How can we truly live a happy and stress-free life when we are constantly surrounded by chaos?
Every day, we are forced to deal with different events and emotions that affect us negatively.
How do we maintain positive thoughts filled with our goals and beautiful things that we really want?
It may be a bit challenging to achieve this way of life but it is totally possible if you’re willing to do what it takes to live a happy and stress-free life.
Anger, anxiety, guilt, self-doubt, and worry are all perfectly normal emotions that we experience as humans.
They are our mind’s way of telling us that something is wrong and we need to fix it. However, negative emotions can take over your life if you allow them to.
Whether we like it or not, constant stress and worry can physically make us sick. You may not believe that your thoughts affect you but it’s the truth.
Whatever you think about all the time will manifest into your life one way or another.
The good news is that there are natural ways to get rid of anxiety and truly live a happy life.
We only have a limited amount of energy to stay healthy, age gracefully, and live happily. It is up to you to choose how you spend that energy.
The first step is to figure out exactly what you’re stressing about.
What is making you unhappy? Is it something you can change? Is it something you have no control over?
By determining the root of your unhappiness, you can better understand how to overcome it.
For example, if you’re feeling anxious about losing your job, you have the capability to change this worry.
You can work harder to prove that you’re an indispensable part of the team or you can start searching for a new job.
Taking action is the surest way to defeat anxiety, worry, and fear.
The truth is, even though you feel helpless, there are plenty of situations in your life that you can change with some effort.
So, how do you choose to not be miserable? Well, the first thing is to look at your irrational thoughts.
Life is 10% reality and 90% what we make of it.
Unfortunately, many people grow up learning irrational ways of thinking and negative ways of viewing the world.
Irrational thoughts are inflexible or rigid thinking that some things must be just so. And this type of thinking makes you feel helpless and out of control.
I know making life-changing decisions can be scary but we have to do it for a better life.
I am about as rigid and inflexible as they come but I have learned that flexibility makes life a whole lot easier.
To help you create a happy and stress-free life, here 11 actionable tips you can start working on today.
11 ACTIONABLE TIPS FOR A HAPPY AND STRESS-FREE LIFE
1. Step outside your comfort zone
One of the greatest barriers to achieving your potential is your comfort zone.
When you’re in your familiar comfort zone, you think you’re happy because you’re getting what you need on a daily basis.
But life is more than just surviving and to live a happy life, you have to motivate yourself enough to move out of your comfort zone.
You have to be willing to try new things and take calculated risks to be a better version of yourself.
How would you know if life has something bigger for you if you’re too scared to take that first step and explore?
I was comfortable in my father’s house for years but deep down I wasn’t really happy.
I kept on praying and wishing that things will change but they never did.
When I made a firm decision to create my own life and discover what the future has in store for me, I finally felt like I had a purpose.
Do you ever feel like you were born for greater things? Do you ever ask yourself if this is all there is to life?
It’s simply because you’ve not found your purpose and you can’t ever find it if you’re still in your comfort zone.
Great things happen when you make friends with your discomfort zone. Challenge yourself and start a new journey.
2. Do something you love every day
If you’re unhappy with your life, chances are that you’re not doing something you truly love.
Maybe you’re tired of working for someone else or you hate living paycheck to paycheck.
Maybe you want to live a luxurious life and never have to worry about money again.
If you want all of these things but you often feel like your hands are tied, it’s time to know what you truly love doing and commit to it.
You can never be happy if you dislike what you do for a living.
You’ll find yourself dragging your body out of bed every morning with a frown on your face if you’re not chasing your dreams.
You can totally chase your big dreams without quitting your job.
All you have to do is discover your true purpose and work on it part-time until you can fully commit to it.
What would you be doing if you had 100 million dollars in your bank account? That’s your real passion!
Don’t let anyone tell you what you have to do; you are the only one who really knows what your soul yearns for.
For me, I’ll still choose to blog no matter how much money I have because I enjoy writing and changing lives in my own little way.
Don’t be afraid to pursue your passion because that’s the only way you can live a happy and stress-free life.
3. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes
There is an old saying that people who haven’t made mistakes haven’t made anything.
If you think that when you move out of your comfort zone and try something you’ve never tried before that you will fail, you’re not far from the truth.
Nobody achieved something great without first making mistakes.
Every successful person out there has their own failure story to tell.
It will not be easy to carve out your own niche and do something meaningful in the world.
You’re going to face obstacles directly or indirectly. You’re going to fail more times than you can count.
There are going to be nights when you’ll soak your pillow with tears and be on the verge of giving up.
When you get to that point in your life, smile widely because breakthrough is on the other side.
Obstacles are just a way for life to test you to see what you’re really made up of.
If you keep going even when it’s difficult, you’ll achieve success in the end.
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes because that’s the only way you can learn to be a stronger and better version of yourself.
Make mistakes, learn from them, and find a better way to achieve your goals.
When you fall down, get back up, motivate yourself, and keep going.
Don’t listen to people who say you can’t make it. Believe in yourself and have faith in your abilities.
4. Get rid of any negative thoughts you have about yourself
There are so many things that bring our confidence levels down…
Looking in mirrors and not seeing what we want to, comparing ourselves to others, looking at our Facebook walls, and wishing for things we don’t have.
All these things make us feel like a total failure and that we’re not measuring up in the world.
When your confidence level is low, you won’t be the best version of yourself
To be honest, no one in this world is completely perfect. We all have a flaw that makes us feel unattractive or inferior.
There will always be someone more beautiful and successful than you.
That’s simply life and you can’t do anything about it except to keep on improving yourself.
If you want to have a happy and stress-free life, stop listening to any negative thing someone else has to say about you.
Don’t accept words that don’t uplift or encourage you; have a filter for every piece of advice you receive from those around you.
People always try to project their fears onto another person. They assume you won’t make it because they think it’s difficult.
It’s your job to succeed in what you love and prove them wrong.
What negative thoughts do you hold about yourself? Challenge them, are they really true, if so what is the evidence?
Are you giving yourself a hard time? I guarantee you that you are your worst critic.
Cut yourself some slack and stop being so hard on yourself. You’re doing the best you can with what you currently have.
Silent that little voice that keeps saying you’re unlucky or not good enough.
You can use guided meditation and positive affirmations to help you reduce stress.
It’s okay to dream big and expect more from life. Don’t think that you’re unlucky in life.
5. Look on the bright side of things
I know it sounds simple but sometimes it comes really easy for us to be critical or negative all the time.
It’s normal to fail at one thing and forget all the other one thousand things you’ve actually done right.
When you fail at something and feel like giving up, try to remember some accomplishments and small victories you’ve had in the past.
Finding some evidence that you’ve done well in previous cases can help you keep going when you encounter obstacles.
The next time you feel negative towards something, stop and purposely find something positive about the issue and focus on that.
You can always see a positive side of things when you look at the right angle. It just depends on where your attention is.
Look on the bright side and focus on something good. Positive change is inevitable!
6. Read some inspirational books
There are some excellent books out there by all sorts of people; successful people, rags to riches people, and people who have overcome huge obstacles in life.
If you want to have a happy and stress-free life, invest in some good self-help and life coaching books.
Create time to read them every day and apply the strategies you learn in your own life.
When you read inspirational books, they will inspire you to pursue your passion and chase your big scary goals without giving up.
Motivation is the number one thing you need to reach success and be a better version of yourself.
If you feel unmotivated or discouraged, you will want to give up on your goals.
To keep the fire burning in your soul, read motivational stories about successful people who prevailed despite facing adversity.
7. Train yourself to finish what you start
Sometimes, feelings of unhappiness stem from unfinished projects.
When you can’t seem to finish anything you start, you’ll begin to harbor negative thoughts about yourself.
And the absence of achievements can bring your confidence levels so down that you will become paralyzed to start anything new again.
Follow through with your projects– you owe it to yourself and others.
Does it feel good to have loads of things hanging around half done that you should have finished a long time ago?
Don’t let things build up. Avoid feeling overwhelmed by tackling any task you have immediately.
When you finish what you start, you’ll have a great sense of achievement which will lead to feelings of joy.
8. Focus on the present moment
If you want to live a truly happy and stress-free life, you must focus on the present and the way forward.
When you live in the past too much you stop living now.
Focusing on the past can keep your growth stunted because you’re not allowing yourself to let go.
So live in the now, plan for the future, and learn from the past. That’s the only way you can move on easily and look forward to a better future.
Don’t live in the past. Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could and you can’t bring back the lost hours.
Even though you wish you could go back to the past and make better decisions, it’s impossible so don’t waste your time on it.
Tomorrow is a new day; begin it with enthusiasm and discover what the future has in store for you.
9. Learn what’s important to you in life
What makes you genuinely happy? What do you love doing? Who or what makes you happy?
Find out what matters most to you in life and don’t take it for granted.
Surround yourself with the most important things in your life. Don’t keep fake friends simply because you don’t want to be alone.
But if you enjoy being social all the time, get close to reasonable people who want you to have a better life.
Hang around people who genuinely add value to your life and stay away from toxic people who drain you.
If love is important to you, stop chasing away potential partners and put in more effort to make your relationships work.
If you enjoy having more money, stop spending impulsively, organize your finances, create a realistic budget, and follow through with it.
When you learn what is important to you and focus on improving it, you’ll have a happy and stress-free life.
10. Realize that setbacks are a normal part of life
The same way failure is inevitable, setbacks are a normal part of life. You can’t really do anything to stop them.
If life was perfect 100% of the time we would take it for granted and not appreciate it.
It’s the law of polarity – you can’t appreciate something without having the opposite; it’s like day and night, hot or cold, up and down.
You just can’t understand one without the other. It’s exactly the same with good and bad.
Learn from every setback and try a different way of doing things until you succeed.
Life is full of trial and error; that’s what makes up our experience. You simply can’t escape it so don’t fight it.
Accept setbacks as challenges you must face and overcome in order to attain victory in life.
11. Stop comparing yourself to others
Personally, I stay off social media platforms because I don’t like the fake energy that surrounds them.
Most people show their fake personalities online to impress others when in reality they are not even close to perfect.
If you feel depressed whenever you see people on Instagram and Facebook showing off their perfect lives, just stop scrolling, log out, and remain offline.
It’s often easy to want to compare your life with others even though you’re on different journeys. Don’t do that to yourself.
You’re perfect the way you are. Your life may not be entirely perfect right now but I assure you’ll figure things out as you go.
Just believe in yourself, find something you love doing, work hard on your goals, be committed to succeeding, and never give up your dreams.
Being happy doesn’t mean that you won’t have bad days or that things won’t go wrong.
Being happy means dragging yourself out of that dark place each time you fall into it.
The best way you can do this is by doing that one thing that you genuinely love.
If you have a hobby that makes you smile, do it constantly; it will keep you happy every day.