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Is there a secret to happiness? You probably are expecting me to say “NO, there is no secret.” While it is true that there are many factors that affect our happiness, I believe there is one secret that determines whether those factors will work for you, and that is the secret to happiness.

But first, a few words of background. In 2001, I published the first edition of Climb Your Stairway to Heaven: the 9 habits of maximum happiness. I did all the things authors do, right up to getting myself some media interviews. Being an old hand at media relations (actually, Canada’s second-most-quoted consumer advocate at the time), you would think I would have been superbly prepared for the question that almost every journalist would ask me:

“So, which of the 9 habits is most important?”

What?! Which one is most important? Why, they are all important, of course. That’s why I wrote about them all. I was obviously too close to the forest to see the trees. Or, in this case, the tree.

After being asked this question a few times, I was forced to think, and think hard. And out of nowhere, I had an “Aha!” moment that stands the test of time five years later.

One of the 9 habits I wrote about is more important than the others. One of my 9 habits activates all the others. One of my habits is the secret to happiness. It starts on page 83 of the second edition.

“Count Your Blessings”

It sounds so simple, and so, well, almost corny. But let me give you a concrete example of how this works.

Have you ever bought a new car? Remember the pride you felt and the excitement when you made the choice? When you signed the papers? When you drove it off the lot? Do you remember that “new car smell”?

Then something happened. Where is that pride today? Where is that excitement now? What happened to that “new car smell”?

Simple. You stopped counting your blessings. When you bought the car, it was a step up. Perhaps it was a better car. Or a bigger car. Or simply a car that would spend less days on the hoist. You were grateful. You were appreciative. You were counting this blessing.

It does not take long for a new blessing to be taken for granted. And the new car becomes just another thing in your life that you take for granted. Consider this incredible set of statistics:

- 99% of people in the developed world take shelter for granted.
- 99% of people in the developed world take breakfast for granted.
- 99% of people in the developed world take lunch for granted.
- 99% of people in the developed world take dinner for granted.
- 99% of people in the developed world take clothing for granted.

At the risk of sounding trite or glib, most people in the developed world take cars, televisions, computers, vacations, toasters, freedom of speech, paper clips and thousands of other conveniences for granted. In fact, a TV remote control that requires a battery change or a web page that takes more than five seconds to load are considered serious irritations.

Who is happier, the person grateful to be able to change those batteries and wait for that web page? Or the person grumbling about the time it takes and the inconvenience and the bother and why can’t things work better? (Why don’t they make things like they used to? Why does the lineup have to be so long? Why is it so cold outside? Why do I have to go to work today?)

Of course you have every right to complain any time you choose. Nobody wants to take away your right to be unhappy. But I would love to take away your unhappiness, if you are willing to take action.

This is where “counting your blessings”, simple and even corny, is not as easy as it sounds. Our knee-jerk reaction is to complain, to grumble, to be frustrated, to feel almost offended when things don’t work out “perfectly”, just the way we want them to. Imagine poor God, sifting through the millions of prayers he receives daily. Despite the cornucopia of blessings we receive, I am willing to bet that he receives ten times more “Gimmee” prayers than “Thank you” prayers.

Counting our blessings in this day and age of entitlement is not as simple as it sounds, and it sure is not easy to do. In fact, billions of dollars of advertising conspire to reinforce the belief that whatever we have is not good enough and that we deserve better. Who is there to tell us we have enough? Who can help us feel happy with what we have?

You. Only you. Are you ready to give up your own natural knee-jerk reaction and choose to be happy?

You can have all the confidence in the world, but if you do not actively feel grateful for the fruits of your confidence, it will not bring you happiness. You can have immaculate health, but if you do not think about how wonderful that is, it will not bring you happiness. You can smile, build friendships, achieve success, win the lottery, or do whatever you desire, but if you are not saying every day, “Wow! This is wonderful. This is grand. I am the luckiest man (or woman) alive because of this,” don’t expect it to bring you happiness.

Yes, there is a secret to happiness. The secret is gratitude. The secret is appreciation. Or, as I call it in Climb Your Stairway to Heaven: the 9 habits of maximum happiness, the secret is to count your blessings.

About the Author:

This is an excerpt from 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life http://www.thehappyguy.com/secret.html David Leonhardt is a freelance writer: http://www.seo-writer.net/freelance/writer.html Who runs a happiness website: http://www.thehappyguy.com
Read more articles by: David Leonhardt

You are the product of what you repeatedly do. If you have well-trained organizational habits, then you are an organized person. If your habits include reading a lot, then you are a well-read person. I work at finding new habits that will help me save time. Some tips:

1. Use Every Minute.
Efficient people use every minute. There’s no such thing as waiting time. You can use waiting time to make a quick call, or do a small task. For instance, why not empty the dishwasher while you are waiting for your toast to pop up in the morning?

As Thomas Edison said, “Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.”

2. Be Prepared.
If you know that you will have wait times, then choose to be prepared to fill those waiting times. Carry a book with you. I can’t think of the number of books that I have read two or three pages at a time. I will read two pages here and three pages there, and sooner than expected, I have finished the book and have absorbed new information.

If you are not a big reader, consider doing other things during your wait time. Bring your call list, your blackberry, or your stationery.

3. Make Associations.
Sometimes the best way to get a task done is to always associate it with another task. For instance, if you never remember to water your plants, make it an association with something else. You could, for instance, choose to water your plants while your favourite TV show is on: this means that your plants get watered once a week, and you’re not sedentary on the couch for an entire half hour or hour.

For me, this means that every time I leave a room, I try to leave it a little bit better than when I came into it. This allows me to keep my office and home fairly neat. Rather than spending an hour cleaning my office once it has gotten out of hand, I spend a minute or two here and there—particularly when I leave the room—and I am able to keep a neatly organized workspace.

4. Track Yourself.
The key to making successful time management habits is to be aware of them. If you know what you are doing frequently and repetitively, you will be able to change these habits. Often, it is difficult to track the things that we might do on autopilot: for instance, perhaps when you come home, you automatically take your shoes off and leave them in the doorway. If later on in the day, you have to come back and put the shoes in the closet, you are wasting time. You could have saved that time by simply putting them away in the first place. Try to keep a log of what you do for a few days to see where you spend your time.

Tracking your habits will also help you to improve them. I don’t track my habits all the time, but I find that when I do, I tend to spend my time more productively. I find myself thinking during the day about what I am doing because I know that I will write about my actions later. I want to look good in my log, even though it’s only me who reads my log.

At first it might seem that you aren’t making progress with your habits. Remember, it takes 21 days to create a habit. So consistently stick with your habits. They will help you in the long-run. Forming habits for success now will benefit you in all aspects of your life, in the immediate present, and in the days and years to come!

About the Author:

Jim Estill is the CEO of SYNNEX Canada. To find out how to order his audiobook and ebook on successful time management, Time Leadership, or for more information on time management, leadership, and goals, visit his CEO blog http://www.jimestill.com.
Read more articles by: Jim Estill

Allen consulted with me because his wife of 18 years had threatened to leave him if he didn’t stop blaming her all the time. He admitted to frequently blaming her in a variety of situations. He blamed her if he thought she made a mistake, if he thought she was wrong about something, if he was feeling alone, or even if he had a bad day at work. He blamed her for asking him questions when he didn’t know the answer. He would sometimes even blame her if his golf game was off. He always blamed her when he felt judged by her, or when he didn’t get her approval. While he freely admitted that he blamed her, he couldn’t seem to stop, and he had no idea why he blamed her. As I explored various situations with Allen, it became apparent that he was not just blaming his wife. Allen was constantly blaming and judging himself. He would verbally beat him self up for mistakes, telling him self things like, “I’m such a jerk,” and would often say very negative things to himself, such as, “Things will never get any better,” or “I’m just a loser,” or “I’m a big disappointment to myself.” He would then feel angry and agitated as a result of abusing himself, but he never connected his anger with his self-judgment. Instead, he would dump his anger on his wife, or yell at other drivers on the freeway.

It became apparent to Allen that he would not be able to stop blaming his wife until he stopped blaming and judging himself. His addiction to blaming others was a direct result of his self-abuse.

The problem was that Allen had learned to be very self-indulgent regarding his thoughts. He let his thoughts run rampant, never stopping to discern whether or not what he was telling him self was the truth or was a lie. As a result, he was constantly allowing the wounded part of himself, his ego self, to be in charge. And this part of him was filled with all the lies he had learned in the 46 years of his life.

Allen was appalled when he realized that all his anger at others was really his anger at him self for abusing himself. He was projecting onto others what he was doing to himself. He saw that he was especially sensitive to others’ judgment because he was so judgmental of himself.

As we explored why Allen was so self-abusive, he realized that he believed that if he judged him self enough, he could have control over getting him self to do it “right.” He realized this wasn’t true by an experience he had playing tennis.

“I played last Wednesday and I was in a really good mood. I was just playing for the fun of it, rather than to play well, and I played my best game ever! The very next day I played worse than I have for a long time. I realized that, having done so well on Wednesday, I now wanted control over doing as well on Thursday. As soon as I tried to control it, I lost it.

I want to stop doing this, but I’ve been doing it my while life. How do I stop?”

Stopping any addiction is always a challenge. Changing our thought process is especially challenging. However, there is a process available, but it will work only when you really want to change. Changing from being self-abusive to self-loving has to become more important to you than continuing to try to control your self through your self-judgments.

1. Pay attention to your feelings. Learn to be aware of when you are feeling angry, anxious, hurt, scared, guilty, shamed, depressed, and so on.

2. Make a conscious decision to learn about what you are telling your self that is causing your pain, rather than ignoring it, turning to substance or process addictions, or continuing to abuse yourself.

3. Ask yourself, “What am I telling my self that is causing me to feel badly?” Once you are aware of what you are telling yourself, ask yourself, “Am I certain that what I’m telling my self is the truth, or is it just something I’ve made up?” Then ask yourself, “What am I trying to control by telling my self this?”

4. Once you are aware that you are telling your self a lie that is causing you to feel badly, and why you are telling it to yourself, ask the highest, wisest part of yourself, or ask an inner teacher or a spiritual source of guidance, “What is the truth?” When you sincerely want to know the truth, it will easily come to you.

5. Change your thinking, now telling your self the truth.

6. Notice how you feel. Lies will always make you feel badly, while the truth brings inner peace. Any time you are not in peace, go through this process to discover what lie you are telling yourself. Eventually, with enough practice, you will be in truth and peace more and more of the time.

About The Author
margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of eight books, including “Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?” She is the co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding healing process. Learn Inner Bonding now! Visit her web site for a free Inner Bonding course: http://www.innerbonding.com or margaret [Email address: margaret #AT# innerbonding.com - replace #AT# with @ ]. Phone sessions available.

It has been said that people will do more to avoid pain than to experience pleasure. I would like the reader to consider a slight adjustment to the above phrase and follow the word ‘avoid’ with the word ‘anticipated’. We never really know if something is going to be hard or painful until we actually do it. The only thing that actually stops us doing something is our minds idea about something built from ‘False Evidence Appearing Real’ or simply fear. We fear or anticipate the pain of attempting something new simply because to do so means leaving our comfort zone. Our habitual condition makes us feel safe and because the outcome of any new action can’t be predicted we tend to fear the worse rather than expect the best.

This is not just something that happens on a personal level either. Anything you attempt that might be new or just ‘out of character’ can quite easily be undone by other people - often the people closest to you. Machiavelli captured it best in his famous quote “There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all who profit by the new order. This lukewarmness arises partly from fear of their adversaries, who have law in their favor, and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not believe in anything new until they have had an actual experience of it.” Can you see why your dreams should remain private? It is fairly obvious that your dreams might well impinge on the comfort zones of others and if they do you can certainly expect some resistance!

This is not something to get concerned about though. You have a responsibility to yourself to do the best for yourself. You can only make the world a better place by changing what you do to become a better person. If the path to achieving your dreams makes you a better person then it has to be the right way to go. We all have to be willing to leave our comfort zones to make the world a better place and if that means we are doing it to fulfill another persons dreams whilst pursuing our own, then so be it. In fact, the quickest way to make your dreams a reality is to help other people achieve their dreams.

If you are skeptical about this innate resistance to change we all seem to have, think of the real pain and heartache that comes from repeating the same mistakes again and again. We are all guilty of this on some level whether it be our health, our relationships or our financial situation. Why do we choose not to suffer a little discomfort now for the sake of a whole lot of pain later? Equally, why do we choose short term pleasure over our long term well being? Is it because we have allowed the mind to control our lives rather than us controlling it? Of course it is! Our anticipation of any event that we have never actually experienced is more often than not based on false evidence from the past. This makes us choose the easy option over the better option regardless of the long term consequences.

One of the most effective weapons in fighting our resistance to change is to change our attitude to events as they arise. Look for the hidden benefits in every event, even if on the surface it appears things are going wrong. Just flip the switch and start to expect the best from any action you take. When you do this on a consistent basis you will find it easier to leave the comfort zone and choose the best option; the option that moves you closer to your dreams.

About the Author:

Stuart is the co-owner of site http://www.7stepsup.com and is a long term student of practical philosophy.
Read more articles by: Stuart Gardiner

Are you shy? Do you have difficulty coping with people or situations? Then I have good news for you. You do not have to suffer from shyness and you should not feel insecure and fear that you are being judged with every step you take.

Winning the war with shyness takes practice, but is definitely well worth the effort as the result is increasing confidence and self esteem. Wake up feeling good about yourself, able to face the world with confidence and security and the knowing that no feeling of shyness can come in your way of achieving your desires.

There are hundreds of books written on the subject of how beat shyness and gain confidence, but there are a few techniques that anyone can practice. Here are 6 suggestions of techniques on how to overcome your shyness:

1. Every morning, as soon as you get up, get in front of a mirror and say out loud “I feel terrific! I feel terrific! I feel terrific!” Repeat this affirmation with enthusiasm at least ten times everyday until it’s ingrained into your subconscious mind. If feel a little self conscious to begin with lock yourself in the bathroom. The results will amaze you.

2. Feel good about yourself. Look your best. Dress up more often. This gives you an extra feeling of confidence and self esteem. On its own just knowing that you look good will boost your confidence and reinforce with others that there are things about you that are worth getting to know.

3. Take a risk at least once a day. It’s very invigorating and conquering fears by taking risks helps you grow in confidence and self esteem. Start with small risks and fears and as you overcome them move onto bigger things. There’s nothing you cannot do. Be confident in knowing that change can only help you grow, and boost your self confidence.

4. When you are engaged in a one to one conversation, or with a larger group of people, let them know that you’re shy. This prevents them from misreading you and they are far more likely to invite you into the conversation rather than leave you just listening and wishing you could contribute.

Many people, me included, find following a conversation in a noisy room difficult. If you are having difficulty say so and move so that you can hear. People respect honesty, and vulnerability and you will attract more honest people into your life as a result.

5. Rejection is a fact of life that everyone experiences. It is rarely you that is being rejected. If you are rejected, for example if you ask someone for a date, remember that everyone has different likes and dislikes. You may be attracted to one type of person and not others. The same applies to other people and you are probably just not their type. That does not devalue you in any way. Accept this and know that you will get over it. Never take it personally and keep in mind that if people reject you it is because of their own likes and dislikes and not because of who you are. You are equally entitled to reject others because of your likes and dislikes.

6. Engage in an activities that make you feel excited and good about yourself or start a hobby that gives you a feeling of relaxation. This could be anything from gardening to Tai Chi to Karate. Take some lessons, learn or master a musical instrument or take singing lessons. Do something that excites you and take a risk. Exploring things that make you feel excited is a great antidote for shyness.
About the Author

John Edmond recently obtained a degree in creative writing and now writes on a number of topics including self help, personal growth and self esteem.  Go to http://www.buildingselfesteem.info for more information