4 Things Deeply Unbothered People Do On A Regular Basis
While others spiral, deeply unbothered people stay unbothered.
Strelciuc Dumitru | Canva You want to wake up each morning with a smile on your face, thoughts of gratitude in your mind, and unbothered by the chaos around you. It sounds blissful. Believe me, I want that too. But achieving happiness and becoming a deeply unbothered person doesn't happen overnight.
There are many things you can do to increase your general satisfaction with life, which will lead to more moments of happiness. Being unbothered requires a daily practice of monitoring your mind because how satisfied you feel is much more about how you perceive your life than it is about any objective reality.
Here are four things deeply unbothered people do on a regular basis:
1. They don't take things for granted
Experiencing happiness requires building a life that brings greater life fulfillment and satisfaction. To do that, be grateful. Think accurately and focus on what you already love about your life. Cultivate connecting relationships. And find greater meaning and purpose.
The better you feel about your life in general, the more likely you are to be unbothered throughout your day. The more you can see the goodness that is already in your life, the more positively you will feel about yourself and the world around you. Make a deliberate effort to appreciate the things that you already have in your life that you love.
2. They challenge their own assumptions
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It’s easy to focus on what isn’t going well in your life and become preoccupied with it. Shift your thoughts and attitudes to focus on what you love about your life and what you can change about what isn’t going well. Make an effort to stop thinking about what you don’t like, don’t have, and can’t change.
What makes you happy is highly personal. Your ability to be unbothered in any given moment will be affected by a host of things, like what you enjoy doing, who you’re with, how your body feels, your mood, and what you value about life.
3. They invest in people who bring out the best
We all need people to feel a sense of belonging and meaningful connection. The more you connect with others whom you like, love, admire, enjoy, and feel close to, the more unbothered you will feel.
A 2012 study showed that "higher frequency of contacts and higher number of friends, as well as lower heterogeneity of the friendship network, are related to more social trust, less stress, and better health. Frequency of contact and number of friends, as well as more heterogeneity of the friendship network, increase the chance of receiving help from friends."
4. They seek purpose in what they do
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You have core beliefs about what matters to you — the fundamental things that give your life meaning and purpose. The more you know your core values and make choices that reflect those values, the more satisfying your life will feel.
It comes down to this: While I’m a huge proponent of creating a meaningful life based on honest self-awareness and choice, focusing on happiness as if it is a trait fuels a mistaken assumption that you are capable of being happy 100% of the time.
Happiness has received considerable attention through the work of scholars in the field of positive psychology. Spearheaded by psychologists like Martin Seligman and Ed Diener, researchers are exploring what leads us to experience greater happiness and well-being throughout our lives.
Emerging data suggests that “being happy” is much harder than it sounds. For starters, happiness is an emotion, like anger, fear, and sadness. It’s a positive, pleasurable feeling that comes in and out of your experience over time. In other words, happiness is not a trait that describes something fundamental about who you are — it’s a state of being in a given moment. As such, it’s not reasonable to expect to feel happy all the time!
Given that happiness is an emotional state, it’s better to strive to be fulfilled and satisfied with your life than to be “happy.” The better you feel about your life in general, the more likely you are to be an unbothered person.
Cortney Warren, Ph.D., ABPP, is a clinical psychologist and adjunct professor of psychiatry at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She is also the author of Letting Go of Your Ex and Lies We Tell Ourselves.
