Top 10 Best Ways To Be Happy Without Friends [2024]

While having friends around is undeniably wonderful, finding contentment in solitude and relishing one’s own company is equally rewarding—an experience everyone should embrace. There are various circumstances that may lead us to periods without friends, such as transitioning to a new workplace, relocating to a different town, or undergoing lifestyle changes. These situations might initially overwhelm us, leaving us pondering how to enjoy ourselves without social connections. However, it’s entirely feasible!

Indeed, friends and social relationships contribute to our happiness and enrich our lives, yet genuine contentment stems from being at peace with ourselves. Cultivating self-assurance, independence, and self-acceptance are essential for leading a fulfilling life. Mere companionship in numbers doesn’t offer a straightforward solution to happiness. Here’s a compilation of practices to find genuine happiness autonomously, without relying solely on friendships.

Best Ways To Be Happy Without Friends

Make your life fun in your own way

I would like to start this one by saying I’m an introvert myself, having too many social interactions tends to drain my energy so I can go a long time without social interactions and still be happy. I’ve learned that there are many things in can do by myself and still be happy. Here are a list of things you can include in your daily activities:

Reading, journaling, watching your favorite Sitcom, painting, going for a walk in the park etc.
These are the things that will give you happiness without being dependent on others. Infact spending time with yourself and learning how to be happy on our own is a form of selfcare that will give you much more than just a happier life! It will lead to a better relationship with yourself which will result in confidence, physical and mental fitness, independence, freedom and self love!

Know your worth

A lot of times we depend on validation from people to determine our self worth. Your worth should depend on who you are as a person, your purpose in life and not on how many friends you have or how many parties you got invited to! Your friends or relationships do not determine who you are, its you personality and your core beliefs that determines who you are.

Build a healthy lifestyle

Build a healthy relationship with yourself by building a healthy lifestyle. See on how to support your wellness and health better, like making your diet clean, exercising more, trying to avoid stress as much as possible, or getting enough sleep every night.

• You can make your eating habits healthier my inculcating more vegetables in your diet, cutting down on junk and processed food and keeping hydrated.
• Start an exercise routine according to your lifestyle, walking or running at the park, or playing your favorite sport.
• Prioritizing both mental and physical health and well-being is something you should do for your because because it helps to lead a more happy and satisfying life.

Practice gratitude

You may tend to go on a downward spiral about not having many friends or social relationships which causes to feed into negative thoughts. Actively reminding yourself of things you are grateful for, for example your family or a good home to live in, sound health etc will help you to focus on the positive side of life that adds to your happiness instead of what you think is going wrong. This will make you content about your life.

• Start a gratitude journal where you can write about three things you are grateful or thankful for, everyday.

Consider taking a break from social media

While social media can be a great platform for sharing jokes, good music, personal events, supporting each other with successes and failures but it can also turn to be a mirage.
People try to be their best selves on social media which can make us feel inadequate about ourself and our lifestyle.

Its a personal experience, I too tend to get lost in social media, seeing people post all the fun times in their lives and feeling, ‘why cant I have such a life?’. ‘Why do I don’t have that many friends?’
Try to take a break from social media and focus on yourself and see what happens.
In the future try shorter periods of social media engagement. You’ll start being less fixated on society’s made up idealization of social life that only being popular can make you ‘happy’.

Don’t be too hard on yourself

Just procrastinating your way through life (personal experience–this tends to happen when you feel lonely) and being lazy is not helpful if you are trying to be happy without friends. But brutal self criticism and being too hard is not going to help either.
There is great power in having more time to yourself, you get more time to commit on goals and work towards great things in life for your own self, but whatever that is that you are putting your commitment to, take it easy on yourself.

Accept yourself as you are

If you try to confine to an image of what you think your life ‘should’ be just according to mere social standards, then you are only setting yourself up for being miserable in the long run.
Forcing yourself to meet new people you don’t feel a genuine connection with, just for the sake of having more friends is honestly a waste of your precious time and energy. Forcefully socializing when that does not come to you naturally make you distant from your ownself which means with you losing your own power just to fit in to society.

Self acceptance and forgiveness is important. Accept that you are not the same as other people and you don’t have to be if you are not feeling like it, and forgive the people who make you feel less about yourself or make you feel abandoned, betrayed or left out.
The pain you feel within yourself won’t be healed by trying to make fast friends. Walking past then and moving forward with your life for your own self will actually reward you for the rest of your life.

Take yourself on a date

This might sound a little cheesy but it can actually be helpful to get you closer to yourself and learning to have fun on your own.

Imagine where would you want to take a special person out and how would you show up for the date and take yourself to that place looking exactly as you imagined!
It may feel like a daunting task at first but chances are you will notice at least a couple of people brunching solo or sipping on some coffee with themselves.
Now embrace this freedom and enjoy the surrounding, observe people and have fun with yourself!

Nurture meaningful relationships

As you get more at peace with being alone, you might see yourself spending less time socialising; while that is great but taking care of meaningful social connections are still important.
For example family and relatives or our significant others aren’t really “friends” but in most cases, they are the ones who will be there for you in the long term so investing your time and energy on such connections is a great idea.

Engage in more activities with your family members and your partner. You may have a cousin or sibling who might be feeling a little bit stressed themselves or who would just love going out for a cup of coffee with someone? You could be a that big brother or big sister friend them.
Think about all the potential friends and people in your life who you may have overlooked in the past. Try catching up with them and spend some quality time. Plan a visit with someone in your family or a friend, or spend time with your team after work.
Call someone who you have not heard from in a long time and have some meaningful conversation.

Explore spirituality

Whether or not you are interested in things and subjects like spirituality, religion, breathing meditation or anything along that line, taking time away from people and ‘soialising’, looking into the spiritual side of life can be a great opportunity to tap into the inner matters of the soul.

Friends can be great for sharing feelings of our heart, life experiences and our both happy and sad times with, but they can also de-track us from getting ourselves to know ourselves on a deeper inner level.
When you have time to yourself and time for paying attention to some solitude and self reflection you have the opportunity to read, listen, and explore into the more meaningful questions and experiences of life that we may not normally talk about or even think about.

You may choose to go to a temple, church, mosque or even a spiritual retreat, or any other place of worship or spiritual depth. Practice some meditation and praying or any form of practice and can drive you to a whole different journey of life where you can get to the basis of this whole life and humankind and see what spirituality means to you and that can be pretty exciting!

Conclusion

In conclusion, to find happiness without relying on friends, it’s essential to introspect regularly and evaluate the level of contentment and peace in your life. Keep track of what aspects need adjustment on your journey toward self-happiness. Reflect on what you have in abundance, what you desire more of, what brings you the most anticipation each day, what saddens you, what causes stress or agitation, and what brings you joy. Engaging in this practice will aid in reducing stress, negativity, and restoring the equilibrium of happiness in your life.