Marci Shimoff on How To Be Happy For No Reason

Marci Shimoff is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, a world-renowned transformational teacher and an expert on happiness, success, and unconditional love.  

Her books include the international bestsellers Happy for No Reason and Love for No Reason.  Marci is also the woman’s face of the biggest self-help book phenomenon in history, as co-author of six books in the Chicken Soup for the Woman’s Soul series. With total book sales of more than 16 million copies worldwide in 33 languages, Marci is one of the bestselling female nonfiction authors of all time. 

Marci is also a featured teacher in the international film and book sensation, The Secret and the host of the PBS TV show called Happy for No Reason.  She narrated the award-winning movie called Happy.

Marci delivers keynote addresses and seminars on happiness, success, empowerment, and unconditional love to Fortune 500 companies, professional and non-profit organizations, women’s associations and audiences around the world. Marci is currently leading a one-year mentoring program called Your Year of Miracles.  Her opening seminar has been heard by more than 200,000 people. Marci earned her MBA from UCLA and holds an advanced certificate as a stress management consultant. She is a founding member and on the board of directors of the Transformational Leadership Council, a group of 100 top transformational leaders. 

Through her books and her presentations, Marci’s message has touched the hearts and rekindled the spirits of millions of people throughout the world.   She is dedicated to helping people live more empowered and joy-filled lives.

This is truly one of my favorite interviews I’ve ever done. I’ve been a fan of Marci Shimoff for over a decade. Like millions of people did, I discovered her through her appearance in the 500-million+ copy selling documentary, The Secret. I loved Marci’s story and energy, and certainly admired her inner happiness. 

Learning how to be happy for no reason is probably one of the most important lessons of our time, especially with so much uncertainty and unrest. Marci was very clear that this is not about being pollyanna or engaging in spiritual bypass. Being happy for no reason means finding and experiencing an inner state of peace and wellbeing that doesn’t depend on circumstances. Who wouldn’t want that?? I know I do.

Research has shown that we all have a happiness set point. The breakdown of our happiness potentiality is based on: 50% genetics, 10% circumstances and 40% habits, thoughts and behaviors. You can’t change your genetics or circumstances, but you absolutely can change your habits. Marci did extensive research to find that there are 21 main Happiness habits. She breaks them down into seven foundational categories and describes each for you to further investigate and look at within yourself. 

The seven main Happiness habits to build your inner home for happiness are: 

1. Foundation: taking responsibility for your life. This is about being the victor, not the victim and getting out of blame, shame and complaining.
2. Pillar one: your mind (this is all about your thoughts and was my biggest area for growth)
3. Pillar two: your heart (being open-hearted, full of gratitude, forgiving, loving, kind)
4. Pillar three: your body (biochemistry of happiness; oxytocin, dopamine, etc) 
5. Pillar four: your soul (connected to greater energy of the Universe and feeling plugged in)
6. Roof: purpose and passion, feeling inspired 
7. Garden: who you are you surrounded by and making sure to weed out toxic people (the weeds in your garden) and connect with supportive people (the roses in your garden)

Marci explained that you want to look at where you are the weakest and start there. She asked me which was my most challenging area and without a doubt I shared that it was my mind and many thoughts that are often not as kind or helpful, and frankly happiness-depleting. Marci shared some fantastic tools (all below) on how to change your thoughts and use your body to create greater happiness.

Diving deeper into happiness and the mind:

* We on average have over 60,000 thoughts per day, most of which are not kind. 80% in fact are negative because of something called the ‘negative bias’. 

* Don’t blame yourself for your negative thoughts (this will just perpetuate the negative feedback loop) 

* Tools to change your mind and wire for greater happiness are to be on the lookout for good experiences (make a game of this, especially with your kids), savor the good for at least 20 seconds and make sure you have a 3:1 ratio. For every negative thought, you need to find 3 positive ones. 

Happiness and the body:

* Don’t overlook sleep – it is a huge predictor of happiness! Serotonin feeds melatonin and vice versa. Sleep is crucial for happiness. 

* Get to sleep before midnight, in fact the most important time to sleep is between 10 – 12 midnight. This is your most restorative sleep time!

* Try going to bed by 10 pm for three nights and notice your happiness quotient

* Sunning: go outside and face the sun, close your eyes (important not to look directly at the sun) and allow the sun to shine on you and your pineal gland for 2 minutes

* Sit and stare at nature for three minutes a day/ twice a day. 

Do not try all of these new behaviors at once, build as you go and notice how much happier you feel no matter what else is going on around you! 

Let us know how much happier you are and what you’re noticing! 🙂

Connect with Marci Shimoff

• Website: happyfornoreason.com
• Facebook facebook.com/marcishimoff
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/MarciShimoff
• Twitter: @Marci_Shimoff

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