People who are happy with themselves because they have a healthy self esteem stand out in the crowd. Others are attracted to them and wish to spend time with them. In great part, this is because people who like themselves treat other people better than people who suffer from low self-esteem.

People avoid others who are constantly angry, bitter, envious, narrow-minded and petty. Those behaviors are caused by low self-esteem. Behaviors like this work in a vicious cycle, keeping lonely people from forming the true friendships that they envy in others and wish for themselves.

It may seem like happy people have it easier than yourself, but that isn't the truth. No one 'lucks' into being happy. Happiness takes work. A happy person is a person who can honestly look at themselves and like what they see and this happiness exudes outwardly onto everyone around them, drawing people to them like a magnet.

The search for happiness has been ongoing since man existed. Aristotle said that happiness comes from the inside and that happy people become happy by making active choices toward 'virtue'. 

From "The Kalon"

"What does an ordered life look like? It looks beautiful. Note the order and harmony in a beautiful work of art. A person who has brought order to his life is one who is noble of character. Now the purpose of moral reflection is to determine the kalon, that is, the morally right, or the noble. "Morally right" does not seem to fully translate the kalon as Aristotle understood it. The kalon is the morally good, or the morally beautiful, that is, the noble. Some actions are noble, others are ignoble. The morally good person will choose what is most noble, that is, he will choose in accordance with reason (with what is highest in us).

Note that by virtue of the unity that exists between soul and body (matter and form), the morally beautiful character will become physically attractive. He or she will have an attractive or beautiful face. The converse is also true. A person of bad or ignoble character will not appear attractive for very long. It is not true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, rather, beauty is in the eyes of the one we behold.

The happy man is the noble man. The reason this is true is that we can only bring order to our lives by perfecting the four principal powers of the soul that are open to perfection (intellect, will, concupiscible and irascible powers), and these powers are perfected by the four principle or cardinal virtues. The intellect is perfected by the virtue of prudence, the will is perfected by the virtue of justice, the irascible appetite is perfected by the virtue of fortitude (courage), and the concupiscible appetite is perfected by temperance."

Below I've listed ten ways anyone can realistically help themselves be happier people, regardless of what life throws at them.

Happiness cannot be created in a world of delusions. Take the time to look at yourself and your choices and make a list. List your strong points and list your failings. Choosing not to acknowledge either section is a way of failing yourself. Don't be afraid to be honest with yourself. If you cannot be honest with you, who can you be honest with?

This seems little but has important repurcussions.

We don't all feel like pushing ourselves to our limit everyday. But everyday we can take time out to do something little, just one thing, that echoes and reverberates and helps us feel good about ourselves over the long run. Unexpectedly help your mate, parent or friend with some housework, compliment someone on their appearance, clean out that closet you've been putting off working on, run an errand for someone who is homebound, take some food down to the local food bank, cook something special for someone, the possibilities are endless.

One of my heroes is Saint Therese, "the little flower". Saint Therese created a method for attaining personal happiness that she called "the little way" in which she did daily ordinary things with a spirit of selflessness and love. We cannot all be Saint Therese. I admire her, but I don't have it in me to devote my entire life to caring only for others in a thousand mundane ways. But I can do one thing, every day. Doing so not only develops self-liking, but also self-control, which is an important component of happiness.

Here is a prayer by Saint Therese:

‘May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.’

Often I will have really positive action moods and start all kinds of activities that I realistically can't keep up.  While I know that I have good intent, I often have to stop and check myself and weed my list of desires down to just what I think I can successfully achieve.  Starting something with good intent but not being able to continue or finish is counterproductive to good self-esteem. 

It helps to take an honest look at yourself, your history and then make your choices accordingly.  Don't set yourself up for failure, take steps to ensure your own success by selecting activities and actions that suit your personality and capabilities.

Affirmations are statements we say to ourselves either directly or indirectly when approaching ourselves, our lives, situations and others. Affirmations can both knowingly and unknowingly create or change our belief system. Affirmations can be a great tool to build healthy self-esteem.

There are many different ways to practice useful and good affirmations. You can tape a note to yourself on your mirror or you computer. You can say them to yourself in the morning or at bedtime. Affirmations work best in a postive way. Repetition works!

Example:

I like myself. I am a compassionate and loving person and I am grateful for my choice to surround myself with compassionate and loving people.

This site has a lot of useful information on affirmations and a fantastic list: What are Affirmations and List of Affirmations.

The more you focus on the best things about yourself, the more you try to live up to them and the more likely you are to bring those pieces of yourself up to the surface.

How often do you say to yourself "I always do this, I never do that." Either statement is leading you to a black and white territory which keeps you from seeing things clearly and making useful decisions about your life.

A good practice is to use the always/never technique. When you catch yourself saying something like "I never have successful relationships", try it the opposite way, "I always have successful relationships." Repeat the statement both ways until you are able to see that the situation or 'truth' you keep verifying to yourself is stunted and doesn't allow for that gray area in which truth lies. In this example, you will see that you have had relationships that were successful in some way, less successful in others and in that space of awareness you can find ways to make improvements.

By using opposites you will find yourself in the middle which helps create a perspective more in pace with reality. The closer you stay to seeing things as they really are, the more your actions regarding dealing with others and the world will be effective.

No one is perfect. When you look at yourself honestly, don't be too hard on yourself. Try to treat yourself as you would treat anyone else you care about.

I used to worry a great deal about being a good parent when my children were small. I wanted to be my hero, June Cleaver, and since she was a fictional character on a television series, I never measured up. Admiring her was ok, but comparing myself to her wasn't useful.

I learned that in order to be happy, I had to accept "good-enough mothering", along with "good-enough housecleaning" and "good-enough" everything else. If you are able to view your efforts with an honest eye and know it's the best you can do, it's good enough.

You're not perfect, no one else is either.

Again, no one is perfect. If you aren't, why would anyone else be? If someone has hurt you or damaged you and is genuinely sorry and is no longer doing damage to you, then holding onto that anger does nothing but make you bitter and take away your now.

All of us have hurt someone we care about either on purpose or accidently. Because we know that we do this to others, we have an obligation to extend that forgiveness we offer ourselves to others. Most people are inherently decent. They do not serially try to damage you anymore than you serially try to damage them. Friendships can withstand mistakes, moods and bad situations if there is genuine affection and good intent.

Forgiving is not the same as forgetting. I don't advocate endless second chances or allowing the few true abusers you run across into your personal space. Not one good thing can come out of it. I will say it's a lot easier to practice forgiveness when you stop setting yourself up for being re-abused.

However, if you are able to make that space and get out of the path of whoever is wronging you, it's a lot easier to look at that person and feel pity for them. I will say I've found it's almost impossible to forgive someone who continues offending and the best thing you can do in that case is make efforts to keep them out of your life.

There is a common situation in which people will deliberately keep abusers in their life and overlook their bad behavior in order to have someone who will overlook their own bad behavior which they plan to continue. That is not friendship or forgiveness, that is unhealthy codependence.

Tolerance is a great thing but it can be a way to sabotage yourself too. Genuine respect for others as human beings is better. If someone around you doesn't respect others, they don't respect you either. I can tolerate almost anyone, but I choose to surround myself with people whose ethics and personality I respect. I do this to keep myself healthy. I create space between myself and abusers so that I can find that place of forgiveness that is impossible when you're still in a place of being damaged.

I give thanks everyday that most people are just ordinary folks with ordinary flaws, like myself, and that very few people fall into the hazardous area.

How many times have you looked at a movie star or a person walking down the street and thought to yourself... "lucky them, they have it so easy!"?

Know this; no one 'has it easy'. Everyone goes through life doing the best they can. Some people are born into money, or are born with talents they can pursue to fame or any number of other things we might wish we had. There is a difference between admiring or noticing what others have achieved or what natural gifts they are blessed with, and harboring a rage at people who you think have those things and letting it totally absorb you. Envy is considered to be THE primary motivation for bullying.

The rage at others who seem 'luckier' is a real self-esteem killer. By objectifying others, in the end we only really objectify ourselves. And by spending our time worrying about what others do or seem to have, we cut ourselves short on doing what we could to improve our own lives which is what leads to real happiness.

In reality, everyone has to deal with supporting themselves, with life events, with others they love and with maintaining other relationships. We can't know what is going on in someone else's life by the way it appears on the outside. Rich people and celebrities hope, dream, attempt relationships, and worry about their jobs. Everyone has human feelings, everyone has their own joys, traumas and life experiences to deal with. Assuming that certain others do not have the same feelings you do is the height of delusion, disrespect and is an invitation to be treated back negatively.

Philosopher Bertrand Russell stated that envy was the most potent cause for unhappiness. Wiki says it well here "It is a universal and most unfortunate aspect of human nature because not only is the envious person rendered unhappy by his envy, but also wishes to inflict misfortune on others." As cause and effect, if you are treating others badly, you can reasonably expect them not to like it very much and to either avoid you or treat you badly right back.

It's not just about you. The happiest people are those who are aware of, like and respect others and take an interest in the world.

Being introspective is a good thing, however being overly self-absorbed drives others away from you. The self absorbed person who only does things to benefit themselves, who puts their own feelings above the good of everyone else, who seeks self pleasure at the cost of others whom they perceive as objects to be used, and who gets angry when they don't get their way are not people who are personally happy nor are they people healthy others wish to be around. Behaviors such as dramatizing elements in their life for constant sympathy, and who act in ways that are insincere, manipulative, and superficial polarize others and cause discord.

One of the best parts of the condition of being human is socializing. Humans are at heart social creatures. We can be alone, but most of us don't prefer it. We enjoy and gain benefit from liking others and being liked. Don't cut yourself off at the knees by blinding yourself to others' experiences. Listen look and learn and the more effort you put into observing and interacting with others in a positive way, the more you will learn to really like yourself as you compare and contrast your expeiences with theirs because it adds healthy perspective.

All judgement is not bad judgement. Even an amoeba can sense when an area around it is poisonous and avoid it. If you surround yourself with or enable evil, you can't help but absorb some of that.

A thought on loyalty. An orderly who slips the key to their buddy to allow a hospitalized disabled person to be molested is being loyal to their friend, but what are they being to the innocent disabled person?

At some point, all of us have to make value judgements about what type of person we want to be and to be known as. We should choose carefully what kind of people we surround ourselves with, because in a way, we become part of the people around us as they, in ways, become a part of us.

Enabling isn't love, it's codependence. And if it involves hurting others it's just plain nasty.

Hanging out with people who are so ill they need to put you in doublebinds, tear at your self-esteem or damage you or others in any way out of a misdefined or misguided sense of loyalty or fair play or tolerance isn't useful to your self-esteem. People like that haven't earned any loyalty, don't play by the same rules normal people do, and good manners are not only wasted on them, these traits are viewed as a weakness by unhealthy people and are used against you.

Spending time with those kind of others can only keep you from maintaining good/better mental health and they keep healthier, more decent people from wanting to spend time with you. If you want to feel good about yourself, seek others who are on the same path.