How to Find Inner Peace – It’s Easier than You Think. 10 Habits to Try Today
Being at peace with yourself and your life seems out of reach some days. Know that it is ok not to be ok! Life can be hard sometimes and inner peace can feel like an unreachable dream.
Maybe sleepless nights are catching up with you, maybe your busy day is taking up all your time, or maybe you just can’t find it in yourself to cultivate happiness. Whatever the issue, know there is light at the end of the tunnel. Keep reading to learn these tips that help you reach inner peace easily with daily habits you can start trying today.
What is Inner Peace
Inner peace is a state of calm and positivity within yourself. While your outside environment can be hectic and stressful, your inner world and mind can be tranquil and full of positive emotions. Inner peace can grow and become our default state.
Finding inner peace, tranquility, and positivity in a lifelong wellness journey can be made easy with these tips and habits.
10 Tips to Find Inner Peace
Here are the top 10 tips and habits to help increase inner peace today!
1. Practice Self-Acceptance
Self-acceptance is akin to self-respect and self-love combined. It is a feeling of joy and admiration for who you are both inside and out. It will usually take conscious effort to practice self-acceptance.
Our flaws make us who we are. It’s ok to want to grow your glutes, reduce hyperpigmentation, or get rid of dark undereye circles, but we shouldn’t thrive for change to feel more worthy and love ourselves more. We already deserve respect, kindness, and love, from others and ourselves.
Embrace your strengths and weaknesses. Journal about your progress, make positive changes, and remember to enjoy the journey.
2. Try Gratitude
Counting your blessings truly makes a huge difference in our mental wellbeing. Spotting the good in a bad situation can help you feel more in control of the world around you, which has a positive effect on mental health.
Plus, gratitude has been proven to raise your baseline level of happiness. This means that overall, after practicing gratitude, you are more likely to feel happy and content in mundane situations. Appreciation allows you to not take things for granted. Learn everything you need to know about this amazing, life-changing habit here.
3. Be True to You
Authenticity by dictionary definition is the quality of being trustworthy, genuine, and authentic. Being someone else other than who you are is difficult, time-consuming, and energy-wasting. There is no need to people-please.
Learn who you are and start pleasing yourself. Give yourself that freedom to explore you, express yourself, and have that peace of mind.
4. Nurture Independence
There is no need for things outside of yourself to make you happy. While connecting with others is important to improving mental health, it is just as vital to nurture happiness by yourself. You do not need to rely on the approval of others, you don’t need to depend on others to bring you joy.
Set boundaries, work on yourself, and watch how wellness improves drastically.
5. Set Goals
Set goals for yourself, mentally, emotionally, job-wise, physically, etc. For any goal you have, it is important to write it out, plan it out, and believe in yourself. When things change inside you, things change around you.
Believe you can and you will. Start taking positive actions, celebrate small accomplishments, and trust the process.
6. Acceptance and Recovery
In life, there will be things you cannot change. A big part of increasing inner peace is accepting what you cannot change and getting through that situation.
Look at the past as a lesson to learn and grow from situations that you cannot change or control. Remember that you did the best you could with the information you had.
7. Think About What’s Important to You
Live according to your values. Determine what is important to you and prioritize it. This is also part of being authentic, but not the same. If you value kindness but don’t feel kind, fake it til you make it. Kindness is also a habit that can improve and grow.
Just look at this loving-kindness meditation, a mindful practice that has been proven to increase joy, love towards others, and altruistic feelings.
8. Volunteer
Giving back to the community is a way to connect to others and appreciate what you have. It teaches us humility, gratitude, and kindness, which are great tools for cultivating inner peace.
There is so much out there in the world, so many worse off yet seemingly happier. There is more good to spread, more kindness to give, and more joy to share as a community. Not a people person? Try volunteering with animal rescue organizations to dip your toes.
9. Cultivate Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence is the ability to understand, interpret, control, evaluate, and utilize emotions effectively. Someone with high EQ should be able to communicate their feelings with others effectively and rationally.
High EQ also means not allowing emotions to take over 100%. You should be able to control your thoughts and emotions effectively as this will lead to more positivity and inner peace.
10. Mindful Moments
Mindfulness is being present in the moment, allowing thoughts to flow in and out, and not judging yourself, your mind, or the world around you. In instances of mindfulness, it is easier to be aware of your thoughts and emotions, stopping negativity before it takes over. It is as simple as thinking “this thought does not serve me” and letting it go.
Mindfulness comes in the form of meditations or everyday habits like eating mindfully or brushing your teeth mindfully. You can even go on mindful walks or simple at home breathing exercises.
Common Beliefs that Block Inner Peace
While some habits can increase inner peace, some can block it. These common beliefs will not bring joy and positivity to your life. Instead, they will cause negativity and a reduction in joy. These are common beliefs that block inner peace, why they are bad, and what to do instead.
- I need [item] to be happy – you cannot place happiness into the hands of external factors. By believing that you need to get something to be happy, you are always going to be chasing something.
- Anger is bad – anger is a normal feeling that should not be ignored or repressed. That is unhealthy. Instead, claim your anger and let it be a productive force for you.
- Emotions are weakness – emotions allow us to know if something is good or bad or scary or sad. We can use them to be authentic and true to ourselves.
- I need to be doing something – productivity 100% of the time will likely lead to burnout and mental health issues. Try to practice mindfulness and meditation instead for a couple of minutes a day.
- I am not worthy – if you believe you are unworthy, you are unlikely to progress. Feeling worthy and deserving will help you feel and take actions that contribute to your wellbeing.
- I regret the past – regretting something of the past is common but ineffective. Check out this guide on how to deal with past regrets.
The Takeaway
Inner peace is more achievable than you think as you do not need any external things to cultivate it. Try these tips and habits out to improve mental wellbeing one day at a time.
Remember that health starts from within, so eat well most of the time, move your body daily, and take care of your mental health. Try to make sure you take care of gut health too! Microbiota health affects metabolism, muscle growth, the immune system, digestion, and even skin health! Get all the resources you need about microbiota health for free here!