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Happiness Habit Research

happybeaker Over a period of several years, Happiness Habit interviewed and studied habitually happy, genuinely joyous people from many different walks of life and personal situations.

We studied and interviewed people who were cheerfully facing terminal illnesses, job losses and major life challenges.

We intentionally omitted people who seemed happy primarily because of success or good things happening to them, what we term “situational happiness”.

We wanted to answer the question, “What can we do to be happier?” given who we are and the challenges we face.

Our goal was to identify and articulate the key values, beliefs, ideals, habits and boundaries that lead to happiness and spiritual success and explain why they work so well.

We call these key qualities Happiness Habits.

Experience has shown that when people consciously choose to adopt and practice Happiness Habits they become happy or happier despite what is happening to them or around them.

Our mission is to share these key happiness skills summarized in simple statements what we call Coaching Credos that are easy to recall and apply.

If Happiness Habit® concepts are:

1) Consistent with what most people know and believe to be true about happiness. You decide.

2) Consistent with the best current scientific and academic research. They are.

3) Effective, actually help people live happier more spiritually successful lives. You decide.

Then the validity of our approach is proven.

what do you have to loose? Why not give it a try?

Explore and enjoy our Happiness Habit websites and decide for yourself!

Copyright 1999- , Michele Moore. All Rights Reserved. Links to our website and pages are welcomed! Please note our materials may NOT be published, broadcast, redistributed or rewritten without written permission from the authors. Explore HappinessHabit.com and HappinessBlog.com for more happiness quotes and insights.

Tags:happiness habit, happiness research, happiness secrets, happy life, happy people, michele moore
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Be Cool Like Barack Obama

Do You Want To Be Cool Like Barack Obama?

A Key Happiness Habit is:

Don’t hand control of your thoughts, actions or feelings over to outside forces or people who try to hurt or harass you.

Don’t Give Them Emotional Control Over You.

Decide How You Are Going To Think, Act and Feel.

Choose Your Mood and Your Attitude.

Emotional Independence, Freedom and Balance are key Happiness Habits.

This does NOT mean that you don’t get angry or that you don’t decide to take decisive corrective action when necessary.

It does mean you weigh options carefully, decide when and how you will act and that you don’t just automatically react in anger.

Choose the timing, the place and substance of your response carefully.

We all have an Optimal Best Self – a sweet spot or optimal zone where we feel our best, do our best and perform our best. Habitually Happy people try to maintain their optimal Best Self State all of the time. Getting angry and irrational is not part of their process.

Much has been written about Barack Obama’s Cool calm demeanor. His actions and reactions epitomize Emotional Independence. He decides how he will act, react and project himself. He doesn’t let outside forces control his emotions easily.

If you let another person make you angry, you’re giving them control of your thoughts, actions, feelings and your well-being. Don’t do it!

Don’t Help Them Hurt You.

The next time someone tries to hook you into an angry response, simply think, “I’m not giving you control.” It’s that easy.

This does not mean stuffing your feelings or suppressing your emotions. It means not giving them control over you, your attention or your emotions.

Channel Anger Into Activism And Actions That Achieve Positive Goals.

Choose Emotional Independence and Spiritual Freedom. It’s that easy. Decide how you’re going to act, don’t simply react to them. Take command and lead interactions in the direction you want to go. Make this a Happiness Habit.

It’s a great way to stay cool and happy!

Explore HappinessHabit.com and HappinessBlog.com for more happiness insights!

Tags:calm obama, cool obama, emotional independence, happiness habit, michele moore, spiritual freedom
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YOUR Best

We’re often asked how trying to do your best brings happiness…

Habitually Happy People Continually Try To Do Their Best, Feel Their Best, Be Their Best All Of The Time. Their Best keeps getting better.

It’s a direct application of The First Law of Happiness: Our Focus Determines Our Feelings. When we focus our attention on things we find bad, we feel sad, angry or anxious.

When We Think About Good Things We Feel Elevated, Excited, Energized. Our Focus Of Attention Determines Our Feelings.

If you’ve ever had a mediocre day when you just didn’t feel like putting forth a good effort and didn’t, you know the truth of this phrase.

When we don’t bother to try to do a good job and get only mediocre results, we feel pretty mediocre too.

Habitually Happy people continually energize themselves with thoughts of themselves doing their best at whatever it is they are doing.

Clear Goals Help Define The Steps To Attain Them.

Because they are thinking about doing well, they are able to do well and they feel well. Thinking about doing YOUR best provides a path to continually improve your performance.

The Key Word Here Is YOUR Best, Not Someone Else’s Best.

Learn all you can from other people’s superb performances and then try to do YOUR best. It’s the best you can realistically do.

Comparisons to superior star performers are often purposeless and painful for no reason. What good does it do to judge in comparison with the best unless you pull positive actions items for personal improvement from the process?

Powerful positive images of what you want to achieve are inspiring and invigorating. Working hard to achieve a worthwhile goal is satisfying and stimulating.

When you know you have done YOUR best you can let go of results on some level knowing you can do no more.

Continually Trying To Do YOUR Best Is A Key To Happiness.

Try To Do YOUR Best, Be Your Best, Feel Your Best All Of The Time.

Tags:happiness habit, happiness secrets, happy life, happy people, michele moore
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Love Powers Happiness

The Happiest People In The World Are The Most Loving People. They are very kind, caring, compassionate and generous.

To be happy, love extensively and expansively. Love what you do, love the people around you, love your work and love yourself.

Wherever love is limited or lacking, there is no happiness.

Many people chase after success thinking it will bring them happiness but there are lots of very successful people who are Not especially happy.

Happiness and Success Are Two Very Different Things.

The best way to excel and do well at anything is to cultivate a love for what you are doing.

The Best Way To Be Happy Is To Love Extensively, Expansively.

Copyright 1999-2009, Michele Moore. All Rights Reserved. Links to our websites and pages are welcomed! Please note our materials may NOT be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without written permission from the authors. Explore HappinessHabit.com for more happiness insights!

Tags:happiness habit, happiness love, happiness secrets, happy love, happy people, michele moore
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Is Happiness for Everyone?

The path to happiness is universal, open to everyone, everywhere.

But is making happiness our top priority right for everyone?

Should we all put happiness first in our personal, family and business lives or do other priorities weigh in as more important? That’s for each of us to decide.

For some of us other things are more important than happiness… security, social significance, power, prominence, or perhaps creativity or making a lasting, important, indelible impact or contribution.

The world is a far richer, more delightful place because of Steve Jobs. His vision and determined dedicated leadership have changed the world. One would not say he has taken the traditional route to happiness.

No doubt he has achieved great happiness but in different, unusual ways.

We all can’t be Steve Jobs and Steve Jobs needs the rest of us doing what we are doing for his business model to succeed.

There are many different paths to happiness, but the qualities and characteristics of a happy life remain constant.

Money, success and power take precedence over happiness for many people. Many people could easily have both if the knew how to balance the two.

Greatness in any field requires sacrifices, but it also definitely has its rewards.

We can be happy and great at what we do. The truly great allow happiness to help propel their exuberant zeal to excel and do well.

Explore HappinessHabit.com for additional happiness resources.

Tags:happiness, happiness resources, happy, happy life, happy people, michele moore, steve jobs
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Valentine Happiness

Valentine’s Day Is a Reminder to Love… Ourselves and Others, Every day.

If you’re in a relationship… it’s a special, exciting day! Think of all the wonderful, kind, loving things you’ll do – choose one and decide to do it every day from now on.

Put a little Valentine’s Day in every day.

Maybe it’s beginning each day with a smile, a hug and an “I love you.” Or replacing one indifferent or distant habit with love and affection. Welcome them at the door or ask about their day and really listen.

One simple, small thing to add affection and care all year round.

Single, On Your Own?

Give yourself big hugs all day and enjoy the warmth of each loving, happy hug. Feel love in your heart, make a special effort to radiate it to everyone around you.

Enjoy, appreciate and delight in who you are and what you do. Resolve to do this at least once a day, every day from now on.

Enjoy and relish your own company, plan to take yourself out for a nice meal another, quieter day. Enjoy a solo adventure.

There’s a marvelous freedom and power in being happy on your own, in creating and carrying your own happiness within you where ever you go.

Reject myths saying we need a “relationship” to make us happy and complete, messages that make singles feel defective, needy and dependent. They say we should look to others for happiness when its true source lies within ourselves.

It’s the loving relationships and loving communities we create around us daily that bring expansive, enduring joy. They can easily be extensive, everywhere.

We can’t be happy in a “relationship” when we are not happy on our own. Resolve to love yourself and be happy on your own, right now.

For Everyone…

Make a special effort to radiate love and joy to everyone around you. Smile, seek out someone who is lonely and despondent, give them a special hug, remind them they are loved.

Tags:happiness, happiness habit, happy, happy relationship, joy, love, michele moore, valentine
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Happiness And Pride

Pride Is One of the Most Important and Misunderstood Aspects of Happiness

Pride in a job well done, pride in doing the right thing, in your accomplishments, your integrity or in the family you raised, are all very positive and healthy.

Pride Is An Important Part of Feeling Good About Ourselves, It Is a Healthy Part of Happiness.

Pride can also be a very bad, dangerous defect. What’s the difference? Here are some examples…

False Pride – Places too much emphasis on what other people may think or how they may react. Other people’s opinions of us run our lives. We become directed by fears and concerns about what other people think. False pride can prevent us from seeking and accepting the help we need to survive and thrive. False pride can cause us to try too hard to impress other people.

Superior Pride – Raises people up and places them above others, separating and isolating them with an inflated sense of self importance. We all know people with stuck up superior pride, they are attractive only to themselves. Their attitude says, “I am better than you and the rest of the world.”

Perfectionistic Pride – Demands that things be perfect in order to be acceptable and that we accept only the very best. Anything less is inferior and unworthy. Perfectionistic pride wastes time, resources and destroys happiness. It is exclusive and exclusionary. Perfectionistic pride limits our willingness to explore, try new things, to enjoy differences.

Each of These Negative Forms of Pride Defeat Our Desires to Be Happy and Spiritually Successful. Recognize and reject them and replace them with happy, successful responses.

How Do We Decide If Pride Is Positive or Perverse? Ask, is it helpful or hurtful? Does our pride expand and enhance our lives and opportunities or does it limit them? Is it a genuine expression of love, delight and affection? Or is it a twisted, limiting, false elevation and pseudo enhancement of self?

Trumpeting Triumphs is Not Bragging! Celebrating successes, trumpeting triumphs and delighting in good deeds all motivate us to do more and are important to happiness, enthusiasm and success. Bragging is very different. Bragging says, “I am better than you are…!”

Trumpet Triumphs, Celebrate Successes, Delight in Good Deeds, All Are Part of Healthy Pride and Are Keys to Happiness and Spiritual Success!!!!

For more see: Happiness Habit.com

Tags:happiness, happiness habits, happy, michele moore, pride
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Happiness Lessons From The Godfather

Happiness Lessons From the Godfather

The Godfather movie trilogy illustrates many valuable Business and Leadership lessons.

It also illustrates some very important Happiness Habits, most importantly, the Dangers of Departing from Goodness.

In the beginning of Part I, young Michael Corleone is happy, idealistic and moral. He comes home from WWII as a hero. He wants to stay clean and clear of the family “business.”

He stayed happy and clean until his father’s life and “business” were threatened. He changed direction and killed two people.

As the trilogy continues, Michael is drawn deeper and deeper into violence, criminal dominance, alienation from goodness and separation from his family.

When the Godfather Part III ends, Michael is alone. He has it all financially, but nothing spiritually or emotionally. He has lost his family, his loved ones and himself. He is empty and desolate.

He has supreme success in a life of crime. In time, a rival may kill him and end his misery. What does he have to live for? To look forward to? To strive for?

Don’t Depart From Goodness
Make Goodness Your Guiding Goal

Always Try To Do Your Best, Be Your Best, Follow The Best Path You Know

No matter how things turn out, you know you did your best and you could do no more. You are blameless and your conscience will be clear. A clear conscience is central to all happiness and spiritual success.

Tags:godfather, happiness, happiness lessons, happy, michele moore
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Happiness in Relationships

What makes for happy, successful lives and relationships?

Friendship, Trust and Teamwork

There is no greater gift than to help a person achieve their goals.

Good happy relationships help people achieve their goals and their dreams!

“But we’re so different!” is a frequent concern. People who work, live or spend time together happily and successfully grow together over time. We are enriched by differences and learn from them.

Key questions to ask…

Are our goals the same? Do we want to achieve the same things? Do we want to travel to the same destinations in five, ten and twenty years?
Is my life truly better with them or without them?
Are our values the same?
Are we compatible, do we enjoy spending time together?
Do I have FUN with this person? Do they make me laugh?

Do Your Homework Before Becoming Involved

Spend time building friendship, trust and teamwork. If you can’t do it early in a relationship, you probably won’t be able to do it later once your emotions are hooked.

There’s a big problem with allowing sexuality to drive relationships. A person who is inappropriate but sexually attractive draws us into situations that are not good for us. The relationship supplies sexual highs but none of the key components of a good, healthy, successful relationship.

Friendship, trust and teamwork carry relationships over long distances and through difficult times towards happiness, success and achieving our dreams.

Focus on Friendship, Trust and Teamwork for happy, spiritually successful relationships!

See Happiness Habit for more happiness resources.

Tags:happiness, happiness habit, happiness resources, happy, happy relationships, michele moore
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Detach from Unnecessary Distress and Despair

Why do we often embrace, expand and wallow in our emotional pain?

Emotional Pain Is A Powerful Distractor That Robs Us of Happiness and Spiritual Success.

Engaging In Unnecessary Pain is Masochistic. So why do we do it?

Emotional pain is a powerful source of negative energy that seizes and holds our attention. It’s nature’s way of saying we need to stop what we’re doing to take care of things.

Thinking About Bad Things, and Reliving Painful Scenarios Gives Us Powerful Jolts of Negative Energy. They Are Our Own Personal Horror Shows.

We are both energized and made miserable by this emotional pain. I’s a source of negative energy that brings misery.

Sources of energy are attractive to us… laughter, love, thrills, great music, exercise, elevating experiences, sexual attractions, triumphs and achievement. Emotional pain that gives us jolts of negative energy is also attractive, but in a misery making way.

Remembering and Reliving Misery, Reinforces Our Misery. Reliving distressing situations becomes our own personal horror shows. They gives us jolts of energy with a large negative toll.

Recognize it for what it is, a jolt of negative energy from a bad source. Ask yourself,

“Is this positive or productive?”
“Is this helping me in some way?”
“Is this the best use of my time and attention?”

If not, detach and decisively resolve to NOT to give it a moment more of your time, attention or well-being. Painful thoughts are robbing you of pleasant present opportunities for no reason.

Detach and Distract Yourself from Destructive Misery, Distress and Despair.

Resolve to Direct Your Attention to Positive, Pleasant Solutions, Opportunities and Activities.

See Happiness Habit for more happiness resources.

Tags:despair, distress, emotional pain, happiness, happiness habit, michele moore, misery, pain
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