August 2009 | Knowledge World

The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People by David Niven

The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People

David Niven [PhD]

This book written by David Niven is very fantastic and extraordinary. You will find this book very useful guiding you in your daily lives. The best things i felt in his book was, firstly he has mentioned & explained every secret with example in simple words. Secondly he has included a surveys & Observations by different Magazines and organisations. One more thing that for a single situation he has apparently mentioned two solutions, such that if prior solution is not possible the later solution can be applied.

I hope that you will enjoy it and learn a lot from this book and surely will have a change in your lifestyles and attitudes specially. To have the explanation of any of the secret click on it, you will be able to see its explanation.

1. Your Life Has Purpose and Meaning

2. Use a Strategy for Happiness

3. You Don't Have to Win Every Time

4. Your Goals Should Be Aligned with One Another

5. Choose Your Comparisons Wisely

6. Cultivate Friendships

7. Turn Off the TV

8. Accept Yourself—Unconditionally

9. Remember Where You Came From

10. Limit Yourself to Thinking About One Subject as You Lie Down to Sleep

11. Friendship Beats Money

12. Have Realistic Expectations

13. Be Open to New Ideas

14. Share with Others How Important They Are to You

15. If you’re Not Sure, Guess Positively

16. Believe in Yourself

17. Don't Believe in Yourself Too Much

18. Don't Face Your Problems Alone

19. Age Is Not to Be Feared

20. Develop a Household Routine

21. Don't Be Overprotective

22. Pay Attention. You May Have What You Want

23. Don't Let Your Religious Beliefs Fade

24. Do What You Say You Are Going to Do

25. Don't Be Aggressive with Your Friends and Family

26. Root for the Home Team

27. Don't Confuse Stuff with Success

28. Every Relationship Is Different

29. Don't Think "What If"

30. Volunteer

31. If You Can't Reach Your Goals, Your Goals Will Hurt You

32. Exercise

33. Little Things Have Big Meanings

34. It's Not What Happened, It's How You Think About What Happened

35. Develop Some Common Interests with Loved Ones

36. Laugh

37. Don't Let Your Entire Life Hinge on One Element

38. Share of Yourself

39. Busy Is Better Than Bored

40. Satisfaction Is Relative

41. Learn to Use a Computer

42. Try to Think Less About the People and Things That Bother You

43. Keep Your Family Close

44. Eat Some Fruit Every Day

45. Enjoy What You Have

46. Think in Concrete Terms

47. Be Socially Supportive

48. Don't Blame Yourself

49. Be a Peacemaker

50. Cherish Animals

51. Make Your Work a Calling

52. Never Trade Your Morals for Your Goals

53. Don't Pretend to Ignore Things Your Loved Ones Do That Bother You

54. Get a Good Night's Sleep

55. Buy What You Like

56. Accomplish Something Every Day

57. Be Flexible

58. Events Are Temporary

59. Be Your Own Fan

60. Join a Group

61. Be Positive

62. There Will Be an End, but You Can Be Prepared

63. How We See the World Is More Important Than How the World Is

64. Keep a Pen and Paper Handy

65. Help the Next Person Who Needs Some Minor Assistance

66. Take Care Not to Harshly Criticize Family and Friends

67. Some People Like the Big Picture, and Others Like the Details

68. Do Things You Are Good At

69. Go Visit Your Neighbor

70. Smile

71. Don't Accept Television's Picture of the World

72. You Always Have a Choice

73. Be Agreeable

74. Don't Ignore One Part of Your Life

75. Listen to Music

76. Let Your Goals Guide You

77. Use Your Job Positively

78. Don't Forget to Have Fun

79. Believe in Ultimate Justice

80. Reminisce

81. Be Conscientious

82. Don't Dwell on Unwinnable Conflicts

83. Enjoy the Ordinary

84. Focus Not on the World's Tragedies, but on the World's Hope

85. Get a Hobby

86. Envying Other People's Relationships Is Pointless

87. Give Yourself Time to Adapt to Change

88. Focus on What Really Matters to You

89. Realize that Complete Satisfaction Does Not Exist

90. Surround Yourself with Pleasant Aromas

91. Don't Let Others Set Your Goals

92. You Are a Person, Not a Stereotype

93. Know What Makes You Happy and Sad

94. Keep Reading

95. We Must Feel Needed

96. Say "So What"

97. Have a Purpose

98. You Have Not Finished the Best Part of Your Life

99. Money Does Not Buy Happiness

100. What Does It All Mean? You Decide

Javed Chaudry "Khushi" in Urdu..["Happiness"]

The Hundred Simple Secrets of Happy People [100 of 100]

100..What does it all mean? You decide.

Your future—how you feel about it, yourself, and everything else—follows from the decisions you make, the priorities you develop, and the perspective you see things through.

Great unanswered questions plague us, century after century.
Why are we here? What are we supposed to be doing? What does this all matter? Answers to these questions are so very hard to come by because the truth lies not within someone else, but within you. You have been given life, and with it you have been given the opportunity to define it. Your life's path and purpose will be drawn on a map created by you.

In a study that followed the exploits of over 100 adults for a period of two years, it was found that the effect of "good" and "bad" events quickly faded. That is, subjects' happiness was not dependent on the sum of events but on what they made of those events.

Suh, Diener, and Fujita 1996

The Hundred Simple Secrets of Happy People [99 of 100]

99..Money does not buy happiness.

We spend so much time chasing dollars, worrying about dollars, and counting dollars. It may surprise you to learn that satisfaction with life is no more likely among the rich.
Consider this for a moment: in this country, more people buy lottery tickets than vote. We all want to be rich. At least we all think we want to be rich. But lottery winners often find that instead of enjoying a lifetime of happiness because of their wealth, they face family feuds and disputes with friends. These events take away much of what the winner really valued in the first place. Ask one Illinois man who won thirteen million dollars, then weeks later received divorce papers and a demand for half the money from his wife.
There is a new movement in the U.S. called the minimalists.
These are people who have decided to live on less money. They buy less, spend less, make less, and have less stuff. They also spend less time at work and more time with their friends and family. The minimalists have made a conscious conclusion that money did not buy them what they wanted most. They don't chase after money just because most people do.
Remember, if money could buy happiness, there would be high-priced happiness stores on every block.

A study of life satisfaction looked at twenty different factors that might contribute to happiness. Nineteen of those factors did matter, and one did not. The one factor that did not matter was financial status.

Hong and Giannakopoulos 1995

The Hundred Simple Secrets of Happy People [98 of 100]

98..You have not finished the best part of your life.

We hear that youth is wasted on the young. People who say this are accepting the myth that only the young can enjoy life to the fullest. The truth is that older people do not consider their young days to be their best days; most enjoy their senior years more than any other part of their life.

Warren was a middle-aged professor. Comfortable in all respects, he anticipated that he would continue teaching for many years. The college faced a budget shortfall, however, and took the unprecedented step of eliminating a number of its academic departments, including Warren's.
For Warren, everything seemed to have been destroyed. Everything he counted on was gone, and he felt too old to start all over again. Too old to search for another college to employ
him, and too old to restart his life. Instead of giving up, Warren realized how much the world
had to offer. Instead of concluding that he had suffered a loss that could never be replaced, he chose to focus on the opportunity set before him. Never before had he had the chance to start again, to decide what he wanted to do and where he wanted to
doit.
He wound up taking a year off from the world to live in a rural town. And how did he feel at the end of the year? "I've never been better."

Researchers conducted a long-term study of northern Californians, interviewing subjects multiple times over three decades. When asked when they had been the happiest in their lives, each time eight out of ten answered "right now."

Field 1997

The Hundred Simple Secrets of Happy People [97 of 100]

97..Have a purpose.

Without a purpose nothing matters. You can work forty hours a week, come home to cook, clean, and then take up seventy-two new good habits, but if there isn't a reason you are doing it, none of these activities will mean anything to you.
© © ©
Say you're a student. Why should you study for a test? To do well in the course. Why do you care if you do well in the course? So you can get a degree. Why do you care if you get a degree?
Because it will help you get a good job. Now, the job may be years away, but it is the foundation upon which all your efforts are based. Take away the eventual outcome, and all the steps in between become just killing time. Why bother doing any of these things if they are not leading toward something you care about? It's more fun to goof off than study for the test, and if there is nothing at stake, then we goof off.
It is much easier to apply yourself to the activities you do for your family or your personal success if you define what you want and are able to see how what you are doing is leading you forward.

In research on college students, a comparison was made between students who enjoyed their lives and studies and students who were least comfortable with their environment. A major difference between the two groups was a sense of underlying purpose in life, which almost twice as many of the former group had.
Rahman and Khaleque 1996

The Hundred Simple Secrets of Happy People [96 of 100]

96..Say "so what."

A classmate at your high school reunion is richer, prettier, smarter, than everybody else. Does it matter? No. Your life is shaped more by your everyday relationships than by the lives of acquaintances you see only rarely.
Two friends from high school, Ken and Alan, went off to college and on to separate careers. Alan became a social worker, helping distressed families. Ken became a computer consultant, founded his own company, and became super-rich.
Alan loved his job and felt great about the impact he was able to make on the families he worked with. But with Ken in the news—newspapers covering his company's success and his growing fortune—Alan began to question his choices.
How could someone he know be so rich while he lived such a modest life? Why didn't he have Ken's success?
The truth is, Alan didn't want Ken's success. He was never interested in dedicating his life to a corporation, and he didn't spend his days dreaming of riches. He wanted to help people, and he was helping people. His jealousy of Ken's life faded away as he looked at the smiling faces of the children he helped every day.
Sometimes we look at what other people have and we want that instead of thinking about what really and truly motivates us, what we really and truly want and need. Don't take someone else's accomplishment as evidence that you are doing anything wrong.

Satisfaction with life was found to be related to experiences with family and friends—those with regular participation in one's life—and to be unrelated to those with whom contact is brief or irregular.
Hong and Duff 1997

The Hundred Simple Secrets of Happy People [95 of 100]

95..We must feel needed.

Think of those who rely on your friendship, caring, guidance, help. You probably don't realize how important you are to the people in your life.
The Labor Department has done a study on older workers to find out what keeps them coming to work and what encourages them to retire. One of the most often cited reasons for stopping work is not that they are tired or want to spend more time in their garden. What often sends older folks into retirement is the feeling that they are no longer needed on the job. Workers retired when they felt that their purpose was in doubt, that others could do what they could do better, and that they were only taking up space. They left because they were no longer needed.
Think about what this means for our personal lives. Even though we can't retire from our personal lives, we still need to feel needed. Remember how much other people matter to you, and realize that you matter to them just as much.

In an experimenfal research program, a relationship was found between happiness and helping behavior. By helping others, we create positive bonds with people and enhance our self image. Those who had more opportunities to offer help felt 11 percent better about themselves.

Pegalis 1994

The Hundred Simple Secrets of Happy People [94 of 100]

94..Keep reading.

Those who read books benefit from what they learn and the entertainment they receive. But in addition, they get to exercise their brain, and when we do that, we feel satisfied that we are spending our time wisely.

Which would you choose to be, a person with an everdecreasing attention span, or a person with an ever-increasing attention span? A person with access to the second- and thirdrate work that would have been considered trash two decades ago, or a person with access to the work of the greatest minds we have ever known? A person with access to a perpetual run of the same basic story with the same basic characters, or a person with access to an array of choices that span nearly an infinite imagination? A person who likely won't be able to remember a story ten minutes later, or a person who might carry a tale for the rest of his or her life?
Which would you rather be, a person who usually spends his or her free time in front of the television, or a person who usually spends his or her free time reading?

Reading engages the mind. Reading materials, by exercising our memory and imagination, can contribute to happiness in ways similar to active positive thinking. Regular readers are about 8 percent more likely to express daily satisfaction.

Scope 1999

The Hundred Simple Secrets of Happy People [93 of 100]

93..Know what makes you happy and sad.

People feel worse if they are unhappy but have no idea why. Think about your feelings and emotions. Then, even when you are unhappy, you will take comfort in knowing the cause and how it can be changed.

Professor John Hamler teaches a course on scientific thinking. He demystifies science on the first day of the class with the first words he says: "All science is noticing patterns."
He explains to his students that scientists see the world in a very orderly way. They look for what goes with what. Events and conditions are not random; they have causes and effect.
"Science is noticing patterns, great and small. What happens when you throw a rock up in the air? It comes back down every time. That is a pattern; that is the essence of science."
The difference between most people and scientists, Professor Hamler explains, "is that people let the world be random to them. They allow events to pass without connecting them to other events. Whatever happens, it just happens, there's nothing else to it. Scientists everywhere, all the time, see connections because they are looking for connections."

In dealing with our own emotions and life satisfaction, we need to be scientists. We need to notice patterns. Those who let themselves exist in the midst of random events not only don't
understand what is happening to them, they also can't do anything to change their world.
Those who are least likely to quickly overcome a temporary sense of dissatisfaction with life are those who cannot define the sources of their feelings.

Ramanaiah and Detwiler 1997

The Hundred Simple Secrets of Happy People [92 of 100]

92..You are a person, not a stereotype.

People are happiest when they allow their individual personality to come out, not when they conform to popular images. Men who believe they must act tough and women who believe they must act soft are boxed in to a set of expectations that have nothing to do with who they are.
Look around at a funeral, and you will see women crying and men standing with steely faces. Men have been taught to be tough, not to reveal their emotions. Women have been taught to be more open, more expressive. The National Institutes of Health has documented that with both physical and emotional pain, men are much less likely than women to reveal their discomfort. It is important to remember, though, that not all of us fit those expectations.
A man who wants to cry at a funeral but stops himself because he's been taught to be tough is not really being tough. He's pretending to be what he thinks people expect of him. A woman who forces herself to open up in front of others but who would rather act more reserved is not a nicer person for showing her emotions and will not be happier for having to act in a way that is unnatural to her.
You have to act the way you think is appropriate, not the way you think the average man or woman is supposed to act. Our generalizations about men and women are often false and too often damaging.

Satisfaction with life was not found to be connected to how well men and women fit into gender stereotypes of femininity and masculinity.

Ramanaiah, Detwiler, and Byravan 1995

The Hundred Simple Secrets of Happy People [91 of 100]

91..Don't let others set your goals.

Too many people choose goals based on what others think. Instead, think about what you really care about, and set meaningful goals to accomplish what matters to you.
Gary left the military after twenty years of service as a marine pilot. His military friends were surprised that he would leave with the possibility of promotion dangling in front of him. How could he do this? What was wrong with him? His friends didn't quite say this to him, but that is what they wanted to know.
Gary had an answer. "Holding the highest rank has never been my dream," he said. "It might be your dream, and that's fine, but it isn't mine."
Gary's dream was to serve his country by serving children. He offered his services to the local school district, and in a matter of a few years was asked to run a new and rigorous high school academic program. Learning, according to Gary, is a lot like flying.
"You have your hands on the controls, you have the power to excel. It's all within your hands." Teaching is, for him, a dream come true, a dream that could never have come true if Gary had worried about what other people thought he should do.

People do not have to succeed in absolutely everything they do to feel happy. But, people do have to believe they have maintained control over their own life. In fact, those who feel that
they were responsible for their own position and decisions express one-third more life satisfaction than those who do not.

Kean, Van Zandt, and Miller 1996

The Hundred Simple Secrets of Happy People [90 of 100]

90..Surround yourself with pleasant aromas.

Here's a simple way to make yourself feel better. Air out your house, and add some fragrant flowers. Make your home smell nice, and you will feel the effects.
Five hundred years ago, soldiers in Europe used goodsmelling spices to distract the injured from their pain. Today, doctors are experimenting with aromatherapy in the hospital,
using good smells to comfort those in postoperative recovery.
Bad smells are crafty characters. They get in our lives, and they never leave. If you live with them long enough, you can't even notice them, because they've been around too long. An old
musty carpet or some other source of odor is really an attack on our senses. Not noticing the smell is not the same as the smell not being there. We've just surrendered our sense of smell and
our brain, unwilling to continue processing something so unpleasant.
Good smells, on the other hand, as soldiers knew in the fifteenth century, and doctors are rediscovering today, awaken the senses and the brain and at a subconscious level remind us of
good things.

Our senses operate all the time, offering us important signals about our environment. Pleasant smells evoke surprise and happiness for more than eight out of ten individuals, while unpleasant odors trigger disgust and unhappy reactions.

Alaoui-Ismaieli, Robin, Rada, Dittmar, and Vernet-Maury 1997

The Hundred Simple Secrets of Happy People [89 of 100]

89..Realize that complete satisfaction does not exist.

Set your sights on being generally satisfied and generally happy, not on expecting every aspect of life to be perfect. Complete satisfaction does not exist because everything can be improved upon. Those who accept this can appreciate what they have. Those who do not accept this can never appreciate what they have even as their circumstances improve. Strive to improve. Don't try to be perfect.
"Golf," according to Mark Twain, "is a good walk spoiled." Golf is perhaps the most frustrating of all games. It seems so simple. A white ball—stationary, for goodness' sake! You swing a club, the ball flies, you walk to the ball, and you do it again.
The problem with hitting a golf ball is that because it requires an almost infinite series of body contortions, club movements, and angles, it always results in a less than perfect shot.
If you listen to people who play golf for fun, you will hear them say, "Just let me get one birdie. Just one birdie, and I will be happy." A birdie is the score you get when you hit the ball in the hole in one less shot than it would take the average professional to do it. And do you know what happens when they get that first birdie? They say, "Just one more birdie." Every improvement in their game is inexorably followed by the demand for further improvement.
Golf equipment makers know that players are so desperate they will try to buy their way to improvement. As one manufacturer explained, "You'll never run out of things to sell a golfer. Golfers would buy a swing if they could, especially if it would let them hit the ball straight and toward the target every time."
But they can never, ever reach perfection. That's right, even professional golfers spend their entire careers hitting less than perfect shots.

Those who believe they will fail to achieve their goals are unhappy, but so too are those who believe they will exactly meet their goals. Those who are happiest believe they will meet some of their goals and will receive satisfaction from multiple aspects of their lives.

Chen 1996

The Hundred Simple Secrets of Happy People [88 of 100]

88..Focus on what really matters to you.

There is no point in competing in a game that you do not really care to win. Don't allow your life and expectations to become anything but deeply personal reflections of what matters the most to you.
The 1999 winner of the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest was accused of cheating. They say he started to eat his first hot dog before the twelve-minute time limit began. When time was up, he had consumed twenty and one-quarter hot dogs, while the second place finisher had eaten twenty. The matter is of great importance to the top two finishers. Each desperately wants to be the hot dog eating champion.
Would you enter a hot dog eating contest, which requires you to prepare by regularly eating unhealthy amounts of food in a short period of time? Probably not, because your hot dog eating abilities are not something you really pride yourself on, not something that really matters to you.
Yet many of us are constantly in competitions where we don't really want the prize. We find someone to be in a secret economic competition with—a friend, a neighbor, a loved one.
We size up their home, their car, their lifestyle and try to do them one better. But our life is not changed for the better if the engine falls out of their car or if they suddenly have to cancel a vacation because of finances. Others look around at work for a rival and measure their relative progress against the other person.
But is this really your goal? Were you born into this world to get promoted before one of your co-workers? Were you born into this world to get a better car than your neighbors? Let your real goals guide you, not meaningless competitions you don't really benefit by winning.

Goals are crucial to one's orientation to the world and to life satisfaction. If one's goals conform to one's self-concept, it increases by 43 percent the likelihood that goals will contribute in a positive fashion to life satisfaction.

Emmons and Kaiser 1996

The Hundred Simple Secrets of Happy People [87 of 100]

87..Give yourseif time to adapt to change.

Don't expect to be immediately comfortable after a move or in a new situation. Give yourself time to adjust. If you learn how to ease yourself into new circumstances, changes you make in the future will be easier for you.

Jill is a respected veteran teacher, having taught eighthgraders for over twenty years. Teachers have a unique job in that each year they begin again and are surrounded by an entirely new cast of characters. Even though Jill was experienced and loved teaching, every year she had the same ritual the night before the first day of school. She tossed and turned, worried and wondered, and barely slept at all.
Jill acknowledges the human instinct to be uncomfortable with change and lets herself be nervous about meeting twentyfive new faces that first day. Soon, though, she takes comfort in
the familiar aspects that remain constant, and she recharges with the notion that she is about to embark on a new adventure, unlike any she has taken before.

In a study of newly married couples, those couples who acknowledged the difficulties of their new situation were 1.5 times more comfortable with each other, and with marriage, than those who tried to conceal the difficulty of dealing with change.

Monteiro 1991

The Hundred Simple Secrets of Happy People [86 0f 100]

86..Envying other people's relationships is pointless.

People with many friends sometimes yearn for a closer family, and people with a close family sometimes yearn for more friends. The key to continued satisfaction with life is not in replicating what someone else has. Instead, build a support system that you draw from and give to, regardless of whether it is made up primarily of friends or family.
A group of philosophers and historians gathered a few years back to study the advantages of family life two centuries ago. They were concerned about the instability in our current family situations and the widespread fear that our society is suffering from the lack of traditional family relationships. The academics wondered if the agrarian family unit—a stable mother-father bond and a large group of siblings—was really ideal for humans and if any of the lessons from yesteryear could be applied today.
Here's what they concluded: today we envy the traditional family for its cohesion and stability, while two hundred years ago members of the traditional family often felt that their individuality was overwhelmed by their family unit—that they were not really a full person, just a cog in the family machine.
The irony of this situation was not lost on the researchers.
Today many of us yearn for more contact with our family, while two hundred years ago people had so much contact with their families that they became sick of one another. The best hope is to enjoy the relationships you have, neither forcing them to meet some artificial standard nor holding them up for comparison with anyone else's life and loves.

In research on over 8,000 adults, researchers considered over 100 factors that contribute to happiness. Among the factors that had a major negative effect was the use of comparisons that implied personal failures in relationships, which reduced happiness by 26 percent.

Li, Young, Wei, Zhang, Zheng, Xiao, Wang, and Chen 1998

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