Destination Happiness: 12 Simple Principles that will Change Your Life: Change your habits, change your life, #3

DESTINATION HAPPINESS. Copyright © 2017 by Marc Reklau

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Disclaimer

This book is designed to provide information and motivation to our readers. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged to render any type of psychological, legal, or any other kind of professional advice. The instructions and advice in this book are not intended as a substitute for counseling. The content of each chapter is the sole expression and opinion of its author. No warranties or guarantees are expressed or implied by the author’s and publisher’s choice to include any of the content in this volume. Neither the publisher nor the individual author shall be liable for any physical, psychological, emotional, financial, or commercial damages, including, but not limited to, special, incidental, consequential or other damages. Our views and rights are the same:

You must test everything for yourself according to your own situation talents and aspirations

You are responsible for your own decisions, choices, actions, and results.

Marc Reklau

Visit my website at www.marcreklau.com

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1- The Basics

Applying the science

Believing that change is possible

The Power of One

Which factors influence our happiness

Accepting our emotions

Making ‘Happiness’ the ultimate goal

2 - The Power of Belief

Beliefs create reality

Creating a positive situation

Believe in yourself

Changing your performance by changing your beliefs

Being an optimist helps

The 3 keys to success

3 -The Power of Focus

Health benefits

Why aren’t we all optimists?

The Power of Gratitude

Focus on the positive

Are some people just lucky?

Train your brain to focus on the positive

4 - The Power of Choice

Choose your thoughts

Choose your emotions

Choose to take responsibility for your life

More choices...

Do you have to or do you choose to?

Stop these toxic habits

Take control

Feeling in control is good for your health

5 - Change is Possible

Face your fears and do it anyway

Be the change

Step out of the comfort zone

How does change work? The Power of Habit.

Why is change so difficult?

Changing emotions

Changing behavior

Self-discipline is overrated

How to create habits?

6 - The Power of Goal-setting

Why set goals?

Goals and focusing on the present

Learn to enjoy the progress

Write down your goals

Examine your values

Find your purpose

Find your purpose at the workplace

7 - The Ugly Twins - Perfectionism and Failure

Learn to fail or fail to learn

The characteristics of perfectionism

The consequences of perfectionism

The sources of perfectionism

How to overcome perfectionism

Can we help other people to overcome perfectionism?

How to deal with perfectionism

8 - Overcoming the Silent Killer

Overcoming stress

Stop multitasking!

Procrastination

9 - Raising Your Self-esteem

Definitions of self-esteem

The benefits of self-esteem

Critics

How to cultivate self-esteem

The Importance of independent self-esteem

How to enhance your self-esteem

10. Habits to Boost Your Self-esteem

Stop being so hard on yourself

Raise your standards

Self-love is #1

Live your own life

Become a receiver

Invest in yourself

Be authentic

Honor past achievements

Listen to great music (Yes, it’s important)!

Celebrate your wins!

Have a highlight every day

Pamper yourself

Forgive everyone

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11. The #1 Predictor of Happiness: Relationships

Know yourself

How can we create relationships that thrive?

How do we sustain love?

The importance of asking the right questions and open communication

Relationships at work

12. The Power of the Mind-body Connection

The Magic of physical exercise

The Power Meditation

Mindfulness: be here now

Breath right and conquer

The importance of Sleep

The importance of Touch

Smile like your life depends on it

13 - What now?

About the Author

Acknowledgements:

Thanks to Natalia Montolio, my partner in life and business, for her constant support, and for brightening my days with her smiles and always-cheerful mood.

Thanks to my family; my mother, Heidi; grandmother, Hilde; my uncle Dieter; and my cousin, Alex and his wife Yvonne (our joint vacations in the beautiful city of Naples, Florida, always inspire me).

Olaf, Paola, Sophie and Adrian for you hospitality in FTL. It’s always a pleasure to visit.

My friends Claudio, Christian, Pol, Inma, Oscar and all the new people who came into my life in this amazing last two years.

Stefan Ludwig, my mentor and sounding board for over 15 years.

Big shout out to Jaime Avargues, the first publisher who discovered my first book, ‘30 DAYS’, took a chance and bought the Spanish rights for Latin America even before the book became a bestseller.

Pilar Zaragoza de Pedro, who had the brilliant idea to write a book together, which led to the birth of our own publishing label.

Pilar Cortés García-Moreno, my editor from Planeta. Thank you for believing in me and this new book, and for making my dream of being published by a major publisher come true. It was a long road full of rejections until we met. I’m indeed deeply grateful.

I also want to thank David H. Morgan for his valuable inputs and feedback over the years.

Dr. Steve Mallon, Carlos Moreno Gonzalez, and Lisa Williams for giving me the chance to teach happiness at the Geneva Business school. Also, thanks to Paloma Garcia from GBS and my fabulous bachelor students.

Thank you to my German teacher from high school, Mrs. Gabriele Krohm for believing in me, while your colleague Mr. Scheuthle strongly advised me to not major in German and take Biology instead. Also, thank you to you Mr. Scheuthle for your honesty.

Thank you Angel Miro for applying the Pygmalion Effect with me and making me a better student.

Thanks to everybody who continuously supported me and for believed in me when not a lot of people did.

I also want to thank the people I parted ways with. You were very important to me at one point of time. Things just didn’t work out. I appreciate your presence in my life once, and wish you all the best.

But above all, thank you to the following people whose work has had a huge influence on my own work in the last few years, and which, in a lot of ways, made this book possible.

Thanks to Martin Seligman for starting a revolution in Psychology and changing the questions.

To Tal Ben Shahar, for teaching the Happiness Class at Harvard University and opening doors for hundreds (or even thousands) of other teachers teaching the subject all over the world.

Shawn Achor, for translating the fantastic studies from the field of Positive Psychology into everyday language that we all can understand.

A huge thank you also goes out to the researchers of the hundreds of studies that provide us with fantastic insights about the power of our mind

And last, but not the least, a HUGE thank you to you, dear readers. Without YOU, this book wouldn't exist. Your e-mails and comments encourage me to continue writing and give me strength in moments of doubts and darkness.

Thank you!

Introduction

I’ve believed in all the things that I’ve written about since I was 16 years old. When I started getting into self-help and personal development, most of the things that were taught like Your Beliefs create your reality or You attract what you concentrate on were mere philosophical concepts that you could believe, or not. There was no scientific basis for it.

However, I still believed.

When I found the science that supports most of the concepts that are introduced in my first book 30 Days– Change your habits, change your life I became immensely happy, because I knew that thanks to science, I can now even convince the skeptics, at least most of them.

I felt like I was given a superpower, because now – apart from showing that the exercises work by doing them – we have science as proof. This, hopefully, will motivate more people to give it a shot. We are quickly running out of the excuses that keep us from doing them.

While 30 Days is primarily a practical book, this book looks more at the scientific side of happiness and the huge impact it has on our life and our potential – at home as well as at work.

The book stems from the classes I taught at the Barcelona Campus of Geneva Business School, which was in most parts, based on my book 30 Days– Change your habits, change your life and the works of Martin Seligman, Tal Ben Shahar, and Shawn Achor among others. These three men made hundreds of studies in the field of Positive Psychology accessible by translating them into a language that everybody could easily understand.

The fact that Tal Ben Shahar taught the Happiness-class (Positive Psychology) at Harvard University – which went on to become the most-demanded class at Harvard with over 1,400 students – helped me and hundreds (or even thousands) of other teachers to make this subject an integral part in universities, business schools, and even workplaces– something quite unthinkable till a little over a decade ago.

Why teach happiness at Harvard?, one may ask. Well, in 2004, the Harvard Crimson Poll found out that 4 in 5 Harvard students suffer from depression at least once during the school year, and nearly half of all students suffer from continuous depression so debilitating that they can’t function. Fast-forward to a couple of years later, these numbers were confirmed by a nationwide study of universities in the U.S.

This book looks at the base question of all questions: How can I become happier?

You will learn how to cultivate the habits and mindset that have been scientifically proven to fuel greater success and fulfillment.

The original formula that my generation and the ones before were taught was the following:

Study hard, get a job, work hard, become successful, and once you are successful, you will be happy. So tell me, my friend, how did that work out for you? For me, it didn’t, and when we look around us, we have to admit that this formula obviously doesn’t work for most of us.

After more than a decade of research in the fields of Positive Psychology and neuroscience, today we can say that it’s actually the other way round: We become more successful when we are happier and optimistic.

Another false concept we were taught was that reaching certain goals fuel happiness. That once when we have the perfect body; once we have a great job; a promotion; a new car; a great house in the most-affluent locality in town; once we have the fattest bank balance; and the worst – once we find the perfect partner – then, we will be happy.

But did that work for you? Well, I have good news for you– this too was proven wrong, but worry not, as science also gives the solution of how to find real happiness.

Once again it’s not about the information and theory of how to live a happier life.

I want you to use the scientific basis as an additional motivation to apply the material and do the exercises.

But first... why happiness?

Nobody ever teaches us how to find meaning and happiness, and that’s why there’s lots of trouble in Happiness-Land:

Divorce rates are at 50-60%, and that doesn’t mean that the other 40-50% of marriages are just peachy. Because it doesn’t include the number of marriages that are intact due to habit, a sense of duty, or due to the fear of change.

Depression rates are ten times higher than it was in the 1960s, and the average onset age of the first depression has dropped from 29.5 years to 14.5 years!

Suicide rates are rising.

Turn on the news and all you see is corruption, murder, terrorism, accidents, war, and abuse. What’s worse is that this constant focus on the negative tricks our brain into believing that reality actually looks like this – that most part of life is negative.

Unfortunately, looking at traditional Psychology as late as in the year 1998, the ratio didn't look much better. For every one study on happiness, there were 17 studies on depression and disorder.

And then – thank god – came Martin Seligman, the President of the American Psychological Association, who officially launched the field of Positive Psychology, or the scientific study of optimal human functioning, in 1998.

Seligman concluded that instead of studying what’s broken, we have to study what works. We have to look at what makes some people thrive and succeed even in the most difficult of circumstances. What are successful people doing differently from the others?

We have to focus on what works by looking at the questions we ask because what we focus on creates our reality. So we better start focusing on and cultivating the positive.

And that changed everything...

Being happy is much more than the absence of sadness. Today, thanks to over 200 studies on 275,000 people worldwide, we know that happiness leads to success in nearly every domain of our lives. Being happy improves our health, our marriage, our friendships, our social life, and especially our jobs, careers, and businesses.

It starts with making changes within ourselves. Later on, we can bring the benefits of happiness to our complete environment, such as in our teams, our organizations, and in everyone around us.

The examples and studies shown in this book will bring you proof that happiness and optimism enhance your performance and achievement, providing you with the competitive edge.

Martin Seligman, for example, found out that optimistic salespeople sell a whopping 56% more than their pessimistic counterparts. Further studies show optimism can make CEOs 15% more productive and not only that, they also have healthier teams that perform better. Happy and optimistic managers can improve customer satisfaction by 42%.

And, happy workers have higher levels