How To Be Happy
This newly published book is packed full of helpful insights, tips and practical tools all aimed at helping us get the best out of our lives.
The book is firmly rooted in the work of the Action for Happiness movement, and then goes on to bring together a wealth of material about how our brains work to create habits - sometimes good habits which can help us to be happy. But often of course, as we all know, our brains can too often lead us to do create habits that are destructive and can create unhappiness.
This book brings together much wisdom and lots of research about how to make the best out of our brains, so that we can lead happy and fulfilled lives. An essential read.
Extract
Have you ever noticed that some people seem to be happier than others? Research by Sonja Lyubormirsky (2007) clearly shows that a major contributor to our personal happiness is the genes we were born with. However, the other 2 factors which contribute most to our happiness are:
external circumstances
our thoughts and our actions
And Sonja’s research shows that at least 40% of our happiness is shaped by our thoughts and our actions.
The book includes a wealth of ways in which we can take action and change our thinking to create more happiness. In particular, we explore 3 very special ways we can each choose to take action:
making small changes to create new positive habits
making random acts of kindness
using our power as consumers so that when we buy something, we’re mindful of the impact on others of our consumption.
“Every pound we spend is a vote for the world we want to live in”
We conclude the book by referring to the need for us to:
be happy in ourselves
seek to make others happy
seek to make the world a happier place.
