some of your time if not all in helping others find their happiness. When you help others find their happiness and they feel happy, you will feel good about yourself for having been part of something meaningful.

30. You are all you have-treat yourself like the person you are in love with

Wouldn’t you care about the person you are in love with? You would forgive them when they make a mistake. Wouldn’t you want to see them happy? You know what, you are that person. Work hard to be happy and take care of yourselves. If you are at the end of the world, you are all you would have.

In conclusion, be kind and loving to yourself. If there is one person you definitely cannot live without, it is you, yourself. You are all you have. Do whatever it needs to keep yourself happy.

Thank you for reading.

The purpose of this blog to help you find your happiness. Please read the other posts on the blog, and follow so that you get updates when new posts are published. Please share any posts you like with your friends so that they can also find their happiness. If you have any feedback for me, please leave it in the comments and I would be happy to work on it. If you would like to support my writing and this blog, you may please send a donation through PayPal here.

I appreciate the time you spent in reading the blog and wish you happiness.

Love,

Amarvani