So You Want to Be Happy
Insights on Happiness from 12 of My Favorite Books
For a long time, I wanted to be happy. But I didn’t have a clue how to actually make happiness happen in my life. I wanted it, craved it, and even prayed for it. But it was always out of my reach. It might come in fleeting moments, but it never lasted.
I had valid reasons to struggle with happiness.
I actually gave up on happiness several years ago. I just assumed that life is hard and that many people (including me) would never really be happy. I assumed it was normal to be unhappy.
I don’t feel that way anymore. Not even close. In the past few years, I’ve found a roadmap to happiness. In books.
I’ve always loved to read; I studied literature in college. But these were not just any books. This was a special genre of books: nonfiction. Specifically, self-help.
I first became acquainted with the self-help genre when I was growing up. I loved to browse bookstores, and I’d always see the self-help section. But I never let myself “go there”, in any sense of the word. I assumed I might need a self-help book when I was older and had real problems to deal with.
Well, I’m older now. And my problem was simple: I was unhappy.
Below are quotes from twelve of my favorite self-help books about how to be happy. I’ll share why I find these books — and these particular quotes — so helpful. I hope you find them helpful too.
From Skeptic to Believer (in Self-Help)
“You Are A Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life” by Jen Sincero
Sincero begins her book with this quote:
“What little I knew about the self-help/spiritual world I found to be unforgivably cheesy: it reeked of desperation, rah-rah churchiness and unwanted hugs from unappealing strangers. And don’t even get me started on how grouchy I used to be about God.
At the same time, there was all this stuff about my life that I desperately wanted to change, and had I been able to bulldoze through my holier-than-thouism, I could have really used some help around here.”
I’m with Sincero on both points. I used to think self-help was for desperate people. And I had no idea it had anything to do with God. By the time I was thirty, I’d graduated from seminary with an M.A. in Religion and no desire to serve the church.
I believed in God but had lost my sense of calling. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I had no way of getting “there”.
And, like Sincero, I could have really used the help that self-help books provide. I’m glad she opened up about her skepticism early in her book. It made her writing more accessible to me because I could relate to her journey.
In the rest of You Are a Badass, Sincero writes about the concepts and practices that she’s gleaned from the self-help world and how they have really made a difference in her life. By the time I’d read the whole book, I found myself relating to the happy side of Sincero’s story. If she could find happiness, I thought, maybe I can too.
Overcoming Fear
“Adventures for Your Soul: 21 Ways to Transform Your Habits and Reach Your Full Potential” by Shannon Kaiser
“‘I belong and fit in the world just as I am.
The world needs me to express my true self.’”
Of the many mantras Kaiser puts forth in her book, I chose this one because it speaks to my particular fear — that I am inadequate. I’ve been socialized by a patriarchal society that even if I “give it my best”, my best might not be good enough.
My culture always demands more. It teaches me to crave immediate gratification. If I can’t have what I want right now, there must be something wrong with me, it says.
I know that this message is flawed, but that doesn’t make it any less powerful. Because I live in an “instant gratification” culture, I’ve been trained to doubt myself if it takes me any time at all to achieve my goals. For example, if I want to get rich, society sells plenty of “get rich quick” ideas.
Worse still, society teaches that the pursuit of happiness isn’t really a pursuit at all. It’s a commodity. Look at any advertisement (and they’re not hard to find). What are they selling? It’s not a product or service. Not really. It’s what that product or service can get you — they’re really selling us happiness.
In this get-happy-quick environment, I struggled with my self-esteem when I was unhappy all the time. If I can’t get happy here, where happiness is sold to us every second of the day, there must be something wrong with me.
Reading Kaiser’s book, I gradually learned better. There’s nothing wrong with me. As she says, “I belong and fit in the world just as I am.” And as far as expressing my true self goes, that’s why I write every day.
“The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level” by Gay Hendricks
“The best advice I can give you is to take big, easy breaths when you feel fear. Feel the fear instead of pretending it’s not there. Celebrate it with a big breath, just the way you’d celebrate your birthday by taking a big breath and blowing out all the candles on your cake. Do that, and your fear turns into excitement.”
This insight is brilliant. And incredibly helpful. Whenever I’m facing a big goal, I often tell my friends that I’m “excited and terrified”. When I’m setting goals that are aligned with my highest potential, it feels like falling in love. There’s a huge potential for risk and reward.
Hendricks’s advice is simple and effective. To lessen your fear, you should literally breathe into it. His advice can be summed up in this equation:
Fear + Breath = Excitement
When we breathe consciously, we reduce the effects of our parasympathetic nervous system.
This stuff works. Give it a try the next time you feel afraid and intimidated by a goal or experience. Take a breath and remind yourself that you’re actually feeling excitement. You may be surprised at how quickly you feel better.
Spiritual Growth & the Fullness of Life
It’s so interesting to me that self-help books expound on the benefits of spirituality. In many ways, self-help books are spiritual books. They might not be considered sacred texts to most people, but they certainly point the way to living a sacred life.
“Good Vibes, Good Life: How Self-Love Is the Key to Unlocking Your Greatness” by Vex King
“To sustain happiness, you must work towards self-mastery. It’s an inward journey that requires substantial spiritual growth. Choosing empowering thoughts over limiting ones should become your natural way of thinking.”
In this quote, Vex King equates self-mastery with spirituality and choosing empowering thoughts. In the past, I considered choosing our thoughts to be a psychological exercise, not a spiritual one.
But now, I think King is right. In my experience, spiritual practices like prayer, mediation, and reading A Course in Miracles has strengthened my ability to choose empowering thoughts.
And I can see how choosing our thoughts is a spiritual practice in itself. Many people talk about the mind-body-spirit connection. Our experiences of our thoughts are spiritual experiences because our thoughts represent a conversation: they’re us talking to ourselves.
That conversation means there’s a relationship that we have with ourselves. And relationship, in my experience, is where spirituality happens.
“Think and Grow Rich for Women: Using Your Power to Create Success and Significance” by Sharon Lechter
Lechter quotes her colleague Angela Totman as saying:
“Achieving balance may be the wrong goal. All we can do is make the best choices we can, guided by our values, priorities, and ambitions. These choices are not always easy. But being present in the moment after making those decisions is the key.”
I love this book because the author lifts up the voices of women with quotes and stories exclusively from women.
In this quote, Totman is saying that the “balance” question is the wrong question to ask. (Have you ever noticed that it’s only women who get asked how they balance work and family?)
Totman argues that women don’t need to worry about balancing their lives. Instead, we should focus on making good choices for ourselves by centering our values in our decision-making.
There’s good evidence to support her claim. Value-based living is happy living.
“Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires” by Esther and Jerry Hicks
“When you understand the power of feeling good now, no matter what, you will hold the key to the achievement of any state of being, any state of health, any state of wealth, or any state of anything that you desire.”
Esther Hicks is a medium for a collection of metaphysical spirits known as Abraham — and one of the foremost teachers of the Law of Attraction. (Abraham is referred to in the plural.)
Although this book has Esther and her late husband Jerry’s names on it, it’s actually written in the voice of Abraham. And in this quote, they insist that by feeling good in the present moment, regardless of current circumstances, we can bring about any result we want.
In the same book, Abraham say that the only reason we want what we want is that we think it will make us feel good. So the ultimate goal of every desire we have is to feel good. In other words, we all just want to be happy.
In the past several months, I’ve been focusing on feeling good. In fact, I’ve made feeling good my number one priority. And, I now do what I love for a living. I write about topics I am passionate about. Did I manifest this reality? It certainly appears that way.
“The Power of I AM: Two Words That Will Change Your Life Today” by Joel Osteen
“You are where you are today in part because of what you’ve been saying about yourself. Words are like seeds. When you speak something out, you give life to what you’re saying. If you continue to say it, eventually that can become a reality . . . you are prophesying your future.”
I read this book in July and I’ve been integrating the practices Osteen teaches into my daily routine ever since. In this quote, Osteen is spot on — whether you believe in the Law of Attraction or positive psychology (or both), it’s true.
Our words create our reality. I would add that the words we think to ourselves are just as potent as the words we say aloud. Perhaps more so, because we have about 60,000 thoughts per day!
When I wake up in the mornings, the first thing I do is pray — I speak out loud to my Higher Power. And I haven’t just been making it up as I go along. I’ve been reading Joel Osteen’s words from The Power of I Am as a form of prayer.
I figure that if words are seeds, I may as well speak the good ones over my life. Osteen teaches from a Christian perspective and he says that God delights in giving us the desires of our hearts. (Psalm 37:4).
I desire happiness. So, I speak happy words every morning. And it’s making a difference in my life. I especially focus on speaking positively about myself. I am my most constant companion and if I can be on friendly terms with myself, I imagine I’ll see tremendous gains in my life as a result.
“Super Attractor: Methods for Manifesting a Life Beyond Your Wildest Dreams” by Gabrielle Bernstein
“Being a Super Attractor means that what I believe is what I receive. I can co-create the world I want to see by aligning with good-feeling emotions and directing them toward my desires. I can tap into an unlimited source of creative energy to contribute inspired ideas, offer wisdom, receive abundance, and feel free.”
This is my favorite book on this list, and that’s saying a lot.
Gabby Bernstein is my personal hero. She overcame addiction and surrendered to a Higher Power years ago and now she’s a badass spiritual teacher.
If I had written the subtitle of Super Attractor, I’d call it: “How Cultivating a Relationship with Your Higher Power Creates Sustainable Happiness”. Nothing against Gabby’s subtitle, but I like mine.
Gabby cites Abraham (Esther) Hicks throughout her book. The idea of aligning with good-feeling emotions and using them to manifest our desires comes from Abraham, as we saw above.
I always have a pencil in hand when I read nonfiction. When I read the introduction to Super Attractor, I made a point to write “promise” next to every statement that Bernstein made that sounded like a promise to me.
In this quote, Bernstein says that we can tap into “an unlimited source of creative energy to . . . receive abundance.” That’s huge. I want that. So I’ve been rereading her books for the past six months and practicing what she says every single day.
And I’ve been happier in the last six months than I was in the previous six years.
Self-Love is the Key to a Happy Life
“The Self-Love Experiment: 15 Principles for Becoming More Kind, Compassionate, and Accepting of Yourself” by Shannon Kaiser
“Stop focusing on the flaws or things you dislike and tunnel vision yourself into looking only at what is going well. The law of attraction will play in your favor when you choose to align with the energetic vibration of good and joy. Your only mission is to focus on the good.”
In my opinion, the most important time we can focus on the good is when we’re focused on ourselves. In other words, whenever I think or speak about myself, I make a conscious effort to focus on the good in me.
And there’s a lot of good to focus on!
One way I do this is by celebrating every little thing I do. In this practice, I’ve come to realize that many of the “little” things I wasn’t celebrating before are actually a big deal.
For example, every time I write a story like this, I say out loud to myself:
“Yes! I did it! I wrote a story today! How cool is that?!”
Celebrating writing a story reminds me that writing stories is no small task. Even if the story was quick and easy to write, it’s monumental because it matters to me.
By celebrating every win, I remind myself why I’m doing what I’m doing, and more importantly, that I’m capable of creating the life I want.
“Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness” by Rick Hanson, Ph.D.
“The Golden Rule is a two-way street: we should do unto ourselves as we do unto others . . . the more influence we have over someone, the more responsibility we have to treat them well . . . If you think of yourself as someone to whom you have a duty of care and kindness, what might change in how you talk to yourself, and in how you go about your day?”
I love this concept from Rick Hanson. With his framing, we can say that our biggest responsibility is to take care of and be kind to ourselves.
I spend more time with myself than with anyone else. I also have more influence over myself than I do over anyone else. My thoughts, words, and actions sometimes affect other people, but they always affect me.
Reading this book taught me some valuable skills related to self-care. The biggest thing that sticks out in my memory of reading the book is that we can increase our positive emotions by paying attention to positive experiences.
Sounds simple right? But we don’t always do it, and Hanson teaches some concrete ways we can.
“Madly In Love With Me: The Daring Adventure of Becoming Your Own Best Friend” by Christine Arylo
“Self-love is the unconditional love and respect that I have for myself that is so deep, so solid, so unwavering that I choose only situations and relationships — including the one I have with myself — that reflect that same unconditional love and respect.”
I love Christine Arylo’s definition of self-love because of words like “unconditional” and “unwavering”. That’s how self-love should be.
By regularly reviewing this book and Arylo’s definition of self-love, I remember that I am in charge of the choices I make. And I can choose situations and relationships that are respectful, supportive, and empowering — especially if I treat myself with respect on a daily basis.
“Women & Money: Be Strong, Be Smart, Be Secure” by Suze Orman
“I believe that there is something incredibly powerful in the act of saying your name. I might even go so far as to say that it is the symbolic key to unlocking your powerful self.”
Suze Orman is an absolute hero of mine. I heard her speak at Eve Ensler’s V to the Tenth celebration in New Orleans in 2008 (celebrating “The Vagina Monologues”.)
When I read this quote in Women & Money, I immediately got up, went into my bathroom, looked into the mirror, and said:
“Hi, my name is Amy Hartsough, it’s nice to meet you.”
It felt so good to say my own name! I felt proud and happy to be who I am.
Orman is known for giving solid financial advice to generations of people. In my experience with her book, she also gives solid support and encouragement, and that is worth its weight in gold.
In my pursuit of happiness, books have played a pivotal role — especially the self-help genre. There are many other things that make me feel happy as well.
Or rather, there are many things in my life that, when I pay attention to them, make me aware of my happiness. (Read the books and you’ll understand what I mean.)
In sharing these quotes and thoughts with you, I hope that you gained something valuable. And I hope you’ll go out and read these books! I love them; that’s why I wrote about them. I’d love to hear what you’re reading now.
