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A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want
Penguin Press
January 2008
On Sale: December 27, 2007
384 pages ISBN: 159420148X EAN: 9781594201486 Hardcover
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Self-Help
You can change your personal capacity for happiness.
Research psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky's pioneering concept
of the 40% solution shows you how
Drawing on
her own groundbreaking research with thousands of men and
women, research psychologist and University of California
professor of psychology Sonja Lyubomirsky has pioneered a
detailed yet easy-to-follow plan to increase happiness in
our day-to-day lives-in the short term and over the long
term. The How of Happiness is a different kind of
happiness book, one that offers a comprehensive guide to
understanding what happiness is, and isn't, and what can be
done to bring us all closer to the happy life we envision
for ourselves. Using more than a dozen uniquely formulated
happiness-increasing strategies, The How of Happiness
offers a new and potentially life-changing way to understand
our innate potential for joy and happiness as well as our
ability to sustain it in our lives.
Beginning
with a short diagnostic quiz that helps readers to first
quantify and then to understand what she describes as their
"happiness set point," Lyubomirsky reveals that this set
point determines just 50 percent of happiness while a mere
10 percent can be attributed to differences in life
circumstances or situations. This leaves a startling, and
startlingly underdeveloped, 40 percent of our capacity for
happiness within our power to change.
Lyubomirsky's "happiness strategies" introduce readers to
the concept of intentional activities, mindful actions that
they can use to achieve a happier life. These include
exercises in practicing optimism when imagining the future,
instruction in how best to savor life's pleasures in the
here and now, and a thoroughgoing explanation of the
importance of staying active to being happy. Helping readers
find the right fit between the goals they set and the
activities she suggests, Lyubomirsky also helps readers
understand the many obstacles to happiness as well as how to
harness individual strengths to overcome them. Always
emphasizing how much of our happiness is within our control,
Lyubomirsky addresses the "scientific how" of her happiness
research, demystifying the many myths that unnecessarily
complicate its pursuit. Unlike those of many self-help
books, all her recommendations are supported by scientific
research.
The How of Happiness is both a
powerful contribution to the field of positive psychology
and a gift to all those who have questioned their own
well-being and sought to take their happiness into their own
hands.
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