INSTANT HAPPINESS FROM WITHIN:

LEARN HOW TO TRIGGER IT

QUICKLY AND SIMPLY!
Copyright James F. Coyle 2013

Happiness is a state of mind.

True happiness comes from a feeling of contentment, an inner source of self-satisfaction.

If you are satisfied with the way you are living your life, your happiness level will be far
higher than that of a personally dissatisfied individual.
True happiness seldom relates to the ownership or acquisition of material items. There are
plenty of unhappy people out there who own a massive number of material things and who
are totally unhappy.
You might be blissfully happy about taking possession of a new car but this is a fleeting
gratification and will soon wear off.
True happiness manifests itself when you eventually become content with your life by
recognising your shortcomings and accepting them for what they are.
Of course if you are surrounded by perpetually miserable individuals this tends to drag
you down to their level. The trick here is to minimise contact with such people. You may
not be able to totally avoid them but you certainly do not need to seek them out as they are
doing nothing for your mental state. Where possible associate with those individuals who
are cheerful and happy. This will tend to make you feel better about yourself. So if you are
in a gathering at work or at a social event try and rotate toward those who smile and laugh
a lot.
This tends to rub off on your psyche and can affect you subconsciously. Place yourself in a
cheerful environment where possible...... it will make you happier and more contented.
This is the first act you need to undertake to raise your happiness level.

YOUR PERSONAL CIRCUMSTANCES

Are your current circumstances caused by decisions you have made in the past and are
now wearing the consequences? Of course they are! Figure out where you went wrong but
don’t make excuses for any actions you took in the past. Merely accept what has happened
and make a decision to move on.
Stop and do this right now!
It will help you immensely to analyse past mistakes knowing that you certainly won’t be
repeating them! And it will evoke a sense of relief in your mind. I have had dozens of my
students do this simple exercise and every last one of them has reported feeling better
afterwards. The problem lies in the fact that when we make a serious mistake we definitely
do not want to dwell on it. This appears to be a mental defence mechanism. We want to
gloss over it and think of better things. When you force you mind to dwell deeply on the
cause of these disasters it has to face reality and the result seems to be that you get it out of
your system. Sort of a mental “closure.” It always helps to write it all down on paper
because this single physical act tends to focus the subconscious. It helps even further if you
read it softly to yourself. When you mentally consider a problem you are not using any of
your physical senses but when you write it down and read it softly back to yourself you are
adding the sense of sight and sound. During our research on mental impact mechanisms we
found this process to be highly beneficial as your subconscious is forced to pay serious
attention. This does not necessarily happen when you merely think about it as a purely
mental program. To achieve positive results in your life you need “gutsy” physical and
mental programs which create a far greater impact.
You will have done things in the past that have turned out to be somewhat disastrous and
you are now paying the price. Well, don’t lose too much sleep over it because every single
individual on this planet has made giant mistakes also. You are definitely not alone. In fact
your personal disasters may be minor ones compared to other individuals. Think about
some of the people you know who are facing major disasters. Walk along the street at night
and watch the winos and druggies stagger through life. Take a look at those unfortunate
individuals who you see searching through rubbish bins for edible food. Are you better off
than them? Of course you are...... so life really isn’t all that bad, is it?
This single simple action of analysing your problems as described above should
immediately make you feel somewhat better about yourself because you are facing reality
and you may notice an immediate improvement in your happiness level. This is because
you have made a serious decision and acted upon it. True happiness comes from an inner
source of self and you have just taken the first step. It may take a little while to go through
your past mistakes but persevere because you are mentally providing closure to each and
every past mistake.
And the human mind likes closure and goal-setting. It does not like to be left floating in
mid-air. It is fully capable of giving you everything you want in life ..... including
happiness..... so treat it with the respect it deserves, because long-term happiness is purely a
mental state and has little to do with the physical world.
Later on I will explain ways to trigger short and long-term bursts of happiness that may
well change your life and improve your health.
One of the ways to increase your happiness is by successfully tasking yourself with small
projects and completing them successfully. This gives an inner sense of self-satisfaction
which tends to leave a “glow.” The human mind is goal-seeking and grows stagnant if not
constantly challenged. When a task is completed successfully there is a feeling of self
satisfaction. That is, you feel happy about this achievement, no matter how minor it is.
Accept reality and society for what they are. If you try to change either you are not likely to
succeed and will probably end up feeling miserable. This is the opposite of happiness.
The only thing you can effectively change in life is yourself!
If you try to change the world to suit yourself you will come unstuck.

TRANSIENT BURSTS OF HAPPINESS VERSUS

THE LONGER TERM PERMANENT HAPPY STATE

Fleeting Happiness:
**A great sexual experience
**A sudden job promotion
**Taking delivery of a new car
**An unexpected kindly act from someone else
**A significant gambling windfall
**Doing your first scuba or skydive
**Gaining your driving licence
** Passing that exam that you’ve spent 5 years studying for

There are hundreds of examples like the above and they all supply that fleeting feeling of
personal satisfaction and happiness. They were all “outside” events that caused a
temporary “inner glow” but not a permanent one. They were external to your mind where
happiness springs from.
Longer term permanent happiness comes from a state of mind. This particular state only
evolves from a permanent sense of satisfaction and self-worth and it is sad to realize that
only a small percentage of us ever achieve that state of nirvana.
So if you are spending your life aimlessly drifting and generally procrastinating about
getting even small jobs done then you cannot reasonably expect to experience happiness. If
you do not do something about this NOW you will go through your life and end up looking
like those elderly miserable individuals who have never been happy at any point in their
entire life. You will have met this type before. Do you want to end up like them? Use them
as an example of how you do not want to be. Preferably observe them from a distance. Do
not become involved in a discussion with them. Actually if you watch and listen to one of
these deadbeat individuals for a while it makes you realize just how lucky you are!
THE PERMANENT HAPPINESS TRIGGER

The trigger to permanent happiness depends almost entirely on how you have set up your
life and how you live it. It involves doing a constant batch of “small” fulfilling events which
when compounded and added together evoke that permanent state that you are seeking.
This may be a blissful rewarding happiness or merely a state of total overall personal
comfort and feeling of continual personal achievement and satisfaction. If you set your
mind every single day to doing some little thing that you have been putting off then you will
notice a degree of satisfaction at the end of the day because you have done something
worthwhile. You will retire to bed in the evening feeling happy with yourself because you
will feel that you have achieved something worthwhile.
Sometimes this trigger occurs unexpectedly such as when you suddenly win $20m in the
lotto in which case you will be blissfully happy for at least a few months. You now have
financial freedom and all that it entails. Then you start to realize that you have developed a
sudden new batch of friends who of course turn out to be professional bludgers. Naturally
they will want you to “loan” them money for business ventures and everything else under
the sun.
Slowly the supreme happiness you initially felt evaporates as you begin to realize that a
windfall like this comes with a price. You will start to notice an increasing amount of envy
from those around you which gets on your nerves and causes you unhappy feelings. You
only need to read the history of large lotto winners to realize that nearly 50% of them
totally waste their windfall and usually end up with deep regrets and extremely unhappy
because their personal satisfaction has dropped to near zero. I personally knew one many
years ago who did absolutely stupid things with his windfall. He immediately left his job
and proceeded on an alcoholic drinking binge. Two years later he had to declare himself
bankrupt and all his new found “friends” suddenly disappeared from his life. I could not
believe the level of this guy’s stupidity.
PROCRASTINATION
Procrastination is the absolute killer of self-satisfaction and happiness. You keep putting
small jobs off until you feel entirely miserable. Each and every time you think about this
batch of small but necessary activities you become even more depressed. Right at this
moment in time I have a friend who cannot play DVD’s in his laptop because the laser head
needs a clean, which is a quick simple job. He has complained about this problem now for
the past 3 weeks but has not actually got round to doing it. I told him this morning that I
was writing an article on procrastination and was thinking of using him as an example. I
was joking of course but I think he took me seriously because he rang me an hour ago to
tell me the DVD now works! I guess you could call that “motivation!”
Perhaps you are unhappy with your current job or do not like where you live. Don’t keep
putting things off. Change your job and residence. This would vastly improve your
happiness index because you will feel that you are getting somewhere in life. There may be
some effort involved but you will be vastly happier ones these situations are sorted out. If
you let all your friends and contacts know that you want to move house it is quite likely
that one of them will know of a situation that will suit you. It never ceases to amaze me how
solutions “crawl” out of the woodwork when an individual is absolutely determined to
achieve a specific end result. I guess you could call this the “Law of Attraction” working
effectively!
If you want to change your job put out “feelers” so that others know you are in the market.
You never know what may suddenly appear on your doorstep. If you keep this desire to
yourself in the “hope” that something better will turn up then you cannot seriously expect
positive results. You must put yourself out in the market place so that the universe can
react to your emotional desires. You cannot lock yourself in your bedroom, turn out the
light, pull the blankets over your head and expect God or the universe to dump a truckload
of money on the end of your bed. Reality doesn’t work this way. You must get out there
and give it a chance to happen.
Don’t forget that the main cause of happiness or at least contentment is a life of
constructive and fulfilling behaviour. If you let things roll on as they are you will become
increasingly discontented and miserable. Small personal achievements when added
together create peace-of-mind. You go to bed feeling contented even if they are only minor
events.
Do something about it!
What is stopping you? Inertia?
To overcome this problem simply write down each morning a few simple things you want
to achieve each day. It might be something as simple as returning a library book which is
overdue. After a few days you will break this inertia habit because you will start to feel
good about yourself.
The only true lasting happiness is created by peace-of-mind
and perpetual self-satisfaction and contentment.

There is a difference between short-term happiness and pleasure. You may gain a ton of
pleasure out of something that happens and this makes you briefly happy. But then again
doing something pleasurable at work may take the boredom out of the job briefly and
doesn’t necessarily make you happy. All it really does is make you less unhappy. A
pleasurable event can be a “filler” that takes the monotony out of your life but leaves your
happiness index unchanged. Most people tend to do activities that make them the least
unhappy. This is only natural as it keeps us within our personal comfort zone. They may
not be ecstatic about doing a particular activity so they do it in a way that causes them the
least grief. When you’re given a job to do at work don’t you automatically try and find the
easiest way to do it? Usually the way that requires the least energy and thought.

SPONTANEOUS HAPPINESS

You may recall an occasion in the past where you were unhappy for weeks at a time, or
even for months, then for no reason at all you suddenly wake up one morning feeling
blissfully happy and content.
What caused this?
It was almost certainly caused by a dream you had during the night. Possibly you dreamed
that you met up with old friends and had a party? But no matter what the dream was
about the effect on you was spectacular.
There is a method of inducing these dreams at will so that several times a week you can rely
upon waking up in a blissfully serene state. This is called “Dream Control” and I’ll explain
how to achieve this later. It often works amazingly well and first-timers are often stunned
at the results from their first try at the process. One of our subjects had been depressed for
months and after the first try at this had an extremely happy day. She used a few of our
other happiness inducing techniques and the last I heard she was living a highly fulfilling
life with a new job and boyfriend.

PAST HAPPINESS EVENTS

Another way to trigger a happier outlook is to reflect upon events in the past that have
made you happy. This is basically the method I personally use the most.

Sit down and remember these events. Write them down on a piece of paper and keep this
paper with you. Now when you start to feel depressed and unhappy pull this paper out and
reflect upon these events. Think deeply about them and try to capture the emotion by
daydreaming about each event. See if you can picture it in your mind’s eye. Re-live the
emotion of the experience if you can. Chances are you’ll exit this simple exercise feeling
much better and more content. Say to yourself ........ “I’ve experienced these happy events
before and I expect to experience many more of them.”
By doing this you are opening your mind to a different attitude and this may well attract
more of these positive happenings into your life. Happiness is a mental state and we all
know that it can be induced instantly by a hypnotist so there is no reason why you can’t
induce it yourself.
All it requires is a mental trigger and after reading this small book you will probably find a
process that works for you.

HEALTH
Lack of happiness often affects our physical health. In general happy people are healthier
than unhappy ones due to their brain chemistry working on their body. Also studies have
shown that happy individuals tend to live longer. Our thoughts and emotions direct our
overall happiness and this reflects in our body chemistry. A person who is perpetually
negative is often sick from whatever is currently doing the rounds while a positive cheerful
person seldom ever has to take a day off work for medical reasons. You will have observed
both these types of individuals in the past. The perpetually sick person is usually the one
with a poor attitude and a dismal expression. Their body’s react to this mental state and
tend to pick up every infection going round. It is best to avoid these individuals for physical
health and mental reasons. After all you don’t want to catch what they’ve got!

SMILING

When somebody smiles at you a strange thing happens. Your mouth tends to give an
automatic response by smiling back. This may only be a twitch of a smile but it still
happens. So if you’re walking along the street and some stranger flashes a large smile at
you then you tend to smile back. And the chances are it makes you feel quite good. I guess
this is what I like about living on the South Pacific Island of Vanuatu. People perpetually
smile at you. I walk down the street to the bank and I usually get a dozen or so smiles and I
tend to smile back because this is an automatic reaction. One expat I know jokingly
complained that he was smiling so frequently that after a couple of months his jaw was
aching so much that he had to take a holiday in nearby Australia where people don’t smile
at all these days.
(I didn’t personally believe this because Aussies are great “smilers.”)

Smiling or being smiled at tends to do something to the brain chemistry. It is contagious. If

some individual walks among the guests at a party smiling broadly it tends to make most
people in the room feel good. Maybe not exactly happy ..... but good. Also it is an
observable fact that when you smile it makes you look more attractive and younger
whereas frowns and scowls push others away. If you hear an extremely funny joke and
break up laughing you definitely feel good, which is why comedy shows are so popular.
Smiling is also a means of communication because you are telling others that you are happy
in their presence. And if you want job advancement smile at your bosses a lot!

There is one supermarket here in Port Vila (The capital of Vanuatu) who chose female staff
mainly for their brilliant smile. Guess which supermarket does the best in town?

If you smile a lot you are considered to be approachable and if you are looking for a
romantic partner this is one of the key approaches. You may not be the best looking guy at
the party but if you have a genuine happy smile you will attract members of the opposite
sex, providing of course that your behaviour is polite and respectful.
When I was in secondary school many years ago there was one girl in the class who was
quite overweight and not particularly attractive but she was the most popular girl amongst
the guys in our class because of her brilliant smile. She got more offers of dates than any of
the other girls, even though some of them looked quite stunning. They could never
understand why she got all the choice date offers! Smiling has a ripple effect and tends to
flow from person to person. Next time you’re in a closed group try smiling a lot and see
what the response is like. You might be pleasantly surprised.

HAPPINESS EXERCISE

There is a simple exercise you can do that rapidly increases your happiness level. Sit down
and quietly think about the things that are currently making you unhappy. Write them
down if you wish as this will add clarity to your thinking and has more impact on the mind.
Now look carefully at each item. Maybe someone at work is seriously annoying you and this
is causing an unhappy work experience. Figure out what you can do to change this. You
have a choice of two reactions: Firstly you can try to change their attitude..... or you can
change your attitude toward them. The last one will be infinitely easier. The way I used to
treat this situation was to treat them as a joke. I would say to these individuals .... “You
know, I treat you as a bit of a joke and so does everyone else here at work. Did you realise
that?”
When they make a make a smart-arse reply just laugh at them and walk away. Nobody
likes being laughed at, particularly this type. Every time you see them burst into a smile
and maybe have a quiet laugh. This should get them thinking and they tend to leave you
alone and pester easier prey.
Now look at the next item on your unhappiness list and see what you can change to make
life better. Perhaps your electricity bills are too high and you are having trouble paying
them. The first thing you would look at here is any light that stays on all night, like a
security light. If it’s a standard incandescent bulb change it for a lower wattage fluorescent
one ob better still one of the new LED ones. These LEDs (light emitting diodes) basically
never burn out and they use only a fraction of the electricity. Have you got other bulbs in
your house that could be changed for fluoro or lower power ones? Do you leave your bulbs
alight when you’re not in the room? Become aware of your power consumption and you
might be pleasantly surprised to see that your next bill is 20% lower! After all, why give
this money unnecessarily to the power company?
The above are just two examples of items that make you unhappy.
One important thing I learnt earlier on in life was the effect upon me of a short term
unhappiness feeling suddenly appearing. I would ask myself if I had this same feeling
yesterday and the answer was usually “No.” Then I would ask myself if I was so happy
about things yesterday then why was I unhappy today? Usually I concluded that absolutely
nothing had changed..... only my attitude. So then I asked myself the obvious question .....
“Why the heck should I be unhappy today when I was reasonably happy yesterday and
absolutely nothing has changed?”
It usually didn’t take long for my attitude to swing round as this simple burst of logic
corrected things. Try it for yourself. It is so logical that it is obvious. A couple of hours later
you will probably revert to your cheerful self.
Other things that may make you unhappy are perceived overweight problems. OK...... start
immediately on some program to correct this. The moment you start you will feel better
about yourself because you are taking direct action. Face your problems head on and start
corrective action immediately...... and watch your happiness index rise!
In fact if you pick any single unhappiness problem on your list and start doing something
about it immediately you will probably go to bed tonight feeling better about yourself.......
because you have started to take action!

MAJOR HAPPINESS EVENTS

Big lotto winners experience super-happiness immediately but it has been observed that
this happiness index drops back to the original baseline levels after only a couple of
months. Likewise passing a major school exam usually causes a major burst of relief and
happiness.
After all the student has probably been studying for five or more years so they would
naturally feel a major sense of relief immediately after sitting the exam. The happiness
angle occurs when they get their results and realize that they have passed it.
Getting married usually raises your happiness level significantly and can stay that way for
many years. In general the human race are social animals and naturally desire company.
Marriage provides permanent company and raising a family usually is a reasonably joyful
and fulfilling experience.
As you grow older these joyful experiences tend to be few and far apart though so having a
permanent partner to care for you is really quite satisfying and prevents the loneliness that
causes depression.
Basically you have to keep doing things and stretching your comfort envelope otherwise life
can become quite boring as you grow older and this usually leads to feelings of
unhappiness.
I have spent my life doing rather extreme activities such as skydiving, scuba diving and
flying fixed wing and ultralight aircraft. At one point I was heavily involved in running an
electronics business which was struggling financially. By Friday night I was totally stressed
out and looked forward to the weekend when I could do a few parachute jumps. This
simple activity settled my nerves and set me up for the week ahead. Unfortunately if the
weather was bad we couldn’t jump so I started Monday morning with shattered nerves.
Somehow I survived all this but the parachuting certainly helped.
 At age 68 I realised I had no challenges planned so I did something that I had wanted to do
since I was 18. I learnt to fly a helicopter. This upset all my local friends as they thought I
was quite mad but all my kids loved the idea because they were used to my “crazy stuff.”
The first thing I had to do was study (once again) for my private pilots heli licence because
my old fixed-wing one had expired. This was vastly complicated at my age and it took 9
months of part time study then I sat the exam. To my delight I scored 80% when all that
was required for a pass was 70%. At the same time I started taking the flying lessons and I
found these machines vastly different from fixed wing aircraft. For a start they didn’t want
to become airborne and you have to force them to lift off the ground. Then I had trouble
hovering in the same spot. My machine wanted to gravitate toward the nearest fence! And
the actual flying required hands-on all the time because if the engine suddenly failed you
have only a second to dump the collective stick and effectively feather the main rotor
otherwise it will stall and you can consider yourself dead! And so on and so forth.
Eventually I sat my flight test and passed. This was actually quite a major event in my life
and by that time I had just turned 69.
I hope the above description hasn’t put off any reader currently thinking about heli
training. It was actually the most fun and satisfying thing I have ever done! Well..... the
second most fun thing!
The bottom line for me was that the whole thing was a happy experience overall and for 12
months I felt quite good about my achievement because I stretched my boundaries and
lived life!
There will be many events in your own life that cause you major happiness and when you
become depressed dwell back on these happy events. Try and recapture the emotions you
felt at the time. This usually helps raise one above those feelings of depression.
But please remember that negative emotions are quite normal and these must be allowed to
express themselves. Even the happiest individuals have off-days and tend to wonder why
they are here at all. So if you develop a batch of negative emotions let them run for a while
then if they persist try the procedures above to see if you can neutralize them. If you go out
of your way to constantly suppress negative emotions you might just run into mental
confusion and other problems. It is for this reason that I avoid the “positive thinking”
philosophy as I personally believe that under certain circumstances this can be quite
dangerous. Your emotions are intended to swing somewhat so don’t try and alter them
artificially. But inducing bursts of happiness via dreams seems to work out because it is
short term. Perpetually “positive” people who induce this mind-state artificially are laying
themselves open to mental problems if they overdo it.

GRATITUDE
Show gratitude to others when they do you a good deed. Smile and express your thanks
because it makes both of you feel good. Appreciate what others do for you and let them
know. Those individuals who don’t express gratitude seldom get any further help from
others who feel let down. It tends to leave a sour feeling in their mouth. I have met a vast
number of these ungracious individuals in my life and almost always avoid them in the
future. Their loss .... not mine! If you go through life with a mean, selfish and ungracious
attitude you will win few friends and not gain the support you need when things go wrong.
Often you will get a small problem in life that a close friend will solve. But if you haven’t
got any friends you have to solve it yourself. It has been said that no person is an island.
This is very true. We need the support of others on our path through life. Make sure that
you let people know that you appreciate them. This will cost you nothing! And better still it
will make you feel good because you have spread joy among others. If you get a chance to
do someone else a good deed .... then do it! Don’t stop and ask yourself .... “What’s in it for
me?” This would be a mean-spirited attitude and certainly won’t induce good karma.

The bottom line here is that when you help others you raise your spirits and feel good,
especially when they go out of their way to thank you. If they accept your help but don’t
bother to show any gratitude then ignore their problems in the future because they will
cause you negative feelings due to their poor attitude. There are plenty of worthwhile
individuals out there who would seriously appreciate your help and show the appropriate
gratitude.

PHYSICAL WELLBEING

Your happiness quotient will be higher if you have a sense of physical wellbeing. That is,
you feel quite good about yourself because of your physical condition and lack of health
problems. Often after a good night’s sleep you wake up feeling quite content and happy.
Perhaps you hadn’t been sleeping well for a week or more and suddenly your body caught
up on all this. You feel wider awake and more content. So it is fairly important that you
arrange conditions so you attain a reasonable night’s sleep. This might involve installing an
air conditioner, fan, or heating system. But it will pay off in the long run. After a succession
of great sleeps you will feel more in control and small annoying things will worry you less,
which will raise your contentment level. When you are tired small things annoy you and
you become frustrated easily so it is best to arrange your life so that you achieve the
required sleeping patterns.
Figure out what you need to get solid uninterrupted sleep and arrange it. If you live in a
noisy environment wear earplugs at night so the noises don’t unduly disturb you. Keep
your fitness level up by doing regular simple exercises. Either go for regular walks, jogs, or
simply do the usual sit-up and press-up exercises on your lounge floor. Any exercise that
makes your heart beat strongly is worthwhile. Apart from making you feel better about
yourself this activity will improve, or at least maintain, your physical fitness. Watch what
you eat. Fad and sugary foods take a lot of extra energy to burn off. While sugar gives you
energy too much may present a problem. Take a serious look at what you eat. Go for
healthy meals and low calorie and low fat foods. You will still fill your stomach up but the
better quality intake will make you feel more energetic. There is no need to go on a diet
unless you are seriously overweight but the leaner quality meals will be beneficial and raise
your energy so you feel more personally satisfied about your lifestyle. Clearly this will
raise your happiness quotient.
This is one of the many things you can do to feel happier and tied in with all the other
suggestions above should make a difference in your life.

THE RESONANCE EFFECT

An interesting thing happens when you become totally absorbed in some activity..... time
flies! Let us suppose that you have the world’s most boring job and you plod along at this
for the mandatory 8 hours each day. You finish work and stagger home. After relaxing and
having dinner you walk out to a back room and proceed to become involved in your hobby
activity. This is something you really enjoy and you become totally “resonant” with it. Next
thing you know it is midnight and you simply don’t know where the time has gone!

This has happened because your mind has become mentally resonant with your hobby
activity. During this period all your worries and concerns have disappeared and you are
totally focussed on what you are doing. This resonance effect is very strange. If you take a
wine glass and tap it with a pencil it will ring at its resonant frequency. In fact if you place
an audio generator close to the glass and wind up the frequency you will notice that the
glass vibrates only at its resonant frequency. To persuade the glass to vibrate at any other
frequency will require a very large volume of sound.
The human mind appears to work the same way. When it resonates with a particular
activity or line of thought the results can often be quite spectacular. This is equivalent to an
athlete getting in the “zone” and suddenly spurting ahead to win the race. All athletes are
familiar with this. The point is when you are in this resonant zone your mind is focussed
totally on what you are doing. It is total and complete concentration. Nothing else matters.
This is why individuals with a serious night time hobby are often happier than those
without a hobby.
There have been quite a number of individuals who turned their hobby into an income and
as such were able to leave their soul-destroying job.
Have you got a hobby or activity that fully occupies your mind?
If not figure out what really interest you and consider becoming involved. It will while
away those otherwise lost hours at night and may be just what you need to raise your
personal satisfaction level. Some of these hobbies can be extremely low cost but rewarding
when you become fully involved.
One of my students bought a sharp knife and some tubular pieces of wood and learnt to
whittle. That is, to carve patterns in the wood. She eventually became quite proficient and
carved and glued various bits of wood into the rough shape of a horse and cart. She painted
it and took it down to a local art and craft shop to show them. They offered to sell it for her
on commission. She ended up getting $95 in her hand and as a night-time hobby is now
creating three of these a week. The shop sells all she can make so she is gaining almost $300
a week at almost zero cost for materials. The $300 pays her rent each week and last time I
spoke with her she told me that she was extremely happy these days. The point here is that
she is mentally resonant with her hobby and obviously gets a great lick out of it.
When I was 10-11 I took an interest in what was called “radio” in those days. Nowadays
it’s called electronics. This became my hobby and I was so fascinated with it that when I
left school I naturally got a job in the electronics field. Time progressed and I started my
own electronics business which eventually evolved into a mail-order electronics kitset
business. I had one retail shop as a base and several thousand regular mail customers and I
was blissfully happy that I was able to supply simple kitsets to youngsters to get them
started in this field.
The mental resonance involved with my hobby led to bigger things eventually!

YOUR HAPPINESS IS RELATIVE TO OTHERS

Are you the happiest person in your workforce? Are there others happier than you?
There will be workers all around you who will be either less happy or more happier than
you. Your degree of happiness is really relative to others. If you feel relatively happy but all
the others around you are blissfully happy then relative to them your happiness level is
mediocre. Obviously this is not a true level of personal happiness but might make you feel
somewhat depressed that you are not up there among their heights. This is a happiness
trap! Beware of it. Judge your happiness level by only how you personally feel .... not how
others appear to feel. If you feel that you are at or near the top of this group then your
relative happiness quotient is quite high...... that is, relative to the rest of the group.
Ask your co-workers who they feel are the happiest individuals at work. This will give you
an idea of where you’re at. If you’re near the top then this should make you feel better and
you probably find that your workload is a pleasant experience.
It can sometimes be misleading to compare yourself to others because every individual is
different. Others cannot live your life for you and feel what you feel. Also in any given
situation they will react differently. Something that makes them happy may not affect you
the same way. Then again some of the items that feel pleasurable to you might make others
feel uncomfortable.
If you really want to compare yourself to others then take a look at the sick, broke and
struggling individuals who reside in your area. Go for a short walk or drive in the destitute
areas of your town and feel the negative vibes being emanated. Look at the inhabitants and
notice their depressed body language. This single brief activity should certainly make you
feel better about yourself. It reminds me of the old saying ..... “There, but for the grace of
God, go I.”
Count your blessings and feel lucky about your present situation. Most certainly you may
have some nasty things happening in your life but are they as bad as what other less
fortunate individuals are experiencing.
When you do a comparison like this it puts your life in perspective and will probably raise
your personal happiness quotient. Just remember, there is always someone worse off than
you!

CONTROL OVER EXTERNAL EVENTS

You have little control over the unexpected events that pop up in your life but you can
control your reaction to them. So if something really bad happens that looks like a disaster
in the making consider it carefully. Ask yourself ..... “Is this seriously going to affect me?
Can I sidestep it to minimise the results?” And most importantly ask yourself ..... “Will this
event really matter in a week or so?”
If one of these unfortunate events happen in your workplace and it affects everyone there
you will notice a totally different reaction among the workers. Some will enter panic mode
while others will shrug it off and carry on. Everyone reacts differently. You can personally
change your reaction to sudden unwelcome events by changing your attitude towards
handling them.
One simple way to pre-prepare yourself is to sit down quietly one night and briefly imagine
a few disasters happening. Just imagine your standard reaction. Now run the imaginary
disaster through your mind again and visualize a different more benign reaction that
upsets you less. If you do this over a few evenings you are training you subconscious to
react differently in a way that is more beneficial to you. One of my students made a list of
all foreseeable possible disasters that could happen to her over the next few years. She then
focussed on each one and practiced a low key reaction. As far as she is concerned she now
feels that she can take whatever life throws at her. Smart girl! Great preparatory training.
I personally doubt that she will ever be seriously upset if any of these nasty unexpected
events eventually happen. And this practice has given her more confidence and made her
somewhat happier. She told me that her life is now more serene and peaceful.
Sometimes these apparent disasters have a very short shelf life and may only affect you for
a couple of days. Some individuals of course will treat this as a lifelong permanent disaster
and let it affect them for years to come. But you don’t need to handle it this way. Look
carefully at the problem, consider the best way to handle it, then get on with your life.
Merely put it down to one of those negative experiences that everyone has from time to
time. It might make you somewhat unhappy for a short period but as time goes by your
happiness quotient returns to its baseline level. Just realize that the universe has not
singled you out for punishment!! Everyone you know either has had, or will have, disasters
happen. It’s how you react to them that matters. If you react in the right way your
happiness level will diminish less.

FUN TIMES

Allow time to have a little fun in your life.

The universe cannot expect you to be totally serious 100% of the time. After all the human
race has been described as a joke!
You’ve probably observed that those miserable looking individuals who have obviously
never heard of the word “Fun” are generally unhappy and depressing to be around.
Individuals who don’t add fun to their lives usually lead a fairly miserable existence.
Fun is where you briefly disregard your responsibilities and just do something for the heck
of it......... because it makes you feel good. It is a form of escape from all the problems of the
real world. It places you in another reality...... the world of make-believe where your
current problems don’t exist.
Take a trip down to the nearest kids play park and watch these youngsters genuinely
having fun. They certainly don’t have any hang-ups about it. Nothing matters to them at
that moment except enjoying themselves. Can you let yourself go like this? Try and find
yourself some fun activity where you can forget the cares of the world for a while. I
guarantee it makes you feel better, if only for a short time. What do you consider to be fun?
Think about it for a moment. Is there something frivolous that you enjoy doing? If so, what
is there to stop you from doing it? Are you worried about looking ridiculous? Well, just do
it anyway. Who cares what others think because it is your life and happiness that matters
here. Of course you may elect to do your fun activities privately so that you can’t draw any
criticism and this will probably help you to enjoy the experience more.

DREAM CONTROL

I mentioned this earlier and it is a method I use consistently to achieve long term
manifestations and increased bouts of happiness. I have covered the full process in my
Amazon Book “Beyond Belief” so I won’t go into vast detail here, but I will explain the
very simple method to program up a “happy” dream so that you wake up feeling great.
The dream program for successful manifestation is covered in the above book. The dream-
induced happy feeling is similar to the effect on subjects who have been hypnotized and
who are told that when they wake up they will feel happy and cheerful. And that is exactly
how they feel when they come out of the hypnotic trance.
The dream control produces similar results and it is quite easy to program so that you
wake up feeling happy and remain that way all day. In effect you become your own
hypnotist with little effort even though the actual process is different.

The way to proceed is as follows:

As you lie in bed at night waiting for sleep you keep repeating to yourself .... “I will have a
dream that makes me feel happy all day tomorrow.”
You repeat this over and over as long as you can. You will probably feel consciousness
slipping away and suddenly jerking back. At this point let go and fall asleep. Some people
make a cassette tape of this message and run it softly by their ear as they are falling asleep.
This is the process I use but I make sure I focus on the words as I hear them. That is, I
follow the message. You are likely to have a dream that connects you with a happy
situation such as running across long-lost friends and this impacts upon your subconscious.
It is unlikely that you will remember this dream in the morning as it may have been one of
many but the impact can certainly be felt when you wake up. During the experiments my
AUSTRALIAN MINDPOWER RESEARCH FOUNDATION carried out on this process
we discovered that approximately 50% of individuals could make it work within the first 1-
3 nights. Some individuals could not get it to work for them at all even after several weeks
of trials and this accounted for around a quarter of all the subjects who were tested.
Overall there was a round a 75% success rate. Some of the subjects experienced
spectacular results and the happy feelings lasted for days on end.
We considered this a really easy way to change a person’s happiness index and this
experiment was one of my foundation’s major successes.
After all, each and every individual has the right to personal happiness and this was
definitely a process that helped. An interesting side-effect of this process was that the
focussed concentration tends to put a person to sleep far quicker than normal. Several of
our subjects used this very same procedure to induce sleep when otherwise they might have
stayed awake. I guess it is the old fashioned equivalent to counting sheep.
So if you have trouble getting to sleep and are lying awake tossing and turning try
focussing in the above manner. The added advantage is that you are likely to wake up
feeling happier than usual.

ACCEPTANCE

Accept what you are. Show gratitude to the universe by thanking it on a daily basis. You do
this by either offering a prayer of thanks or by thanking the universe during meditation. It
helps considerably if you can briefly access the Alpha meditation state at least once a day
and reflect inwards. This relaxes the body and mind and is usually highly refreshing. If you
don’t know how to access Alpha on demand I have a neat little book that explains the
process simply. It’s called “Teach Yourself Alpha Meditation” and is available on Kindle.
When good things happen to you express gratitude to the universe in the same manner that
you would express gratitude to an individual who has just helped you. It produces good
Karma and this can do you no harm at all.

FINAL
The main cause of long-term happiness is constructive and fulfilling behaviour. Happiness
lies in the joy of achievement ..... in the thrill of creative effort. Focus on the present, not
the past or distant future. Live for the day but plan for tomorrow. Have fun because you
create your own world of happiness or misery.
THE CHOICE IS YOURS !!