Kim: What are your top tips for happiness and success?

Marci: Before I go into my tips, I’d like to tell people about the research on happiness. We really do have the ability to change our
happiness level. We are not just born lucky and happiness is not dependent on good things happening. Happiness is really based on what science calls your happiness set point. It’s like a body weight set point, so your happiness set point will stay around the same range whether good or bad things happen to you unless you change that set point. People who say, “If I just win the lottery or if I had
a better job then I’d be happy” but happiness escapes them. People who win the lottery within a year have returned to their original happiness set point.

If you have something great happen to you, you may feel great for a day, a week or a month but it’s not lasting. You come back to your original happiness set point. The same is true for people who have experienced a tragedy and within a year they have returned to their original level of happiness.

There was a women who came up to get her book signed by me and she was in a wheel chair and she had the biggest smile on her face and I said, “God, you’re obviously really happy.” She said, “Yeah, I am.” And I said, “What’s your secret?” She said, “I
was happy before the accident, I am happy after the accident, you carry your happiness where ever you go.” And that’s the truth of the matter. So the key is to not try and change your circumstances but to raise your happiness set
point. That happiness set point is about 50% genetic and the other 50% is based on your habits and thoughts/behaviours and that’s the piece we can do something about to really raise our happiness set point.

Kim: So what do we need to know about our habits and out thoughts?

Marci: A lot of people say well, you just have to decide to be happy. Well, waking up in the morning and deciding to be
happy is about as easy as waking up and deciding to be a good piano player. The piano player had to put into place certain
key steps and certain habits. After research and talking to ‘unconditionally happy’ people we found 21 core habits, we don’t have time to get into all those so I have some simple tips to get people started. So my first tip is, incline your mind towards joy.

You’ve probably noticed that it’s easy to cling to the negative things that happen rather than the
positive. I call this the Velcro/Teflon syndrome. For example if you get ten compliments in one day
and one criticism, what do you tend to remember? Most people remember the criticism. We Velcro the criticism
and the positives slide off like Teflon. What I’ve found is that happy peopledo the reverse, they register the positives more in
their lives and let the negatives slide off them. So find a way to register the positives more deeply.
The second tip is ground yourself in gratefulness. Research shows that when we think about what we are grateful for, the happiness set point is raised. Even writing down five things a day you feel grateful for in a journal and doing that for a
month, will raise your happiness set point. What you appreciate, appreciates.
If you asked me the one main thing that was most important, I would say, gratitude would be the fast
track to happiness. Living in a state of gratitude is like living in a state of love and love is the highest energy and vibration on the planet.
My third tip is, lighten you load, let go of old thoughts that don’t serve you. I know a very interesting practice based on Feng Shui principles;for nine days throw away 27 items every day. So not just paper but something significant, like 27 books/clothes etc. This practice will help you break attachment to things that you don’t need any more and things that are not serving your happiness anymore. As you get into the habit of breaking attachments on the outside, it gets you in the habit of letting go of the feelings. If you miss
a day you have to start over from scratch.

Kim: Do you proactively do this practice if you are ushering in something new and exciting into your life?

Marci: Yes, and you can feel when it’s the time to do it.

Kim: Can you over do it?

Marci: I don’t know, I’ve never been asked that before, I suppose. Everybody has their own level
of comfort; you could get very Zen and end up with nothing. As soon as you give away things, the things that are even more appropriate for you flood right in. There’s a saying, nature abhors a vacuum, if you get rid of things, this makes way for new things and better things will show up. I think it’s the same with your thoughts, the more you let go of your thoughts that are holding you back.

Kim: Marci is this a segway into the value of forgiveness? To give away the negative thoughts and feelings you have about a person and truly forgive, does that then open you up for more love in your life?

Marci: Yes, that is absolutely one of my top ten tips-forgiveness. Focus on forgiving others and yourself. Sometimes we are okay with forgiving other people but we have a hard time forgiving ourselves, or being loving toward ourselves. My next tip is, “Hang with the Happy”. Study after study shows happiness is contagious, we catch the emotions of the people around us like we catch a cold. So it’s important to find people who are supportive and up beat and can bring out those qualities in you. I’m going to recommend that people create happiness support groups and happiness buddies and like minded people on the same journey. I also want to take an holistic approach, and an holistic approach includes the body as well. And there are a couple of tips to make your cells in your body happy and that involves getting moving and exercising. So the next time you feel a bit glum just get your blood moving faster, even if it’s standing
up while you’re on the phone talking or turning on some music and dancing. The more our chi starts flowing, the happier we feel. Another tip that relates to the body is sleep patterns. According to the research, the quality of sleep you had last night is more important than your marital status or income level. A little tip- every hour of sleep you get before midnight is worth twice as much as the sleep you get after midnight, so if you want to feel great, go to bed three nights in a row around 9.30pm and on the fourth morning when you
wake up, you will feel like a different person.

Kim: I attest to that sleeping tip, it worked for me. What can you do to help people to apply your happiness principles? Someone might read your book and not practise the tips.

Marci: One of the reasons they don’t practice, is they feel it’s overwhelming and what I’m very big on is just doing five minutes each day. I ask people to just give me 5-10 minutes of your life every day to do a new practice. We think that change has to happen in huge ways, no it can happen in small ways, consistently every day. My top tips today are different from my top tips tomorrow. We all need
different things in our life. See the world as your family and stop looking at the differences between you and others, we are all one family.

Chinese proverb: When there is light in the soul,
there will be beauty in the person,
when there is beauty in the person,
there will be harmony in the house,
when there is harmony in the house
 there will be order in the nation,
when there is order in the nation,
there will be peace in the world.

Kim: I’m sure everyone will join you in that pursuit. I want to thank-you with my whole heart for
sharing your time.

The rest of Marci’s tips can be found in her new book “Happy For No Reason” available at
www.iamgr8ful.com.au. The full audio interview with Marci and Kim Serafini is also available at this website.

Kim Serafini is the Best Selling Author of “I am Gr8ful”
and a well known speaker on the Sunshine Coast.