When you’re feeling unhappy, it’s really hard to know where to start in an attempt to pick yourself up. And sometimes, a simple search for some inspirational quotes can be a good place to begin. But when you’re desperate to feel truly happy with yourself, it’s important to think about what happiness really means to you, and how you can get to that state.
“I like you. Very much. Just as you are.”
Mark Darcy, Bridget Jones’ Diary.
So, before we dive into the big long list of happiness quotes to help boost your self-esteem and confidence, let’s take a deeper look at the state of being happy, and how you can get there.
What is happiness, really?
Being happy is a state of mind and positive wellbeing. When you’re in a positive emotional state, you feel joyous, content, and happy with your life. Being truly happy is having the ability to accept yourself for who you are (yes, that even means embracing your flaws). But too often, negative thoughts patterns can take control. Before you know it, you’ve tumbled down a path of self-doubt, lack of confidence, and feeling like you’re just not good enough.
When you’re miserable and feeling really unhappy – with yourself, your self-image, and everything in your world – it can feel like a massive uphill struggle. I know this, because I’ve been there. And I’m here to tell you that you can find a way out, that you can feel happy. In this post, I’m going to chat to you about how you can turn things around, and learn to love yourself so you can begin your journey back to happiness.
What makes a good quote for happiness?
Honestly? A quote that’s perfect for someone else may not resonate quite as well with you. Because it depends on your perception of what being happy with yourself really means. Perhaps you really want to be able to love your body, instead of criticising every time you look in the mirror. Perhaps you want to be happy in love, or happy in your job.
Or maybe you just need to feel comfortable in your own skin and personality. Ultimately, you need to know what will make you happy before you can take the steps to get there. But I’ll let you into a little secret – there is no magic formula. That happiness is already available to you. You just need to discover how to let it out.
To keep you going for now, here’s a great quote to think about, before we get into the nitty-gritty of feeling truly happy and the types of quotes you can reference when you need to:
My no.1 quote for being happy with who you are
‘I like you. Very much. Just as you are.’ – Mark Darcy, Bridget Jones’s Diary.
If you’ve not seen the film, 30-something singleton Bridget Jones epitomises the inner dialogue of women everywhere. The film is hilarious and yet so poignant, because we feel what she feels.
We cringe at her failures and public embarrassment, we cry at her loneliness, and we empathise with her self-doubt, because we’ve all been there. Her friends, who know her so well that they echo her own inner critic, later ask: ‘What, not thinner? Cleverer? With slightly bigger breasts? Or a smaller nose?’
No, she says, shaking her head while sipping thoughtfully through her straw. Because to him, she is perfect.
The point is, while it was him who told her that he liked her, very much, just as she is;
we are all perfect, just as we are.
And I want YOU to be able to say to yourself:
“I like you. Very much. Just as you are.”
Because you are 100% unique, and your ‘imperfections’ (which essentially, make you, ‘you’, as a whole) make you beautiful, inside and out.
How low self-esteem can affect your true happiness
Your level of self-esteem can be a huge factor when it comes to feeling truly happy and loving life. With low self-esteem, you feel stuck in a cycle of unhappiness, dissatisfaction, and self-doubt. And comparing yourself to everyone else only makes matters worse.
Positive self-esteem comes about when you feel comfortable and happy with yourself. You’re perfectly happy to go out into the world and say, ‘This is who I am, and I’m happy being me.’ It’s about being aware of – and accepting – who you really are. It’s about loving ALL of you, despite any ‘flaws’ you may have.
We’re not talking about self-importance; a state where people have an over-inflated opinion of themselves above all others.
We’re talking about having a balanced view of your self-worth, self-respect, and self-confidence. When our self-esteem is low, we can feel inadequate, inferior, and unworthy. And of course in turn, this can lead to us feeling sad, unhappy, and lacking in confidence.
Self-awareness
How well do you know yourself? Your thoughts become your feelings, and your feelings become your actions, and it can affect how you live your life. For example, you might talk yourself into not going to a party because you’re convinced that no-one really wants you there. This is an unhelpful thinking pattern and is an opinion based on everything that’s happened to you up to this point. It doesn’t make it true.
Your thoughts stem from what you believe, and those beliefs affect every decision you make. Fortunately, learning self-awareness can really help you to notice your patterns, habits, and behaviours.
But self-awareness starts with learning to pay attention to your thoughts, feelings, and actions so that you can challenge them before they start running the show. In learning to challenge them, you also learn to accept yourself for who you are.
Self-acceptance
How many times do you look in the mirror and criticise your reflection, or call yourself names? When you struggle with body image and are constantly putting yourself down, those depressing and negative thoughts can easily take over. Which makes accepting yourself – as you are – very tricky.
This is where being self-aware can come in really useful, because it enables you to catch those thoughts mid-process and challenge them. If you can learn to switch your thinking from negative to positive, it becomes easier to accept and embrace all the parts of you. Then enabling you to learn to love who you are, too.
Loving the self
One of the most important ingredients for healthy self-esteem is being able to love yourself. It’s wonderful to know when you are loved by others, but it’s very difficult to feel it if you don’t actually believe it.
NB: You don’t need someone else to tell you that you are perfect just as you are. You need to embrace the knowledge yourself.
There is no-one more important than you in your life, because you are the only one living YOUR life, right now. You are worthy of love, and you are worthy of loving your whole self. That means embracing your good bits, and ‘bad bits’, warts and all.
I have a really useful resource to help you with this, which you can download below for free. It’s the 7 Ways to Boost Your Self-Esteem Workbook. I walk you through all the steps, and it’s a wonderful place to start your journey back to happiness.
In the meantime, here are some inspirational quotes to help you with self-image, self-love, and happiness.
Body image and body positivity quotes
“You have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” — Louise Hay
“Feeling confident, being comfortable in your skin – that’s what really makes you beautiful.” — Bobbi Brown
“I’ve made peace with the fact that the things that I thought were weaknesses or flaws were just me. I like them.” — Sandra Bullock
“Being a healthy woman isn’t about getting on a scale or measuring your waistline. We need to start focusing on what matters — on how we feel, and how we feel about ourselves.” — Michelle Obama
“I’ve never had a flat stomach. It just doesn’t happen, it’s just not going to happen, and it’s my little warm roll, and I like it, and I’m not a failure for not having a flat stomach,” — Jameela Jamil
“Your self-esteem won’t come from body parts. You need to step away from the mirror every once in a while and look for another reflection, like the one in the eyes of the people who love you and admire you.” — Stacy London
Feeling happy quotes
“Happiness is when you feel good about yourself without feeling the need for anyone else’s approval.” — Unknown
“If you’re happy, if you’re feeling good, then nothing else matters.” — Robin Wright
“Happiness is a deep sense of flourishing, not a mere pleasurable feeling or fleeting emotion but an optimal state of being.” — Matthieu Ricard
“Happiness is contagious, spread this among people surrounding you.” — Unknown
“Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.” — Dale Carnegie
True happiness quotes
“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn, or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.’ — Denis Waitley
“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
“Happiness isn’t what you find at the end of the road. It’s right here, right now.” — Unknown
“True happiness… is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” — Helen Keller
“People look to time in expectation that it will eventually make them happy, but you cannot find true happiness by looking toward the future.” — Eckhart Tolle
Short happy quotes
“The purpose of our lives is to be happy.” — Dalai Lama
“Be happy. Be bright. Be you.” — Kate Spade
“Happiness depends upon ourselves.” — Aristotle
“Happiness is an inside job.” — Unknown
“Whoever is happy will make others happy too.” — Anne Frank
Be happy with yourself quotes
“Be healthy and take care of yourself, but be happy with the beautiful things that make you, you.” — Beyonce.
“Being happy doesn’t mean everything’s perfect. It means you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.” — Unknown
“Being happy in your skin … that’s what it’s all about.” — Koo Stark
“The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don’t have.” — Woody Allen
“The only thing that will make you happy is being happy with who you are, and not with who people think you are.” — Goldie Hawn
Happy quotes from inspiring people
“I think happiness is what makes you pretty. Period. Happy people are beautiful. They become like a mirror and they reflect that happiness.” — Drew Barrymore
“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” — Dalai Lama
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” — Mahatma Gandhi
“I think self-knowledge is [the] key to happiness. We can build happy lives only on the foundation of our own natures, our own values and our own interests.” —Gretchen Rubin, author
“There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path.” —Buddha
Quotes about being happy in love
“Still, that’s the point of love; you love someone despite their flaws.” — Sophie Kinsella
“The more the heart is nourished with happiness, the more it is insatiable.” ― Gabrielle Roy
“How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you.” – Rupi Kaur
“There is only one happiness in life. To love and be loved.” — George Sand
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs.” — 1 Corinthians 13
Make your own quotes into daily affirmations
Hopefully this range of quotes to help you feel happy with yourself has given you some inspiration. A really great thing to do is to create some of your own affirmations around those that really resonate with you. If you want some affirmations around body image, take a look at this post on embracing body acceptance.
Summary
I hope that this article has given you a little positivity boost, along with the inspiration to work on your self-awareness and self-acceptance. As we discussed in the earlier part of the post, your level of self-esteem and how you perceive yourself has a huge impact on your overall happiness.
To be really happy, you need to learn to love yourself. I want to help you feel better about who you are, so I’m sharing this free resource with you to help you on your journey back to happiness.
You can start right here by downloading the workbook 7 Ways to Boost Your Self-Esteem.
Hey I’m Natalie, Supporting women like you on their road to self-acceptance and building their self-esteem is – as cliche as it sounds – my calling.
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