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| Happy for No Reason: 7 Steps to Being Happy from the Inside Out | 
 enlarge | Author: Marci Shimoff
Creator: Carol Kline
Publisher: Free Press
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $5.79
You Save: $19.16 (77%)
New (41) Used (22) from $5.79
Avg. Customer Rating:  175 reviews
Sales Rank: 646
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.4
ISBN: 141654772X
Dewey Decimal Number: 158
EAN: 9781416547723
ASIN: 141654772X
Publication Date: January 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
What would it take to make you happy? A fulfilling career, a big bank account, or the perfect mate? What if it didn't take anything to make you happy? What if you could experience happiness from the inside out -- no matter what's going on in your life?In Happy for No Reason: 7 Steps to Being Happy from the Inside Out, transformational expert Marci Shimoff offers a breakthrough approach to being happy, one that doesn't depend on achievements, goals, money, relationships, or anything else "out there." Most books on happiness tell you to find the things that make you happy and do more of them. Although there's nothing wrong with that, it won't bring you the kind of deep and lasting happiness most people long for -- the kind you'll never lose, no matter what happens in your life. Based on cutting-edge research and knowledge from the world's leading experts in the fields of positive psychology and neurophysiology, plus interviews with 100 truly happy people, this life-changing book provides a powerful, proven 7-step program that will enable you to be happier right now -- no matter where you start. Studies show that each of us has a "happiness setpoint" -- a fixed range of happiness we tend to return to throughout our life -- that's approximately 50 percent genetic and 50 percent learned. In the same way you'd crank up the thermostat to get comfortable on a chilly day, you can actually raise your happiness set-point! The holistic 7-step program at the heart of Happy for No Reason encompasses Happiness Habits for all areas of life: personal power, mind, heart, body, soul, purpose, and relationships. In these pages you'll discover moving and remarkable first-person stories of people who have applied these steps to their own lives and have become Happy for No Reason. You'll read phenomenal tales from a former drug dealer turned minister, a hit filmmaker, and a famous actress who escaped a "family curse," as well as stories from doctors, mothers, teachers, and business executives. You'll learn practical strategies that will help you experience happiness from the inside out. You don't have to have happy genes, win the lottery, or lose twenty pounds. By the time you finish this book, you will know how to experience sustained happiness for the rest of your life.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 170 more reviews...
 Many reasons to read this book December 29, 2007
202 out of 247 found this review helpful
When I first saw the title, "Happy for No Reason," I'll have to admit that my initial reaction was that this would be just one more new age, touch-feely, full-of-fluff feel-good book. So I was very pleasantly surprised to see how thoroughly-researched, well-written, and down-to-earth practical this book is. "Happy for No Reason" is a groundbreaking philosophy that belongs in the same category as the work of David Burns (cognitive mood therapy), Martin Seligman (learned optimism), Daniel Goleman (emotional intelligence) and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (flow). It is a brilliant blend of scientific research summarized in language that anyone can understand plus stories from people Marci calls the Happy 100, people who are role models of happiness for the sake of happiness, not because of love or money or other exogenous factors.
I was so impressed with this book that I gave copies to each of my children as Christmas gifts this year. I'm hoping they will read it with a pen or highlighter in hand, which is what I found myself doing - and would recommend to you as well. It's easy to be unhappy, which might be why so many people are. Watch TV for an hour and you'll have a hundred reasons to not be happy; it's nice to know that you can choose to be happy for no reason at all.
I was surprised by the book... January 8, 2008
119 out of 156 found this review helpful
I thought it would be namby-pamby or filled with fluff until I read this paragraph in the introduction:
"My first major discovery was that scientists have found that we each have a `happiness set-point,' the genetic and learned tendency to remain at a certain level of happiness, similar to a thermostat setting on a furnace. Fortunately for those of us not born on the sunny side of the street, it's been shown that we can change our happiness set-points. I'll discuss this more in the next chapter and offer you specific exercises throughout the book to raise your happiness set-point."
As I read the book I was surprised at most every turn. I was delighted that she included Mark McKergow's Solution Focus Technique--a longtime favorite of mine that keeps you focused on what's working in your life instead of on what's not working.
...And that she actually tells how to do one of Chunyi Lin's Spring Forest Qigong techniques that energizes the body and literally brings you feelings of happiness and joy.
Part of her process in studying happiness was to interview 100 truly happy people. Another surprise was finding a link where I could actually listen to highlights of the interviews online.
So...I'd get the book.
 A Pleasant Surprise. February 14, 2008
61 out of 64 found this review helpful
This is a well written, researched, & practical book without the flowery new age fluff you find in so many self-help books. This promotes self-improvement, not ego gratification. The author calls the Happy one hundred, people who are role models of happiness for the sake of being so. Not because of love of material things, money, status, or other external factors. Her interviews illustrate that these folks had to "work & create their own well being."
Common sense things like discipline, focus, & a positive attitude are obviously required if an individual wants to be happier. For me, "Pillars of the Mind: Don't Believe Everything You Think" was the most informative. She gives plenty of stories & examples to help raise the readers skill in coping with ones negative thinking. All in all a quick & helpful read.
Cheers from one of the "Happy 100" January 2, 2008
55 out of 91 found this review helpful
I love my life! I hope you love yours, too, and that you can say you are a truly happy person. If you'd like a little help in this area, you must immediately purchase Marci Shimoff's new book, "Happy For No Reason". You may know Marci as the #1 New York Times bestselling author of six of the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" books, including "Chicken Soup for the Women's Soul". She has written a marvelously illuminating book on how to maximize your happiness every day--whether you have "reasons" to be happy or not.
In order to learn and teach others how to "follow their bliss," Marci searched and found many happy people to interview for her book. I am honored to be one of her "Happy 100" and to have a story of mine included in her book. It's a previously untold story of my recovery of balance and perspective after my beautiful wedding was canceled just three weeks before the wedding day. My fiance came home and said, "I can't go through with it" and in shock and despair, I...well, you'll have to read the book to get the whole story.
There are 22 stories from her "Happy 100" and they are all moving tales of how people learned to cherish their lives and live in a state of blissful gratitude every day. The stories are fascinating: the experience that made a man shed 100-plus pounds in one year, the woman who escaped from Saddam Hussein only to be abused by her new husband and had to escape again, the woman whose accidental blindness led her to fulfilling life's work. Marci also fills the book with the latest scientific research on happiness (psychology has always studied dysfunction--now it's studying happiness. A good move, don't you think?) Her illustrations are wonderful, and each chapter concludes with points to remember and exercises that have been proven to increase your "happiness set-point." I'm doing a lot of them myself already...Yeah, I'm happy already, but where happiness is concerned, too much is not even enough!
The Happiness continuum can take you up the scale from Unhappy, past Happy for Bad Reason, to Happy for Good Reason, and finally, to being happy in the core of your being regardless of circumstance--Happy for No Reason. This is true happiness--a neurophysiological state of peace and well-being that isn't dependent on external circumstances. As Marci says, "When you're Happy for No Reason, you bring happiness to your outer experiences rather than trying to extract happiness from them...you live from happiness, rather than for happiness."
We'd be happy for you to join us! Be sure to post your successes here so we'll know when the "Happy 100" becomes the "Happy 1000" and then the "Happy 1,000,000"...
Cheers and Happy New Year!
Chellie Campbell, Author
The Wealthy Spirit: Daily Affirmations for Financial Stress Reduction and
Zero to Zillionaire
excellent January 16, 2008
48 out of 58 found this review helpful
The best thing about this book is that it's so practical. All of the techniques are excellent and I'm confident that they're going to work for me. It's also important that the book emphasises that happiness doesn't come from external things - it's something that we have control over, no matter what our circumstances are. In a world where everyone seems to assume that happiness is about success and wealth this is very important. I can't help feeling though that in some ways the book is slightly superficial. I think it needs to blended with a deeper spiritual approach, the kind described by Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now or by Steve Taylor in The Fall. The Fall The Fall: The Evidence for a Golden Age, 6,000 years of Insanity and the Dawning of a New Era is excellent, as it shows why happiness sometimes seems difficult for us to find, and makes it clear that we need to change ourselves inside - through spiritual practices like meditation - to find it.
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