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Posts Tagged ‘happiness habit’

What Are Habitually Happy People?

happy2person-00 We all know a few special people who always seem to be truly UP, energized and happy. They light up a room and our lives with their presence.

They seem to be having a good time all of the time and continually radiate genuine joy.

They are very loving people. They love life, they love what they do and they love the people around them, they love themselves.

They live without prejudices and embrace the entire world eagerly.
They have high integrity. We trust, admire and respect them.
They are good decision makers and leaders.
They are high achievers who love creative challenges.
They always enthusiastically try to do their best, be their best and encourage others to be their best too.
They refuse to let difficulties or problems distress or bother them.
When they are down, it never seems to last for long.

Enthusiasm, Energy, Achievement, Integrity, Happiness and Joy Characterize Their Lives.

You know some of these special people. They are not the most prominent or powerful people we know but they certainly are the happiest. We may wish we knew how to be more like them.

Happiness Habit interviewed and studied Habitually Happy, genuinely joyous people from all different walks of life and life situations. We identified the key Values, Beliefs, Habits, Ideals and Boundaries characteristic of happy thought. We call these special qualities Happiness Habits.

If you choose to adopt and practice Happiness Habits, you too will become happy or happier despite what is happening to you and around you.

Explore and Enjoy HappinessHabit.com, HappinessBlog.com and HappinessInHardTimes.com Comment on our postings. Share your thoughts and insights.

Wishing you great happiness and spiritual success,
Michele Moore and the Happiness Habit® Team

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 Please note our materials may NOT be published, broadcast, redistributed or rewritten without written permission from the authors.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 insights.

Tags:habitually happy, happiness habit, happiness secrets, happy life, happy people, michele moore
Posted in Happiness Notes | 2 Comments »

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!

Tags:happiness habit, happiness research, happiness secrets, happy life, happy people, michele moore
Posted in Happiness Notes | No Comments »

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
Posted in Happiness Notes, Holiday, NoTweet | 4 Comments »

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
Posted in Happiness Notes | 2 Comments »

Truth, Honesty, Integrity

Truth, Honesty And Integrity Are Essential To Happiness – A clear conscience and living by good values are absolute prerequisites to a happy life.

The Universe respects, admires and trusts people of high integrity who always try to do the right and best thing.

You can’t be happy when you continually feel guilty or worried about wrong doing and about being found out, exposed and punished.

Deceit and Dishonesty Destroy Happiness

To be happy, you need to feel good about who you are and what you do.

Continually trying to do your best, feel your best and be your best helps build happiness.

More importantly…

We Can’t Love People We Don’t Trust

Deceit and dishonesty destroy relationships. We need The Truth to make good decisions. Dishonest, deceitful people lead us to poor decisions because they distort or disguise the Truth for their own gain.

Beware of Sociopaths & Psychopaths:

A surprisingly large percentage of the population has no conscience, no remorse, no compassion, no empathy for others.

Psychologists and Law Enforcement professionals call these people Sociopaths and Psychopaths. The primary constraint on a psychopath’s or sociopath’s behavior is concern about being found out, exposed and punished.

They have no conscience, no remorse or guilt to restrain or contain their misbehavior.

Psychopaths and Sociopaths also exhibit what psychologists term “a flat affect.” Their lack of conscience, concern and remorse is accompanied by an inability to bond and feel love, understanding and empathy for others. Constant thrill seeking often fills the void of love in their lives.

When Love Is Limited Or Lacking There Is No Happiness.

Happy people who embrace high values need to be very wary of these people. Psychopaths and Sociopaths are often very charming, charismatic and deceptive.

It’s hard to believe that such seemingly warm, wonderful people can be so evil and malevolent. “We see the world as we are, not as it is” wrote Anais Nin.

Be Loving And Be Careful!

Copyright 1999- , Michele Moore. All Rights Reserved. Links to our websites 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 insights!

Tags:happiness habit, happy life, happy people, michele moore, truth happiness
Posted in Happiness News | 1 Comment »

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
Posted in Happiness Notes | 1 Comment »

Happy New Year 2009!

Exciting New Changes Are Coming With The New Year…

Happiness·Hope·Change – HappinessHopeChange.com – Celebrating our January 20th Inauguration and the messages and lessons it carries

– and – Resolve To Be Happy – ResolveToBeHappy.com – sharing specific steps to turn Happiness Resolutions into powerfully effective Happiness Solutions

have been added to the HappinessHabit.com website.

During 2009 we’ll continue to develop specific Happiness subject web sites targeted to address specific needs, uses and desires.

As you know, HappinessBlog.com has evolved and changed significantly through the years.

Our first postings in 2005 described basic Happiness Habits and the important tenets for living a happy, spiritually successful life.

Having covered Happiness Habits both here and in other postings through the years, HappinessBlog.com began to emphasize current Happiness news, research and events.

New readers may not want to dig back several years to read our initial happiness postings. We’ll leave them in place in their original form to preserve the links.

We will also rewrite and refocus many of our materials in new and exciting ways during 2009 to focus on specific needs and uses.

Our more contentious commentary regarding current Happiness research and coverage will be migrated to a separate site with a new name.

HappinessBlog.com will return to it’s powerfully positive theme and tone. We’ll try to keep abreast of news items supported by permanent links to happiness materials that could be of interest and help to large groups of people.

We hope you will enjoy the new look, tone and approach for HappinessBlog.com during the coming year!

Very best New Year’s wishes,

Michele Moore and the
Happiness Habit Team

Tags:happiness blog, happiness habit, happiness secrets, happy life, happy people, michele moore
Posted in Happiness News, Holiday, NoTweet | No Comments »

NBC Muffs Happiness

“Happiness, even in hard times, it turns out the feeling IS contagious” begins NBC’s report on Harvard’s study of 4,739 people over 20 years researching “how social networks, siblings, friends and neighbors are affected by the happiness of others.”

“Happiness isn’t a solitary experience, it’s dependent on others” the study asserts.

Is it surprising that researchers who studied the effects of social networks on happiness would find that social interactions are necessary for happiness? They even examined geographic variables…

“Close physical proximity is essential for happiness to spread,” the study reports. “A happy friend who lives within a half mile makes you 42% more likely to be happy yourself. If that same friend lives two miles away, the impact drops to 22%. Happy siblings make you 14% more likely to be happy, but only if they live within a mile.”

Egad! What are we meant to do to be happy? Move closer to happy friends and siblings if we have them? What if they’re not close by or if they suddenly face tragedy and become unhappy?

How does this help us find Happiness In Hard Times? Does the study provide useful insights that help the world be happier during difficult times? Did they reduce their analysis to ridiculous decimals?

NBS’c clips show people looking outside of themselves for happiness as if happiness is not a product of our own internal orientation and decisions.

“What makes me happy is… a good meal, knowing my job is in good shape, a yo yo?”

What about people facing difficult times who have none of these external delights, are they doomed to despair and depression? What can we do to bring greater joy to difficult situations?

We love NBC and MSNBC. Their integrity and intellectual sophistication is often lacking in the other networks. On occasion, NBC goes to amusing lengths to protect the public from themselves.

Watch Jon Stewart’s hilarious report on NBC’s Macy’s Thanksgiving parade coverage. A good laugh is a great way to bring happiness into your life.

See Happiness In Hard Times for Happiness Habit’s hints about how to be happy during difficult times.

Tags:happiness habit, happiness research, michele moore, NBC's happiness
Posted in Happiness News | 1 Comment »

Happiness Expanding & Updated

We’ve not been silent the past few months!

HappinessHabit.com
has expanded and embraced and exciting new scope and look!

We’ll be emphasizing Happiness In Hard Times – How To Be Happy When Times Are Tough & Help Others To Be Happy Too in coming months.

See new postings:
Breaking Blocks To Learning
on
Happiness Habits For Families
and
Seven Steps to Seeing Communications Clearly
and the
Power of Truth
on
Fight With Finesse.

Explore HappinessHabit.com to expand and enhance your happiness!

Tags:happiness habit, happiness secret, happy life, happy people, michele moore
Posted in Happiness News, NoTweet | No Comments »

Positive Psychology Can Be Dangerous!

Positive Psychology is very popular in American academia today.

Positive psychologists believe we can all be happy or happier by being more positive.

They suggest we substitute more positive judgments for negative ones, spend time on Gratitude Lists and journal good things that happen in our lives.

They believe the more time we spend focusing on positives over negatives, the happier we will be.

They preach the Gospel of Learned Optimism, that we can learn to be more optimistic in our assessments of life and be happier.

The Positive Psychology Happiness Formula is:
Positive Judgments => Produce Happiness
Negative Judgments => Mean Misery
Therefore More Positive Judgments Mean More Happiness

While there is some truth to this statement (it is a variant of the First Law of Happiness – Our Focus Determines Our Feelings) they overlook a number of key points:

The first is optimism can cause us to overlook or ignore important danger signals and warning signs that help us thrive and survive. We are told we just need to be more positive, to see more benefits and fewer threats. This can be dangerous.

The Happiness Habit model is very different. Habitually Happy people assess reality very accurately and take decisive and often very creative action. Once they are confident they have made good decisions, they put the full force of positive expectations behind their plans and drive to excel and do well.

They know the dangers of excessive optimism and react accordingly.

More importantly, Habitually Happy people don’t ignore misery. They know misery has messages and meaning.

Misery Is Meant To Make Us Move

Misery is meant to make us move and take action – it is a signal something needs to change or is changing.

Misery means we need to change what we are doing, how we think, how we feel or all perhaps all three. If our world is changing, we need to change to adapt, adjust and end our misery.

Stuffing, ignoring or replacing negative signals with learned optimism is not a universal route to happiness and spiritual success.

When our heart, gut, soul and being are screaming something is wrong, it’s not wise to try to pretend everything is fine.

Examine those negative feelings, understand what they are saying and react accordingly. Are threats real or merely effects of past conditioning, environment and experience? Can we turn those negatives into positives?

Assess Reality Accurately. Explore and Appreciate What Negative Feelings Are Trying to Say.

Be Decisive, Make Effective Decisions. Put The Full Force of Positive Expectations Behind All Your Plans.

Use a Drive To Excel and Do Well to Propel You to Happiness and Spiritual Success.

Try To Enjoy and Make The Most of Each and Every Moment.
Be Realistic, Not Blind.

See HappinessHabit.com for more information about happiness and spiritual success.

Tags:habitually happy, happier, happiness, happiness habit, happy life, happy people, michele moore, positive psychology
Posted in Happiness News | 6 Comments »

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