So this is something that is something that differs between person to person to person a lot. For me, personally, a major way to calm my anxiety is cleaning or organising my living space, whether that be my room in school at home or wherever I am currently staying in. For me looking at my space not being organised makes me feel unorganised and almost just clutters my head. So if you walk into my room there is a high chance of it being quite tidy. I also always start my week with a clean room so it acts as a fresh start. For me, this is a small thing that keeps me calm and happy because it puts my mind to ease. So that's my biggest tip on how to stay happy. You have to find something that you can do that put your mind to ease.
I can't sit here and tell you what will make you happy because I don’t know you, I can only tell you what has helped me. I can say though that the first thing you should do is start putting yourself first. For the longest time, I never used to spend time on myself making sure I am feeling the best I can, and when I started doing that it changed the way I feel about myself so much. This can be a simple self-care day/night where you put on a face mask and just spend time pampering yourself or it can be going to the gym and working out. This is something that you do where you put yourself first. I used never to do this. I thought people would look at me as selfish because I would stay in my room doing a face mask or going to the gym instead of hanging out with my friends and watching a movie. Along with everyone else, I always have that fear of missing out which would make me feel more guilty about doing this. but the more I did it the happier I got with myself and became more comfortable with myself. It was hard for me to do because I was doing this at the same time when I was at my lowest so I would overthink things a lot and I would always just think that if I ever did anything just or me that it was bad and the more I did it I convinced myself that my friends don’t want to be my friends anymore because of those times where I am keeping to myself. Looking back at that I realise I wasn’t being logical but I wouldn’t believe anything else at that time so trying to do these small things to make myself happy was extremely hard for me. But when I broke that stigma and say that doing these things are actually benefiting me a lot more and it makes me more fun to be around when I am with my friends I started to do it more and I got into a routine of it. This was a domino effect until I would break that routine. But the thing I know now is how happy I can be which makes me stop myself from getting to the point where I stop doing these things for myself. So if you are reading this and thinking anything I used to think of please don’t because you being happy is more important than anyone or anything else and you should do anything that helps your get to that point. Lately, my normal self-care routine has been broken because of my ups and downs the I am having mentally which is why I am focusing so much more on how clean and organised my room is. I have lately started enjoying doing my nails myself, I hate getting them done because it takes too much time but the enjoyment that I get when I feel that sense of accomplishment after painting my nails has gotten me into the habit of painting them often and having them to look well-manicured. This is something I used to hate doing but I also love wearing rings so I found that I felt so much more confident when I wore rings if my nails looked good. Small things like this put me in a better mood straight away. It is always the small things in life that will get your feeling satisfied and happy with who you are and your point in life. This period of staying at home has really forced me to focus on myself a lot more because coming home for me is always something that I don’t always enjoy and focusing on myself has almost become my outlet when I get frustrated or have a lot of emotions built up. It is extremely important to always focus on yourself, it is not being selfish if you put yourself first and it only does good to yourself. If you read this post looking for an answer on how to be happy the I hope you are doing okay and everything gets better with time, somethings just take a little more time but time will heal anything and this is the only way I can answer that question, focus on yourself.
Before I end I want to say that it is okay to not be happy all the time. That is not realistic but if you can stay happy and more positive-minded for even 20 minutes longer the before then that's a step forward which is good, its where we want to go. If you have one bad day and don’t feel like doing anything that is also okay and nothing to be ashamed about. Everyone has their days and expecting to be happy every day is not realistic so you are setting yourself up to fail. Your aim should be to be happier to be yourself and it will take small steps to get there.
Till my next one my lovelies x