The Book of Happiness Brilliant Ideas to Transform Your Life

by Summers, Heather; Watson, Anne

• ISBN13: 9781841127026
• ISBN10: 1841127027
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-05-26
• Publisher: Capstone

Summary

The acclaimed authors of The Book of Luck are back with some brilliant ideas for bringing more happiness into your life. The Book of Happiness is more than just a practical guide to improving your happiness levels. It's a complete makeover, aimed at putting a spring in your step, and a permanent lift to your spirits. We all know happiness is a state of mind, but few of us know how to improve our share of it. Many people think that happiness just comes out of nowhere. Not so. The reality is you can create your own happiness by choosing what you do, what you say, where you go, what you remember, who and what you surround yourself with, what you think and what you listen to. The Book of Happiness kicks off with a Happiness Questionnaire to give you an instant snapshot of your current state of mind. Once you have scored yourself, you will learn the areas you need to focus on. There is a workbook to complete at each key stage, as well as stirring anecdotes, tips and happy thoughts to keep you going. Just remember: it only takes 21 days to get rid of an unwanted habit and to acquire a new one. Isn't it about time you got the happiness habit?

Author Biography

Heather Summers began her career with British Airways where she worked in a variety of sales, training and management roles before leaving to run the training department at the then infamous London Borough of Islington. She was the first woman senior manager in Yorkshire Electricity, moving on from there to become Chief Executive of ABL (Bradford) Ltd. She is an experienced senior executive and human resources consultant.  She runs her own successful consultancy business specialising in training and personal growth coaching. Her qualifications include MBA, Master Practitioner of NLP and a Diploma in Performance Coaching. She is also qualified in psychometrics (Saville and Holdsworth Ability and Personality tests - and Myers Briggs).

Anne­ Watson spent 18 years building up a successful and highly profitable research based headhunting business that was finally sold in March 1998.  She now focuses on performance management and performance enhancement consultancy. She runs Luck Workshops with Heather Summers, challenging participants to take charge of their own destiny and outperform their own expectations.

Table of Contents

About the Authors	v
Acknowledgements	vii
Introduction: What is happiness and how to develop the Happiness Habit	xiii
1 The Happiness Questionnaire	1	(10)
2 The Stairway of Happiness	11	(16)
3 Surroundings	27	(30)
Creating an environment that will increase your happiness
What we mean by Surroundings
How your Surroundings affect your happiness
Brilliant Ideas for improving your Surroundings and growing the Happiness Habit
Workbook - practical actions you can take to increase the amount of happiness in your Surroundings. Take the Happiness Challenge!
4 Behaviour	57	(56)
Changing what you do to create the Happiness Habit
What we mean by Behaviour
How your Behaviour affects your happiness
Brilliant Ideas for improving your Behaviour and growing the Happiness Habit
Workbook - practical actions to increase the amount of happiness that results from the things you do. Take the Happiness Challenge!
5 Skills and Capabilities
Making the most of your talents and using them to develop new happiness skills
What we mean by Skills and Capabilities
How your Skills and Capabilities affect your happiness
Brilliant Ideas for improving your Skills and Capabilities to grow the Happiness Habit
Workbook - practical actions you can take to make the most of your Skills and Competencies and therefore increase your happiness. Take the Happiness Challenge!
6 Values and Beliefs	113	(26)
Being true to what you value and believe so that it adds to the happiness in your life
What we mean by Values and Beliefs
How Values and Beliefs affect your happiness
Brilliant Ideas for living your life according to your true Values and Beliefs - and therefore increasing your happiness
Workbook - practical actions you can take to make the most of the Values and Beliefs that work for you and which will result in happiness. Take the Happiness Challenge!
7 Identity - Be Yourself	139	(26)
Being yourself - seeing yourself for who you are and using this knowledge to get the happiness you truly deserve
What we mean by Identity
How your Identity affects your happiness
Brilliant Ideas for getting to know who you are and to be happy within yourself
Workbook - practical actions you can take to increase the amount of happiness resulting from being true to yourself. Take the Happiness Challenge!
8 Purpose	165	(24)
Being more than yourself - finding the path to the Purpose and meaning in your life
What we mean by Purpose
How your Purpose affects your happiness
Brilliant Ideas for finding your Purpose in life and feeling happy about why you are here
Workbook - practical actions you can take to set a course for happiness in your life. Take the Happiness Challenge!
Appendix 1: Happiness and Work - Questionnaire	189	(6)
Appendix 2: Lancaster University Research Findings	195	(4)
Index	199