Marci Shimoff Speaks on Love & Happiness
Marci quickly lays this myth — that money, fame and success equal happiness — to rest. “It is an absolute myth that when you get something else, you’ll be happier. Society has taught us this myth. ‘I’ll be happier when I have a better job. I’ll be happier when I have a better spouse. I’ll be happier when I lose 20 pounds.’ It’s absolutely not true. And all we have to do is look around. Look to Hollywood, for example, where people have fame, money, good looks, and some of them are the most miserable people on the planet. It’s been shown that once we’re over the poverty line, no amount of money will make us any happier.”
But we can take great inspiration from Marci’s own happiness transformation. If she can do it, starting from a D + on the happiness scale, anyone can. Because outside circumstances really don’t matter. With the tools Marci provides in her books, it’s even easier to raise your happiness set point and begin living the life of your dreams regardless of what’s going on around you. And, as you’ll find, if you are happier, you’ll naturally attract better things toward you.
Marci was gracious enough to share with us some of her favorite happiness habits, and also talk about her latest book, Love for No Reason, which offers a lot more insight into leading a truly fulfilling life than even the title reveals.
For people who are unhappy, it can be hard to get started and make a change. What advice do you have for people to take that first step and work through the first few exercises in Happy for No Reason? Getting started can be the hardest step because there’s inertia preventing you from doing something different. I have two suggestions. First, pick something in the book that feels good to you as you’re reading, that feels fun that feels easy. You don’t want to start with what’s really hard. You want to take baby steps. There’s fear radar we have when we make changes in our lives. If you take baby gradual steps, you can slide in under that natural fear radar, and those alarms won’t go off. Flip through the book, and find something that you can do.
