What To Do About Change You Don’t Want, And Can’t Control

I thought you might be interested in the latest post over at Get Organized Wizard. Lately I’ve been thinking about change. I’ve observed friends, and felt for myself, the difficulty of navigating through changes that we don’t want, but have no control over – whether it’s a job redundancy, end of a relationship, or some… Continue reading What To Do About Change You Don’t Want, And Can’t Control

Happiness Life Strategy: How to be happy while waiting for the bus

‘How long till the bus gets here?’ ‘Should I walk instead?’ ‘Maybe it’s just around the corner and then I’ll miss it.’ ‘But if it’s not around the corner then how long till it gets here?’ If such Shakespearean dilemmas plaque your daily commute, you’ll be relieved to know there’s now a definitive, mathematically sanctioned… Continue reading Happiness Life Strategy: How to be happy while waiting for the bus

Happiness Life Strategy: Know your personality

No matter what your personality make-up, you can make choices that bring you greater happiness. You just have to understand the pros and cons of your personality traits. In Happiness Strategy 12: Make peace with your personality we learned the ‘Big-Five’ dimensions of personality are extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness and neuroticism and we saw that… Continue reading Happiness Life Strategy: Know your personality

Happiness Life Strategy: Enjoy your stories, make friends & influence people

Relationships are important to happiness, so nurturing your social skills would seem a pretty wise happiness strategy. Now, is that something you can get from a book? Well, yes and no – it depends on the book. It may surprise you that research shows people panache is more polished in readers of Pride and Prejudice… Continue reading Happiness Life Strategy: Enjoy your stories, make friends & influence people

Happiness Life Strategy: Enjoy (a little) chocolate, guilt free!

Are your chocolate indulgences tarnished by fears of cholesterol, cavities, pimples and fat? Well fret no more, chocoholic chums – a recent SparkPeople article has set about busting these and other chocolate-coated myths. Now before you install chocolate at the base of your personal food pyramid, take note: the quantities you can savor before the… Continue reading Happiness Life Strategy: Enjoy (a little) chocolate, guilt free!

Happiness Life Strategy: Self-reflection each day keeps the flu bugs away

A new study, reported last month in the media and about to appear in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, looked at the way our bodies produce antibodies in response to infection. (Flu vaccines were used as a proxy for pathogens because the body’s response is similar for the purposes of the study.) Not everybody… Continue reading Happiness Life Strategy: Self-reflection each day keeps the flu bugs away

Valentine’s Day Happiness Strategies – #3. For everyone

When ‘they’ won’t change – what should you do? You can’t change someone else. And pressuring them to change tends to make them dig their heels in further. We all have a bit of that rebellious child still in us. But there’s one person you can change – you. And because relationships are mini systems,… Continue reading Valentine’s Day Happiness Strategies – #3. For everyone

Valentine’s Day Happiness Strategies – #2. For couples

When you’ve forgotten what you ever saw in them – what should you do? The things we find attractive or endearing at first – Cuthbert’s slight arrogance,  Mavis’s raucous laugh – can come to annoy the bejesus out of us over time. They haven’t necessarily changed, we’ve zeroed in on minor irritations – sometimes at… Continue reading Valentine’s Day Happiness Strategies – #2. For couples

Valentine’s Day Happiness Strategies – #1. For singles

  As Thursday is Valentine’s Day, this week we turn to some relationship-themed happiness strategies.   Today – a happiness strategy for singles looking for love: When you’re waiting for Prince/Princess Charming to come along and make you happy – what should you do? Tomorrow -  a happiness strategy for couples: When you’ve forgotten what… Continue reading Valentine’s Day Happiness Strategies – #1. For singles

Happiness, New York style

In the New York magazine article Happiness: A User’s Manual, Ben Mathis-Lilley takes a bunch of happiness research findings and translates them into 20 useful tips for New Yorkers. The result is fun, and a cute reminder of those findings about happiness – some of which may be familiar to Happiness Strategies readers via 101… Continue reading Happiness, New York style