We’ve all been there. We convince ourselves that if only we were to get that promotion, that perfect partner or that ideal house, then we would be happy. Then we could relax.
It’s a lie. Happiness isn’t out there. In fact, happiness is closer than you think.
Maybe you’ve tried vision boards and gratitude lists. Perhaps you’ve attempted to change your mindset. You might feel happy in moments here and there, yet despite your best efforts, lasting happiness eludes you. It’s not consistently in your day-to-day experience.
You can change that.
You can live each day with energy and enthusiasm. The Happiness Unleashed playbook will show you how. It contains instant mood boost techniques, as well as powerful practices to jumpstart your morning, upgrade your happiness baseline and rewire your brain.
Tap into and experience the happiness that is already here, regardless of your health, finances, stress level, workload, relatives or other circumstances. With the Happiness Unleashed playbook, you’ll get the tune-up you need to boost your energy, brighten your outlook and live the life you were meant to.
We’ve all been there. We convince ourselves that if only we were to get that promotion, that perfect partner or that ideal house, then we would be happy. Then we could relax.
It’s a lie. Happiness isn’t out there. In fact, happiness is closer than you think.
Maybe you’ve tried vision boards and gratitude lists. Perhaps you’ve attempted to change your mindset. You might feel happy in moments here and there, yet despite your best efforts, lasting happiness eludes you. It’s not consistently in your day-to-day experience.
You can change that.
You can live each day with energy and enthusiasm. The Happiness Unleashed playbook will show you how. It contains instant mood boost techniques, as well as powerful practices to jumpstart your morning, upgrade your happiness baseline and rewire your brain.
Tap into and experience the happiness that is already here, regardless of your health, finances, stress level, workload, relatives or other circumstances. With the Happiness Unleashed playbook, you’ll get the tune-up you need to boost your energy, brighten your outlook and live the life you were meant to.
We’ve all heard statements like these:
Happiness is a choice.
Happiness is a mindset.
Happiness is an inside job.
Happiness is an attitude.
Happiness is a decision.
While these statements may be true, there’s likely a part of you that doesn’t really believe them. After all, if happiness were a choice and a mindset, why does our decision to be happy not have lasting effects? If happiness were as simple as deciding, wouldn’t we all be blissfully happy now? Yes and no. Life is full of paradoxes and this is one of them.
I’ve read countless books on happiness and I’ll be honest. A lot of the suggestions sound like corny clichés. What’s missing from the popular approaches to happiness is the stuff we have inside of us that is interfering with it, things like limiting beliefs, childhood conditioning, societal programming, unquestioned assumptions and nonstop mental chatter that dampen not only our happiness, but our overall health as well.
Our collective human story teaches us that happiness is always around the corner or off on the horizon, after we have done this or purchased that. While trying new things and interrupting our patterns do tend to make us happier while we are doing it, the robot in us goes deeper than altering our surface activities. Most of us are plugged into a robot of conditioning and assumptions we may not realize we have. They color our outlook and stifle our energy.
We often think some outer circumstance needs to change for us to feel happy. It’s one of our biggest collective lies. It doesn’t matter what our circumstances are. I’ve been happy with lots of money in the bank and with very little money there. With a partner, without a partner. Living in a 2000-square foot house in the suburbs and living in a 200-square foot room.
Happiness is not a function of our surroundings. It’s a state of being. So, yes, happiness is an inside job. And it’s also more than that. Happiness, just like life, is a process–a continual unfolding. It’s not a static state or a fixed destination where you arrive and think you’ve finally made it. It’s not the Hollywood version of happily ever after at the end of the film. Happiness is a process. It’s about continually deciding, continually choosing, with each thought and action. It’s an ongoing decision, one that requires practice, at least at first.
Lots of books on happiness speak in terms of discipline and hard work. If you simply add a dozen happiness strategies to what you are already doing each day, then yes, discipline and work may be required. Yet, who wants to add more tasks to their day? Luckily, lasting happiness isn’t about doing more. It isn’t about doing at all.
This playbook goes beyond creating habits, changing habits or replacing a disempowering routine with a more empowering one. Life is not about habits and routines. This book encourages you to play, explore and discover–to upgrade on all levels.
The reality is, happiness is already here now in the moment we are in. Happiness and joy are already within us. They are an integral part of our very essence. We can choose to let them out. Of course, our robotic mind, habits and programming will want to block this. We can unplug them. This 90-day playbook invites you to playfully practice unplugging your robot, upgrading your beliefs and choosing happiness with each thought and action until you remember that doing so is part of your natural, native state.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
Before diving into the material, let’s set the scene for our time together by addressing some common questions.
Why a playbook?
If you’re like most people, you probably skip many of the suggested exercises in the books you read. It’s a rare person who engages in all the suggestions in a how-to book. You know what I’m talking about. You read an inspiring book and you’re pumped up. You try some of the strategies for a few days with the best intentions but before you know it, your default mode takes over and you are back where you were with your usual routines, habits and outlook.
Eventually you resume the search, looking for the next book, course or video that could solve your issue and change everything. It’s precisely this external orientation that is the problem. Our minds have been trained to point out how things aren’t working and to convince us to continue the search for something else to try. Why does this happen? Two main reasons:
Reason One: We don’t implement the strategies right away. We procrastinate, perhaps telling ourselves we’ll read through the book first and then go back and do the exercises later–and later never happens. We skip the exercises and keep reading, hoping we’ll find just one magic strategy or aha to solve our problem. We’re not thrilled about trying a bunch of strategies when our daily to-do list is already a mile high.
Reason Two: The second reason we skip most of the suggestions in personal development books is what I call a “determination deficit.” Even if we attempt several of the recommendations, we don’t do it long enough to change our habitual way of being. We’ve been conditioned in modern-day society to be instant-gratification-seeking dabblers, looking for the next short-term fix. Our culture of consumerism reinforces each and every new purchase.
Our programming runs deep, which is why repetition and reminders are helpful, and why the inspiration we get from a book can be short-lived. It’s the robot in us that says things like “yeah, I already know that” or “I tried that once and it didn’t work.” Transformation happens when we ask ourselves, “where am I not doing that,” or “yes, I may have heard or learned that before, but have I consistently put that knowledge into practice?”
With this playbook, you’ll have the opportunity to experiment with dozens of powerful practices to upgrade your thinking, your happiness setpoint and your automatic reactions. This isn’t another to-do list. It is a playbook, a book of play. We learn best through play.
Why 90 days?
Spoiler alert: There is no scientific reason for 90 days versus some other number of days. I just happen to like that number. I could have picked 60 days, 114 days or 47 ½ days. I chose 90 days for five reasons:
One: Many of us still believe it takes at least 21 days to develop one new habit. By that logic, developing several new habits would require many more days. It’s not true, by the way, as you’ll soon see.
Two: The robot in us likes a challenge. If this playbook contained only eight days, the robotic mind won’t believe it’s that simple.
Three: Anything more than 90 and the mind starts to freak out. Because our mind is a complex mechanism prone to procrastination and instant gratification, we would become overwhelmed and less interested in giving this thing a try.
Four: A good chunk of time is beneficial to get you out of your current habits long enough to reprogram your default state for good.
Five: Changing your habits, thoughts and reactions for good requires more than a decision. It’s not solely a matter of applying willpower. For change to be lasting or permanent, you need repetition and consistent practice. The neural pathways in the brain are set by repetition. When you practice new thoughts and actions repeatedly, you create pathways for more empowering beliefs to take hold.
So, 90 days it is. Don’t worry, you won’t be doing one new thing for 90 days or until it sticks. That doesn’t sound like fun at all. With this playbook, you’ll play with a variety of things to keep it new and fresh.
How to make the most of this playbook
Be open and playful. Be okay with having your assumptions about happiness and life challenged. Approach this as a true playbook, meaning, a book of play, not a playbook of strategies to win something. The idea is to be in a space of newness, curiosity, wonder and exploration as much as possible, ideally every day.
Have a designated notebook or journal to keep track of which day you are on. A written notebook is preferable to using your phone or computer for notes. It’s old school, yes, but there’s a reason for it. Writing things down by hand requires you to slow down and reflect on what you’re about to commit to the page. A physical journal or notebook will allow you to insert images, photos and other tidbits to have at the ready (you’ll see the benefit of this later).
I really loved this book. Full disclosure - I didn't read the recommended book that goes with it, although it sounds really interesting and it's now on my to-read list. This book was practical, concise, manageable, and optimistic without being cheesy.
The author specifically explains why it's ninety days - honestly, it's a book that could make a difference in as few as five or six, and it's also a book that you could repeat over and over again. Each day has a simple exercise, and a quick three- to five-minute read to go along with it. The exercises and tasks take anywhere from thirty seconds to five minutes, so it's incredibly easy to fit things into even the busiest routines. Of course, readers can take longer with some of the tasks if they choose.
The end of the book also has helpful ways to step things up, change things out, or supplement the exercises that are being done throughout, as well as a list of other books by the author, many of which I'm planning to look up and consider reading as well.
This isn't necessarily a book that will lift a person out of deep depression or solve major mental health issues. However, it is definitely a book that will make a very real impact without a huge amount of effort - and any amount of improvement is great! Some tasks may take people a little out of their comfort zones, but most of them are easily adaptable to wherever a person is - and as it's pointed out at the end of the book, going through the 90 days all over again will allow readers to approach the tasks with a different perspective and revisit favorite tasks with even more energy and anticipation. For the return on the effort invested, this book is great!