Trying to be happy with yourself is harder than it sounds.
We all want to achieve happiness, especially when we’re alone, but stress, overthinking, and personal or family problems always seem to get in the way.
We keep saying “I want to be happy with myself” but end up repeating the same mistakes every day that make us feel worse. No matter how hard we try, at the end of the day, we often feel tired, disappointed, and hopeless.
Happiness Mindset
Happiness isn’t external as we’ve been led to believe. It doesn’t come from what happens around us, but from how we respond to these events. It always comes from our mindset.
Most people spend their lives searching for happiness in external things: people, success, validation, or attention. But the truth is, none of these can make you genuinely happy if you’re not at peace with yourself.
The first step to achieving happiness with yourself
Before you learn how to be happy alone, you need to realize what happiness truly demands from you.
- External events or circumstances cannot make you happy or sad. It’s your reaction that creates the emotion. How you respond to every situation decides whether you’ll feel peaceful or miserable.
- Your happiness doesn’t depend on your friends, family, or partner. It’s always you. The sooner you accept this truth, the sooner you’ll learn how to be happy with yourself.
- Happiness is an emotional state, not a permanent one. Emotions come, stay for a while, and eventually pass. Don’t expect a single emotion like happiness or misery to stay for a lifetime.
Happiness is not a constant feeling you stumble upon; it’s a mindset you build through awareness, acceptance, and daily self-care.
5 Powerful Tips to be Happy with Yourself
1. Work on your health
Don’t ignore it.
You may take this lightly but trust me, without optimal health, your mind will have difficulties with managing emotions. Happiness will be very difficult to achieve if your physical or mental health is not good enough.
Exercise
Every day, go for light walks for at least 30 minutes. You can also perform yoga to keep your muscles active. Going to the gym and strength training is not necessary but will help as well.
Sleep
Believe it or not, sleep plays a very important role in maintaining good health. It resets the brain making it efficient, it repairs the non-noticeable damage caused to your body throughout the day, it regulates your hormones keeping your stress levels manageable and improves your motivation.
Food
This one is obvious. Food has an important role to play in your physical and mental health. Junk food and excess alcohol harms your physical as well as mental health.
When your body feels good, your mind follows. Optimal health gives you energy, emotional balance, and a sense of control over your life. When you eat well, sleep well, and stay active, your brain produces more endorphins and serotonin, the “feel-good” chemicals that naturally lift your mood.
A healthy body creates a stable mind, helping you handle stress better, think clearer, and appreciate life more deeply. Happiness isn’t found; it’s created through the daily care you give to yourself.
2. Consume online content in moderation
The majority of online content is created just to get your attention. Too much of this digital noise kills your peace. Don’t do things just to fit in or copy influencers. Set time limits, follow only what adds value, and stop consuming content that drains your focus or confidence.
Social Media
Avoid unnecessary scrolling, breaking news, and social media drama. You must absolutely avoid copying influencers and bloggers just to “fit in”.
If you’re looking for something, just use search. The “reel/short” scrolling is the most dangerous way to kill your peace, build up anxiety and harm your long term mental health.
News
Over the past decade we all have seen how news has become less about sharing truth and more about brainwashing people. Stop watching news, particularly those sources that have already earned a bad reputation for being biased.
Less noise means more clarity. When your mind isn’t overloaded with useless information like other people’s opinions or lives, you start feeling calmer, focused, and genuinely happy with yourself.
3. Declutter things occasionally
Decluttering means removing all the unnecessary junk from every place that is a daily part of your life.
- Clear your room daily or at least twice a week
- Organize your drawers
- Throw away the trash
When you do all these things regularly, you’re sending an indirect message to your subconscious mind that “cleaning useless things” is important. This helps your mind to get rid of all the clutter stored up and releases all the stress.
Most importantly, if you are used to storing old things around you, it sends an opposite signal to your subconscious mind that holding on to past memories, beliefs, thoughts and mistakes is important. Never do such things, as they build up anxiety gradually and harm your mental health, thus directly affecting your level of happiness on a daily basis.
If you don’t need something, either donate it, give it to someone who needs it, or just throw it away as soon as you’re done with it.
4. Respect yourself
If you cannot respect and value yourself, no one else will either. So you should start believing in yourself the same way as you want others to believe in you.
Don’t be a yes man
Stop saying “yes” to everything and everyone just to please others. If you don’t want to do something, clearly say ‘no’.
Set boundaries for your time
Your time is precious. Stop giving it to people who don’t respect or value you. There are people who will attempt to take advantage of your skills and knowledge by getting in touch with you only when they need you. Keep your distance from them.
Be mindful of what you say about yourself
You become what you say and believe about yourself. Never speak negatively about yourself. Saying things like “I’m not beautiful,” “I can’t do it,” “It’s too hard,” etc affects your mindset subconsciously and you become what you believe you are.
Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, your values become your destiny.Mahatma Gandhi
Keep your promises to yourself
We make countless small promises to ourselves every day: “I’ll wake up at 6”, “I’ll start working after lunch,” “I’ll finish this today”, etc. These micro-promises may seem trivial, but they directly shape our self-trust.
Each time you keep one, your confidence grows. Each time you break one, your mind learns not to believe you. Over time, this weakens motivation and self-discipline. So, start treating your word to yourself as seriously as you treat your word to others.
5. Build up growth routines
Habits and daily routines are some of the powerful ways to increase your chances of achieving happiness alone if you don’t have quality friends or good relationships with others.
However, you must be careful while building up your habits. If you include any wrong habit in your daily life, forget happiness, you’ll live in misery forever.
Set fixed time for daily tasks
If there is something you do on a daily basis without a break, set a fixed time for it. For example, waking up and sleeping should be done at the exact same time every day. This builds up the basics of routines and also improves your sleep cycle and emotional regulation.
Do every task with consistency, not perfection
You don’t have to do everything right every day. You will make mistakes, you will fail occasionally, but remember, those are the exact things that tell you that you’re doing something different. Happiness grows slowly through consistency, not through perfection.
When Being Alone Feels Hard
Even the most self-aware people feel lonely sometimes. That’s completely normal. The goal isn’t to avoid loneliness forever; it’s to recognise it without letting it control you.
When you feel low:
- Reach out to a friend or family member for a small chat.
- Go outside for a walk.
- Write down your thoughts instead of bottling them up.
Sometimes, happiness isn’t about forcing positivity, it’s about giving yourself kindness on hard days.
Takeaway: How to be happy alone in your own company
Learning how to be happy alone isn’t about isolation, it’s about independence.
When you stop relying on others for happiness, you start understanding your real worth. You build peace that no relationship, event, or achievement can replace.
So the next time you think “I want to be happy,” remember, happiness isn’t out there. It’s right here, in your own company, waiting for you to slow down and notice it.
If this article resonated with you, share it with someone who needs this reminder or explore more guides to build emotional strength and inner peace.
