Five Happiness Tips:
- Take Ownership of Your Happiness
Know you can raise your happiness level or set-point
- Don't Believe Everything You Think
Learn to question your negative thoughts
- Wish Others Happiness
It fills you up in the process
- Hang with the Happy
Happiness is contagious, so surround yourself with it.
- Make Your Cells Happy
Create the bio-chemistry of happiness through food, exercise, and sleep.
Learn more: http://www.happyfornoreason.com/MyBookIn an economic climate that's creating anxiety throughout our society, celebrated transformational leader and happiness expert Marci Shimoff offers a revolutionary truth about happiness: we don't have to manipulate the world around us in order to achieve it. In the instant New York Times bestseller, now available in paperback, HAPPY FOR NO REASON: 7 Steps to Being Happy from the Inside Out (Free Press, March 3, 2009; $15.00), Marci Shimoff, with Carol Kline, reveals cutting-edge research, practical techniques, and inspiring stories that show readers how to experience a lasting state of inner peace and well-being that is unaltered by external circumstances. Shimoff calls this phenomenon "Happy for No Reason," and in her groundbreaking book she gives us the tools to achieve this deep, permanent state of happiness.
Inspired by her own desire to be happy, Shimoff spent decades researching the science of happiness, interviewing scores of experts, and one very special group she terms the "Happy 100"-one hundred people from all walks of life who are deeply, unconditionally happy. She discovered that happiness isn't an abstract emotion-it's a physiological state that can be measured and experienced throughout our everyday lives. Recent studies in the field of Positive Psychology show that we all have a "happiness set-point" that is approximately 50% genetic and 50% learned. No matter what happens to us, we tend to return to our set level of happiness. The most exciting news is that, in the same way we can crank up a thermostat to get comfortable on a chilly day, we can actually reprogram our happiness set-point to a higher level of peace and well-being. Shimoff explains that instead of trying to change our outer world in order to be happier, all we really need to do is change our happiness set-point. And it's easier than we think.
In her interviews with the Happy 100, Shimoff found that happy people live their lives differently from unhappy people; they have different habits. For example, they all seemed to live by three guiding principles, or universal laws, that she calls The Guiding Three: First, what expands your heart, mind, or soul makes you happier (The Law of Expansion). Second, the universe is out to support you (The Law of Universal Support). And third, what you appreciate, appreciates (The Law of Attraction). This third law has recently generated buzz due to the phenomenal success of the film and book The Secret, in which Shimoff was a featured teacher.
HAPPY FOR NO REASON gives seven clear steps for raising our happiness set-point, and demystifies the process of obtaining a joyful state of life. Shimoff encourages readers to "Build a Home for Happiness," which is an easy-to-remember analogy that likens the process of becoming happy to building a home. The seven steps correspond to the seven main areas of our lives: the foundation corresponds to our personal power; the four pillars to our mind, heart, body, and soul; the roof to our purpose; and the garden to our relationships.
Within the seven steps, Shimoff presents 21 core Happiness Habits (three per step) the reader can put into practice to easily and effectively support the experience of deep and lasting happiness. Each habit has a corresponding exercise based on the latest research and findings on how to raise your happiness set point; among these are the Letting Go exercise to dissolve negative thoughts, the Loving-kindness practice to expand your capacity for compassion, the Inviting Grace exercise to practice surrendering to a higher power, the Identifying Your Passions exercise to stay aligned with what truly matters to you, and the Appreciation practice to enrich your relationships.
Interspersed with these exercises are inspiring Chicken Soup-style stories from the "Happy 100," compelling evidence that the Happiness Habits truly work. You'll hear from people who overcame loss and adversity to emerge happier and healthier, including:
- a mother who faced her son's killer with a compassionate heart and found grace in the power of forgiveness;
- the daughter of Saddam Hussein's personal pilot, who made peace with her frightening past;
- Mariel Hemingway, who reveals the freedom she gained from letting go of her troubled family history;
- Goldie Hawn, who shares the power of connecting with spirit; and
- Elizabeth Gilbert, the bestselling author of Eat Pray Love, who found happiness through listening to her inner wisdom.
Their stories are wonderful illustrations that there are many paths to becoming HAPPY FOR NO REASON.
Sprinkled with inspirational quotes, punctuated by powerful exercises, and framed with helpful summaries, HAPPY FOR NO REASON is packed with tools that will enable you to be happier right now - no matter where you start. "Becoming Happy for No Reason may not happen overnight," writes Shimoff, "though, as I found in some instances, it can! Having the vision that this kind of happiness exists and knowing the steps to achieve it will put you on the fast track to a complete transformation of your life. I know, because it's happened to me and to thousands of others."
