We all know that life does not always us what give we always want. And because of the lack of manifestations of our desires, many people felt empty and unhappy about life. Thus, if you want to stay happy in life, it is essential for you to know how to love and appreciate yourself with true ease.

If we are to look carefully in life, we will realize that it is not the lack of those materialistic things in our life that makes us miserable. The truth is, the whole is full of rich, famous yet unhappy people.

Indulging in materialistic items is just one of the many ways to stay happy in life. However, you know better that such happiness obtain from those diminishing items can only be temporary.

True and genuine happiness only arises from you working yourself inside out, not outside in. Being happy is an inner feeling after all, and it does make sense to work out the issue of happiness from the place called ’self’.

Unhappiness usually stem out of your lack of self esteem and self appreciation. At home, your parents have taught you to appreciate others and be grateful to those who have assisted you along the way. You are being taught to say “Thank you” to others or prepare gift for others as a token of appreciation.

However, have you been actually being given a proper lesson on how you can learn to appreciate yourself better? Are you being shown the various ways on how you can sincerely accept and acknowledge your own success and give praises to you? Do you actually love yourself for who you are?

In order to love yourself, you have to first accept you as who you are. More often than not, we tend to choose what we want to accept about ourselves:

• Talents
• Strengths
• Ability… …

However, that is not love. Ask any parents or a couple deeply in love, do they only accept and love their children or spouse for only their strengths or for who they are?

People like you for your strengths while they love you for your weaknesses.

To choose to only accept your strengths is definitely not one of the many ways to stay happy. No one can seek to be perfect in this world. In fact, it is human for you to be imperfect!

And it is because of the lack of self love and self appreciation in them that resulted in them having to seek affirmations from others by indulging themselves in the role of the victim where they will do things to:

• Gain other people’s attention
• Gain others’ sympathy
• To affirm yourself that you are not capable or lovable…

The truth is, your improvement will be much faster and greater when you start focusing on your successes, your wins and the things you do right rather than be overly concerned with your past mistakes.

Try this simple rule, “If you want to stay happy, stay in love with yourself!”

Invest 15-30 minutes every night and review the successes you accomplish in the day. I personally like to call it the “Appreciate Self Game”.

And like all other games, this game also has its own set of rules:

1. Write out at least 10 accomplishments for the day
2. Try not to to repeat the accomplishments which you have written for the previous days. By not repeating your accomplishments, it actually “forces” you to be more aware of the different successes and winnings for that day.

Self appreciation and self love is not something you want to eliminate from your life if you want to stay happy, constantly.