How to be Happy (No Fairy Dust or Moonbeams Required)

By Cara Stein

Discover the secrets to true, lasting happiness

Imagine going through life with confidence and deep satisfaction, knowing that you’re making the most of your time, talents, and abilities.
Imagine waking up every morning, feeling good about what your day will bring.
Imagine being your own best friend instead of your own worst enemy.
Imagine truly enjoying your life on a daily basis!

This book contains 10 steps on how to be happy. By following these steps, you will learn how to have a happier life. And it’s probably a lot easier than you imagine.

A lot of people think that happiness is something you have to be born with. Don’t fall for that happiness myth! With a few simple actions, you can increase your life-satisfaction and create a life of joy.

How do I know? I could tell you that I have a Ph.D. (true) or that I’m a Certified Professional Coach and Energy Leadership Index Master Practitioner (also true). But what really qualifies me to write this book is that I’ve been there.

I used to be a miserable person: depressed, victimized, apathetic, and going through the motions in life. At the end of a bad marriage, I realized that I was not willing to live this way forever. Something had to change.

I started therapy. I got to work reading self-help books and trying out their advice. I studied what worked and what didn’t work. And over time, I succeeded: I made myself happy!

I was so excited that it worked—I felt like I had solved the greatest mystery of life. I just had to share everything I had learned with the world. That’s why I wrote this book. The techniques in this book are exactly what I used to transform my life.

Here are a few of the things you’ll learn in this short, simple book:
-The top 4 myths about happiness—and the real truth about what you need to know to be happy in your life
-The definition of true happiness, and how it’s different from what most people think
-The real cause of unhappiness: once you understand it, you can overcome it!
-One essential change in mindset that can help you stop taking things personally
-The fastest way to shift your mood when you’re feeling bad, so you can feel good any time you want
-A simple technique for reprogramming the voices in your head, so they stop making you miserable and start helping you live a better life
-Four common, insidious happiness-blockers—and how to defeat them for good

Get this book now so you can start being happier today! Just click the BUY NOW button at the top of this page.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cara Stein
• Release date: Apr 20, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458101617

Cara Stein

I’m Cara Stein. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but I took a roundabout way of getting here. Among other relics of career change and self-reinvention, I have a PhD in computer science, assorted programming skills, several years’ teaching experience, and advanced skills in wasting a whole afternoon surfing the internet. I’m the founder of 17,000 Days, a blog about remembering that life is short and making your best days a common occurrence. Whether you're stuck, lost, or just looking to enjoy your life more, I’ve been there! I can provide advice, guidance, and vision.

Book preview

How to be Happy—Faster!

Thanks for purchasing this book. I’m super excited for you, and I want to do everything I can to help you. That’s why want to send you the workbook and the audiobook—free!

workbook + audio book

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

(Or go to: http://17000-days.com/how-to-be-happy-resources/)

Here’s what you’ll get:

The complete audiobook version of How to be Happy

The 35-page PDF workbook, ready for you to print out and started

Guiding questions to help you go deeper and apply this book to your unique situation

Thought-provoking exercises to help you find happiness in your own life

Get it now!

Contents

Preface: Who am I to tell you anything?

Introduction: Is it really ok to be happy?

How Happiness Works

How Happiness Doesn’t Work

The real cause of unhappiness

How Happiness Does Work

How to Get It

Happiness Tool 1: Gratitude

Happiness Tool 2: Optimism

Happiness Tool 3: Defeating Faulty Thinking

Happiness Tool 4: Being Nice to Yourself

Happiness Tool 5: Responsibility

Happiness Tool 6: Forgiveness

Happiness Tool 7: Looking for the Good

Happiness Tool 8: Gratifying work

Happiness Tool 9: Giving

Happiness Tool 10: Balance

Conclusion

Want More?

About the Author

Resources

Copyright Notice

Notes

Preface: Who am I to tell you anything?

The short answer is: I’m someone who has learned to be happy.

I don’t have a whole raft of patients, research, or case studies. I’m not a psychologist. I just have the results of one experiment. I was a very unhappy person, miserable most of the time and scared a lot, too. I felt trapped, suffocated, selfish, mean, inadequate, listless, exhausted, unable to cope, and perpetually on the verge of blowing up or freaking out. With the help of people and books, I learned a lot of things that helped me become happy and enjoy my life. I want to pass what I’ve learned on to you.

Just reading is not enough to make you happy—you have to take action and change your life—but I’ve found that understanding how it all works helps a lot in trying to do better and feel better.

Also, not all unhappiness can be cured by changing your thinking or your approach to life. If you believe you may suffer from depression, please talk to a doctor or mental health professional about whether medication could help you.

But whether you’re depressed, unhappy, or just looking to get the most out of life, I think the knowledge in this book is valuable, and I hope it will help you improve your life.

Introduction: Is it really ok to be happy?

If this seems like a silly question, you’re ahead of the game, because a lot of people think happiness is a sign of foolishness, laziness, or selfishness. Here are some of the misconceptions I’ve heard.

Happiness is just plastering over reality with smiley faces and deluding yourself into believing everything is ok. You waste time and energy telling yourself stupid, untrue affirmations and believing in nonsense. I’ll take truth over happiness, thank you.

Happy people are gullible suckers who just haven’t grown up yet.

Good people work hard—they don’t have time to be happy.

We’re not meant to be happy in this life. The more we suffer and struggle here, the more we’ll be rewarded in heaven.

In short, a lot of people believe that if you’re happy, you’re doing it wrong. They’re afraid of happiness because they think it means losing touch with reality, or being foolish, lazy, selfish, or bad. But that’s not how true happiness is. It doesn’t come from pretending. It doesn’t come from making a lot of money, being powerful, owning a lot of things, or sitting on the beach all day eating bonbons, either. Real happiness is:

Love

Optimism

Courage

Freedom

Security

Health

Spirituality

Altruism

Perspective

Humor

Purpose¹

These are true virtues. I don’t know any god or man who looks down on these qualities, and they are the keys to enjoying life. They can be yours—that’s what this book is about.

Chapter 1:

How Happiness Works

Few people are happy. Most of the people I know are neutral or unhappy, and most of the people I meet sure don’t look happy! Happy people really stand out, partly because they’re so rare.

Since hardly anybody does it, it’s easy to assume that being happy is complicated, or there’s some secret you have to know, or maybe you have to be born with a certain gene.

While people are born with an innate level of happiness or happiness set point, and circumstances also influence how