Unconditional happiness sounds like bliss. It’s something that most people strive for and hope to achieve in their lifetime. But, at the same time, many are also afraid that they may not be worthy of such utter delight.
If you’ve ever told yourself that you don’t deserve to be happy, then banish the thought immediately! The truth is that you, just like a vast majority of the world’s inhabitants, deserve to feel that way. Don’t believe me? Here are three reasons you deserve unconditional happiness and five ways to get it.
Three Reasons You Deserve Unconditional Happiness
Yes, you do deserve the best that life has to offer!
1. You’ll Have A Better Life When You Discover The Key To Unconditional Happiness
Everyone deserves a fair shot at life, and so do you. Unconditional happiness can work wonders for your everyday experience, potentially helping you achieve the life you want. It seems ironic that to be happy, you also have to be satisfied. But it works out once you get the hang of it. Being happier can help you:
- Be more productive
- Stay motivated
- Feel rewarded for your hard work and difficult times
- Get a nice boost when you need it
- Feel more fulfilled
- Contribute more to the world around you
- Solve problems with a clearer head
In short, if you want to have a better life, unconditional happiness may not give you all the answers, but it’ll be a tremendous asset in your journey.
2. You Are Your Best Ally
You can gain unconditional happiness from any source of your choice. But the best source is yourself at the end of the day. You are the person who will be there for you to the very end, no matter what. That means you’re your most valuable ally.
You deserve unconditional happiness so that you can help yourself. Your existence is enough reason for you to be a recipient of good things!
3. Your Past Doesn’t Define You Or Dictate Future Unconditional Happiness
Many people fall into believing they don’t deserve unconditional happiness because of bad things in their past. They may find it challenging to move past things that have already occurred, leaving them trapped and unhappy.
But the past is the past. It is unchangeable, and you have grown and become a different person since then. You can’t continue to define yourself by obsolete circumstances. Here are some past things that don’t represent you:
· Your Past Mistakes Do Not Determine Your Future
These are opportunities to learn and grow into a better person. No one is born perfect, and no one makes it through life without embarrassing or big mistakes. That’s normal, and you’re not defined by the mistakes you’ve taken accountability for!
· The Trauma You’ve Been Through
You are not at fault for your trauma. Other people’s actions that have hurt you do not define you. Work with a professional if necessary to process and manage emotional trauma. Do not let it rule your life.
· Your Accomplishments, Or Lack Thereof
It’s always good to be ambitious and to want to achieve things in life. But it’s not a race, and accomplishments aren’t a tax you pay to deserve to exist with unconditional happiness. You are allowed to be without pushing yourself to your limits. You’ll find that you’re more motivated to accomplish things when you’re happy!
Five Ways To Get The Unconditional Happiness You Deserve
1. Work To Improve Yourself
There’s not a day in your life where you can’t learn a lesson that you can improve yourself with. When you open your heart and mind, you’ll realize that you can constantly learn things and work on yourself pretty much all the time.
Some people take this to mean that they must always not consider themselves good enough, but that’s not the case. In fact, you’ll find that loving yourself is often sufficient motivation for you to want to improve yourself more. When you appreciate who you are, you also think you deserve the best!
Studies reveal that most people are happiest when experiencing positive dynamic events. Static events that are positive don’t have the same effect. This means that active movement towards goals and achievements makes people happier than simply enjoying one static state.
This is not to say that you can’t be happy without forward momentum. But if you want unconditional happiness, move towards goals, a regular part of your life! Happiness is widely considered momentary, so staying in just one place can often decrease your joy. So keep learning and growing with your focus on the great things ahead!
2. Help Others To Reap the Reward Of Unconditional Happiness
It sounds almost counterproductive to make others happy for your happiness. But if you want unconditional happiness, then helping other people is an endless wellspring. There is never a shortage of people in need, so you’ll never be in a situation where you can’t help the people around you.
Studies find that happiness forms a positive feedback loop when helping others. The more you make others happy through altruism, the more content you become. The happier you become, the more likely you are to help others again in the future.
Do note that you shouldn’t overdo this to the point where you’re constantly compromising your health or energy. You have to help yourself first before you can help others. This is more motivation for you to work on yourself to be there for those around you – and, most importantly, for yourself.
How can you strike this balance? Here are a few tips:
- Actively look for things to do that benefit others that don’t take you much time. What can you do in five minutes that is a big help to someone else? You might hit “share” on a friend’s artwork, give someone a genuine compliment, or grab coffee for a colleague while you’re already at the coffee machine. These things are small enough not to drain you, but they have an impact!
- Aim to spend about 100 hours per year actively helping people. It sounds like a lot, but this is just about 2 hours per week. This allows you to volunteer your time and effort to causes you believe in without burning yourself out.
- Group your helping activities into large chunks. In other words, do all your more involved and focused helpful acts of compassion in one day. This will give you a more considerable boost, and it’ll help you compartmentalize, so you don’t get too tired.
- Aim to be kind in your everyday life. Kindness allows you to bestow happiness onto others by doing nothing more than just being yourself!
3. Surround Yourself With Happy People
It’s easy to assume that happy people naturally hang out together due to their cheerful personalities and bright outlooks. But what’s happening is that the happiness of a few people spreads to others.
Research proves that spending time around happy individuals will help you experience joy in the future. If someone you’re friends with lives close to you and becomes happy, your chances of happiness increase significantly. Similar findings were noted for siblings, spouses, and neighbors, though not coworkers.
If you want unconditional happiness, find those who are happy or are seeking their happiness. Then, work together to cultivate a happy environment, as this will rub off on each other!
4. Be Grateful: Sometimes The Littlest Things Release Unconditional Happiness
Sometimes, it’s hard to remember to be grateful, especially if you feel like you’re in the wrong place in life. But being thankful can improve your happiness, according to studies! When you focus on gratitude and appreciation, you’re training your brain to find silver linings in various situations. This positivity shifts your entire mindset, filling you with positive thinking even in hard times.
This is not to say that you become blind to reality. Instead, you learn to accept harsh truths while still seeking the good in them. You appreciate lessons from hard times and find the good side in even a bad situation. Furthermore, you live your life directed by productive positivity. It’s a beautiful state of being!
This can further flourish through mindfulness and mindfulness meditation. These practices will teach you to exist in the present and truly appreciate the world around you. You’ll enjoy the finer details in life and the world’s quiet wonder. How can you not be happier with that?
5. Get Enough Sleep To Spark Unconditional Happiness
This sounds like a small thing, but it can change so much. If you want unconditional happiness, you need to be awake enough to achieve, receive, and notice it. Sleep is central to positive thinking. When you don’t get enough sleep, you:
- Are constantly exhausted and feel foggy, so you don’t have the energy even to be happy at all.
- Harm the hippocampus, making it too exhausted to process stimuli. The hippocampus is crucial in processing both neutral and positive thoughts and memories. Meanwhile, the amygdala, where negative stimuli get processed, is less harmed by a lack of sleep.
- Become more sensitive to negative emotions and situations, according to research. If you’re tired, you’re more likely to personally take another person’s bad mood.
- Reduce your morning mood, making it harder to experience a good mood later on during the rest of the day.
- Get worsened performance on everyday tasks, which only further sour the mood.
Aim for at least seven hours of sleep each night. If you feel tired during the day, add one or two more hours. You should also ensure high-quality sleep by creating a relaxing bedroom environment conducive to rest. A cool temperature, comfortable bedding, and little to no light are essential.
It’s also a good idea to wind down before bedtime by getting off your phone and not eating or drinking anything heavy in the hours before you go to bed. Try going to bed simultaneously every night to make winding down easier!
Final Thoughts On Some Ways To Get The Unconditional Happiness You Deserve
Happiness is not something that you must prove you deserve. It is something that you deserve because you exist and because happiness is the goal of most of humankind. Learning how to internalize your effort towards happiness will grant you the unconditional happiness you seek!