7 Habits

The 7 Timeless Habits of
Happiness
BY HENRIK EDBERG
by Henrik Edberg
Contents
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………….3
How to implement these habits…………………………………………………….5
The 7 Timeless Habits of Happiness
1. Choose to be happy…………………………………………………………………..6
2. Get your physical fundamentals in shape.………………………………..12
3. Create an action habit.……………………..…………….……………………….16
4. Be here now.………………………………………………….………………………..19
5. Help and make other people happy.………….…………………............26
6. Do what you love to do…….…………………………….……………………….33
7. Let go………………………………………………………………….…………………..38
Final thoughts...............................................................................44
Copyright Henrik Edberg, 2010. You do not have the right to sell, share or
claim the ownership of the content of this eBook.
This book is for informational purposes only and it contains my opinions

based on my experience. You should always find the advice of a professional
before taking action on something I have published.
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“Happiness is the
meaning and the
Introduction
purpose of life, the Happiness.
whole aim and end
of human
According to some, the meaning of life.

existence.”
Aristotle But how can you increase the happiness in your life?
Well, I have found a few ways that work well for me that I would like to share with you.
Back in 2005 I was a pretty regular guy. Life wasn’t all too bad really, but I wasn’t that
happy either. I think the problem was that I didn’t understand myself or the world
around that well. I didn’t understand what I needed to do to create a happier life for
myself. I had some idea that more stuff wouldn’t cut it. I knew that the happiness effect
of a new shirt or a new video game usually used to last for a week or two but then it
went away and I was back where I started.
I first got interested in personal development more seriously that year because I was too
lazy and simply wanted to become more productive. But I soon discovered that there
were books and CDs about all the other aspects of life too.
Fast-forward to 2010. Through experiences and studying I have learned a lot about both
myself and humans in general over the last couple of years. And just like I do on my blog
The Positivity Blog - www.positivityblog.com - I would like to share what I have
discovered.
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Now, let us be frank, will this book solve all your problems and make you happy all the
time from now on? No. But it contains some of the pieces that I believe are most
important for living a happy life. Those pieces, or habits, can help you to feel happier a lot
more and help you to handle challenges in your life. They have certainly helped me to do
so.
But to gain the benefits you have to implement the advice consistently. You have to live it.
Just reading the book will make you feel positive feelings for a while. But that goes away.
Actually working on yourself and your own life and being patient and persistent is what
brings you the real rewards.
Stick to the path of applying these habits as much as you can in your daily life. Not only
will the habits themselves help you. Because when you actually live habits like these,
when you do what you know deep down is the right thing then you also raise your self
esteem and you feel that you actually deserve good things in life. This is a big factor for
increasing your happiness too.
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by Henrik Edberg
About the author

My name is Henrik Edberg and I am the creator or the popular
personal development website the Positivity Blog. I write articles
about improving your happiness, social life, health, and general

awesomeness a few times a week. Feel free to follow me on
Twitter, befriend me on Facebook or send me an email using this
contact form.
How to implement these habits

This book contains 7 broad habits of happiness.
To change or try to improve on them all at once is too much. So choose one to work on.
Instead of doing it all at once and winding up being overwhelmed and giving it all up. Of
course, many of these habits are intertwined. For example, as you learn to let go it also
becomes easier to stay in the present.
I would start with the first habit, to choose happiness. And then maybe choose the second
one and work on my health. But you may resonate strongly with another habit right now,
so choose that one if you like.
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“I must die. Must I 1. Choose Happiness

then die
lamenting? I must The first thing you must do is to choose happiness. It might not seem like it, but it is to a
be put in chains. large degree a choice. Just like misery. Both of them are optional.
Must I then also

lament? I must go That may sound all well and good from an inspirational standpoint but how do you do it
into exile. Does practically?
any man then
Here’s how I do it. As you use these techniques you start to realize more and more how
hinder me from
much you can affect and choose your own happiness. Even if it might not feel like that
going with smiles right now.
and cheerfulness
and Just like tying your shoes choosing to be happy is a conscious choice. You choose each day
contentment?” what you focus on and how you interpret your reality.
Epictetus
Choose to Keep Your Focus on What You Want
What you think about most of the time you see around you and become. If you see the
world and yourself through a lens smudged by negativity then you’ll find much misery. If
you look outwards and inwards through lens brightened by positivity you’ll find much to
be happy and appreciative about.
So being happy or miserable is seldom so much about the external circumstances at the
moment. It’s more about how you look at them, yourself and your world.
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Now, thinking about things with a positive attitude is easier said than done. But you can
shift a negative attitude into a more positive one. It will probably not happen like flicking
on a light switch, but gradually you can spend more time with a positive attitude than a
negative one.
Be grateful for what you got

One of the simplest ways to shift your focus to what you want is to feel grateful for what
you have. Just appreciate the weather, your friends and family, the food in front of you,
your roof and clean water, your awesome shoes and the cute wo/man that just walked by.
Yeah, it might seem a bit silly. But just doing this for two minutes really works well to turn
a sour mood into a more positive and open one. Do this whenever you feel down or like
your focus is in the wrong place.
The gratitude journal
A variation of this technique is to use a gratitude journal. Here you quickly jot down 5
things you are grateful for in a journal. Do this for a few minutes each day or each week.
Review the journal whenever you feel the need. Very simple but effective.
Use big and written goals

By setting goals, writing them down and posting them on a wall where you can see them
every day you can keep your focus steadily on what you want instead of what you don’t
want out of life. I recommend setting your goal like this:
“I earn 7000 dollars per month.”
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“Most people are Now, the goal might not be money related. But it’s good to write it down as if you already
about as happy as have it to tell you subconscious to start working to achieve that goal right now. If you
they make their write it down in the “I will earn…” form you are telling yourself that it will always be
minds up to be.” achieved sometime in the future no matter how many days you work at it.
Abraham Lincoln
It is also helpful to write it down as specifically as you can. If you just write down that you
exercise each week instead of that you exercise 3 times each week you give yourself to
much wiggle room to procrastinate and to come up with bad excuses.
I would also recommend setting big goals, not reasonable ones. One mistake I made last
year was to set a too small goal for how much money I wanted to make from my business
each month. It was reasonable, but it also didn’t inspire me that much. By the summer I
realized this and tripled the amount of money I wanted to make.
Suddenly, I felt uncomfortable but also excited. My mind started to spit out solutions to
help me reach that goal. I didn’t reach the goal in 2009 but my income shot up quite a bit
during the last six months of that year.
Ask yourself useful questions

This is a powerful way to refocus if you slip or to find even more clarity in what you choose
to focus your time and energy towards. Here are three great ones.
Is this useful?
This is a good way to weed out thought habits that may not be so useful. Your mind may
for instance fool you into believing that it’s the right thing to go around being angry at
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someone because, well, you’re right. Or that it’s right to dwell on a problem because you
had such bad luck or was singled out.
Both thought patterns are quite seductive because they can fool you into believing that
you are doing the “right” or “normal” thing. But are such thoughts useful to you? Probably
not. They’ll just create suffering in your life, waste your time and do little to solve a
practical situation. By asking if something is useful you can stop yourself while heading
down a negative path and turn around towards the light again.
What is awesome about this situation?
This is a good way to find the lesson within an experience that may be seen as negative.
Or to just reframe a situation and create some positivity and enthusiasm within yourself to
get going to practically handle a situation instead of falling back into a dwelling, negative
victim-thinking kind of thought pattern.
Asking yourself this question may seem stupid or silly at first. You may not find anything
positive or awesome about a situation at all. But after you’ve started to ask yourself the
question in more and more situations you’ll probably find something that’s at least good
about a situation.
And the more awesome, positive and good things you can find in experiences the more
your mind starts to accept that you can indeed find something good in just about any
situation. Your mind just has to get a bit used to thinking about things in this new and
unfamiliar way.
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Focus on the essentials

By focusing on what means the most to you and doing more of that instead of slipping
into largely pointless activities you can keep your focus steady and bring more happiness
into your life. Three good tips for focusing on the essentials are:
 Use written goals. I already mentioned this one a few pages back. Just don’t forget
to post them in place where you can’t avoid seeing them each day.
 Ask yourself: What is the most important thing I can do right now? If you are lost
in what to do next in your day, week or life, ask yourself this question. The answer
might not always be what you want to hear because the most important thing is
often one of the harder things you want to do too. But it can help you to check your
priorities and stop you from getting lost in busy work – or Facebook or checking
some inboxes/blog statistics etc. over and over during the day – and instead start
tackling the big stuff.
 Use a very limited to-do list. A to-do list is a simple and great way to remember
what you are about to do. But it’s easy to get overly enthusiastic when writing it and
putting in too many items. And then when you look at that big list you feel drained
and an urge to procrastinate may sweep over you. But do you need to do all those
things? Think about what the absolutely most important items on the list are. Just
two or three. Then put them on a new to-do list. This list will seem less daunting
and I have found that it makes it easier to actually take action and get those most
important things done.
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“Very little is need Choose an Environment of Happiness

to make a happy
life; it is all within Your environment has a big influence over you. You are in it every waking hour so you
yourself, in your need to be proactive and create an environment that supports your happiness and habits.
way of thinking.”
Marcus Aurelius Being a bit ruthless and cutting out as much of the negative influences and busywork
makes your mind clear, uncluttered and focused. Two vital suggestions for shaping your
environment to support a happier life are:
Socialize with people that lift you up
Some people tend to drag you down. Some people may be kinda indifferent. Some people
tend to lift up you up and support and motivate you. Focus on spending as much of your
time as you can with the third group of people. It will be very hard to live a happier life if
the people you hang out with the most always are negative and complain about
everything.
Choose positive information
If you are always watching the news and are getting fed fear scenarios and a lot of
negative information then this will colour your perspective of the world and yourself. I
would suggest to keep up a bit with the news but to use a lot more of your available
information intake time each week to read and listen to, for example, personal
development books and other inspiring and positive material. Just like with the people
around you the information you let into your mind each day has a huge effect on your
happiness levels.
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"Those who think

they have no time
2. Get Your Physical Fundamentals in Shape
for healthy eating
Perhaps the most obvious but also one of the most important factors for living a happier
will sooner or later
life and to be able to better develop the other habits in this book is to get your
have to find time
fundamentals in shape.
for illness."
Edward Stanley What do I mean by fundamentals?
Eating healthy.
Exercising regularly.
Getting enough sleep.
Now, this may seem painfully obvious. But those things have a huge impact on just about
anything in your life. The ideas are simple. But you have use them too. Thinking and
talking about them is easy. Living them is what changes your life.
Eat Healthy
There is ton of information out there on what to eat. I tend to eat whole-wheat and low GI
products, quite a bit of veggies, lean meats and a lot of fish and shellfish. I drink green tea,
water and a couple of beers from time to time. I supplement this with a multivitamin and
additional vitamin C (and vitamin D during the dark months here in Sweden).
Now, you may prefer another way of eating but this helps and fits me.
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Know what and how much you are eating
If you don’t know how much you are eating it’s useful to start a food diary at fitday.com
(it’s free) and see what you eat for a few weeks. This can help you to see what you are
really putting into your body in terms of calories, fat, protein, carbohydrates, vitamins and
minerals. And it can also tell you if you are overeating.
I think one of the most common mistakes people make when trying to keep or lose weight
is simply to consume more calories than they use. You can solve this problem by using the
FitDay diary until you get a good sense of the amount of food you put into yourself. It may
seem a bit boring but it really helped me to get an accurate sense of my food habits and to
lose a lot extra weight in 2009. Of course, use this with common sense so you don’t get
obsessive and feel bad just because you ate an extra cookie one day. You don’t have to be
perfect to get good results.
Two of my favourite blogs that have taught me much about how to eat healthier are:
 Mark’s Daily Apple

 Fitness Black Book
Exercise Regularly
One area of my life that I really focused on improving in 2009 was my body and physical
health. I did this by eating better as described above. And by using the Turbulence
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“Physical fitness is Training program by fitness trainer Craig Ballantyne. You can read the review of that
not only one of the program right here. The results?
most important
keys to a healthy I lost 26 pounds in four months. I have a flat belly and my energy has at least doubled. My
body, it is the productivity is up and it’s a lot easier to stay positive.
basis of dynamic
and creative Getting in shape is something I believe we often underestimate (I certainly did). We have
intellectual so many problems and things to complain about. But when you start to get into good
activity.” shape you realise that much of that is just vanishes or at least decreases. How we manage
John F. Kennedy our body has a huge, huge impact on our thoughts, emotions and everything that happens
in our personal world.
Find a way that fits you
Some of the most important things about exercise are consistency and finding something
that fits you. I have for example enjoyed lifting free weights for few years. The best thing I
got out of Turbulence Training was the bodyweight circuits. You basically do 6-8 exercises
with just your bodyweight.
Stuff like jumping up and down, pushups and different squats. You can do them anywhere
you want – you just need a floor – and quickly. A workout just takes about 15 intense
minutes. This flexibility has really helped me to improve and keep my anaerobic capacity
and muscle tone anywhere and at any time during my week.
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"Sleep is the best The simple combination of free weights and bodyweight circuits works well for me. But it
meditation." took a while and some experimentation with other forms of exercise to find it. So explore
Dalai Lama and see what fits you and your life so you can get and keep yourself in shape.
Get Enough Sleep

I sleep well so I don’t have too many tips to add on this topic. I do have three rules I follow
though:
1. A dark room. Keeping it really dark in your bedroom is something that makes it easier
to go to sleep, to sleep well and not wake up too early.
2. No caffeine after 8 PM. If I drink tea after that time I find it harder to go to sleep.
3. No work late at night. I tend to not work on, for example, my writing too late. If I do
that then my mind will be spinning with thoughts and ideas for an hour or more as I roll
around wide awake in bed. Instead I make sure to relax and just take it easy a few
hours before sleep.
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"Action may not

always bring
3. Create an Action Habit.
happiness; but One of the best ways to not find happiness is just to hold yourself back and do nothing.
there is no Seldom show up. Paralyze yourself through over-analysis. Think and think and think about
happiness without
how bad things are for you.

action.”
Benjamin Disraeli I admit, it’s not always easy to take action. It can be scary and difficult. But if you don’t
take action you’ll be missing out on most things. Including many moments, people and
experiences that can bring you a lot of happiness.
If you don’t create a habit where you take a lot of action you won’t get a lot of results in
real life.
Sure, reading can educate and inspire you. But to reap the rewards you have to take
action over and over again. Not sit at home on your hands and think that someone else
will do it for you. Or think that just reading will solve your problems in some magic kind of
way.
Without an action habit little in life works, including the habits included in this book.
So how can you create a habit of taking more action each and every day?
Besides using the focus tips in the first chapter of this book, four of my favourite and most
effective tips are:
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"Twenty years 1. Use a morning ritual

from now you will
be more This is perhaps the most powerful tip I have found so far in this area. You simply set up a
disappointed by routine in the morning that you do as soon as you wake up. This works so well because
the things that you what you do early in the day often sets the context for your day. As humans we have a
didn’t do than by strong tendency to want to be consistent with what we have done before. That’s one big
reason why a bad start often leads to a bad day and a good start often leads to a good
the ones you did
day.
do.
So throw off the My morning ritual
bowlines. Sail
away from the safe  Get up, drink a glass of water. You get dehydrated when you are asleep.
harbor. Catch the  Pull the blinds from my windows and open a window to let in the sun and more
trade winds in fresh air.
your sails. Explore.  Eat breakfast and drink a cup of green tea.
Dream. Discover.”  Brush my teeth and tongue.
Mark Twain  Make my bed.
 Declutter for a few minutes. I wash any remaining dishes from yesterday. I put
anything that is out place back into its right place. I clean up my workspace so it’s
clean and organized.
Basically, I center myself and get into an organized and productive mindset by doing these
simple things to order and clean up my environment. It is also a good way to warm up for
your day, to get out of a procrastinating mindset and it makes it easier to consistently take
the next step.
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"Happy people 2. Do things even if you don’t feel like it

plan actions, they
don’t plan results.” Your inner voice and feelings can be disregarded if you like. You can do whatever you
Dennis Waitley want to do anyway. Just do it. The more you get into habit of doing this, the easier it will
become.
3. Don’t hurt yourself

Realize that when you disappoint yourself and don’t think and do as you really deep down
want to you hurt yourself by lowering your self esteem. Whatever you do during your day
sends signals back to yourself about what kind of person you are.
Do the right thing like being effective, kind or going to the gym makes you feel good. Get
lazy, negative or just plain mean and you tend to feel worse after a while. You don’t get
away, there is no escaping yourself. And there is always a price to pay. This is a powerful
motivator to become a better person.
4. Focus on and take responsibility for the process, not the potential results
I use this when I workout. I don’t take responsibility for the results in my mind. I take
responsibility for showing up and doing my workout. The results have come anyway from
that consistent action. And this makes it easier for me to take this action when I know that
is all I need to focus on. Instead of using half of the energy and focus I have available on
hoping that I “reach my goal real, real soon”. Focus on the process and you will be a lot
more relaxed and prone to continue than if you stare yourself blind on the potential
results that never come as quickly as you want and puts you on an emotional rollercoaster
from day to day.
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"The secret of
health for both
4. Be Here Now
mind and body is Tomorrow isn’t here yet. Yesterday has passed. Now is the present moment. And all three
not to mourn for of them are always the present moment when we are living in them.
the past, nor to

worry about the So there is no real space where you and I can change or live in except the one you and me
future, but to live are in right now. And now. And now.
the present
moment wisely But still we insist on spending much time regretting yesterday. Or fearing tomorrow.
and earnestly.” That’s normal. But it isn’t so useful.
Buddha We can’t really do anything about the past. We can learn valuable lessons from it but after
that it’s not so important.
And most of the things we fear will happen in the future never really show up. A negative
attitude can do wonders to create monsters within the mind to occupy much of your time.
So, planning your future is very useful but over-thinking it is seldom helpful.
So much time is lost by thinking compulsively, over and over again, about things we have
little control over. And it can create a huge amount of suffering within that is projected
and acted out into the world.
And it distracts us - blurs our vision and shatters our focus - and keeps us from fully
enjoying what is really the most important time.
Now.
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7 Awesome Benefits of Being in the Present Moment

Being present in moment after moment can have a huge amount of positive benefits
besides sparing you from all the suffering of “living” large parts of your life in the past or
future.
1. Improved social skills

This may be one of the first things you discover when you start experimenting with being
present. It was for me. If you have the problem that you get nervous/shy and “don’t know
what to say” in a conversation then presence is one solution.
When you are present then your head is no longer filled with past scenarios (“what did
she mean when she said that?”) or future scenarios (“what will they think if I say this?”).
You let go of self-consciousness.
You are just here. With your attention focused outward towards the person(s) you are
interacting with. You just let things flow out of you.
And in a way the tip of assuming rapport is a way to tap into your presence in
conversations. Assuming rapport means that you pretend that you are meeting one of
your best friends. Then you start the interaction with any person in that frame of mind
instead of the nervous one.
When you’re with your best friends you are probably not thinking ahead that much. You
are just enjoying the interaction, the present moment and all of you just let things flow
naturally.
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Presence can also help you with listening. It helps you to decrease the bad habit of
thinking about the future and what you should say next while trying to listen. If you are
present and really there while listening then that will also come through in your body
language. This gives the person talking a vibe and feeling that you are really listening to
what s/he has to say. Being present also improves your focus and allows you to better
tune out possible interruptions or distractions in your surroundings.
2. Improved creativity
If you write or do some other creative work you may have found that your best work flows
out of you when you are not thinking that much. You just write, paint, play. You enter a
headspace where things just come to you. Then later you can come back and edit your
work.
This one is similar to the first reason. Writing is for instance similar to a conversation.
When you are present in a conversation or while writing things it’s often best to not think
too far ahead or you start to get self-conscious and you second-guess yourself. You create
mental blocks that stop your creativity from flowing unhindered.
3. You appreciate your world more

One of big advantages of becoming more present in your everyday life is that you
decrease the amount of analysing and labelling you do to the things and people in your
surroundings. You don’t judge as much.
This might sound strange but in the moments when you are present the ordinary world
becomes more interesting and wonderful. Colours can seem brighter. Your see more
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aliveness in trees, nature and in people. You see the wonder of all your man-made gadgets
and stuff. Things that most often seem common, routine and boring become fascinating
and something you can appreciate.
It’s like you are observing your world with more clarity and curiousness. Like a little kid
again, discovering things while they still feel fresh.
4. Stress release
When you are present there is a certain stillness and centeredness inside. You calm down.
If you are feeling stressed during your normal day then one of my favourite ways to let
that go is to take belly breaths and just focus on them for a minute or two.
This pretty much always calms me down. The belly breathing seems to calm one down in a
physical way. And by focusing just on the in and out breaths you connect to the present
moment instead of the past or future scenarios that are making you feel stressed.
5. Less worry-warting and over-thinking

If you are a chronic over-thinker that goes round and round in circles in your mind before
you ever get anything done then being present is a great release from that habit. I’m not
saying that you won’t slip back into over-thinking. But being present just for a while can
help you. It can allow you to stop worrying about what may happen and to just take some
action to get started. To actually see what happens.
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6. Openness
Being present removes the labels you put on people and things – temporarily – and opens
you up to see and experience things without your preconceived notions. I think this is a
big part in how being present helps you in conversations and with your creativity. You are
open to new things as you are without many of your barriers within your mind. Things can
flow easier through you without all that stuff in the way.
7. Playfulness.
As you are present you may feel a playfulness arise. This makes it easier to just do things.
When you see things from a playful point of view things become less of a struggle created
from within. You let go of that heavy, over-thinking frame of mind.
Everything won’t become super easy to do. But many things become more enjoyable and
easier to do. They become lighter. Less of a burden.
Kids are often more present and playful. You can return to that playfulness by connecting
with the present.
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"I never think of My 5 Favourite Ways of Connecting with the Present Moment
the future. It
comes soon OK, so those benefits sound good. So how can you become more present in your daily life?
enough.”
Albert Einstein Focus on what’s right in front of you
Or around you. Or on you. Use your senses. Just look at what’s right in front of you right
now. Listen to the sounds around you. Feel the fabric of your clothes and focus on how
they feel.
Use guided meditation

I have been using guided mediation CDs called Paraliminals many, many times over the
last year. One nice benefit of these CDs is that they put you in a centred and calm state of
mind with very little self-talk in general for maybe five hours to half a day after you have
used them. This makes the transition into being present during that time a whole lot
easier. Read my full review of the Paraliminals here.
Focus on your breathing

I’ve already mentioned this one. Breathe with your belly and just focus your mind on your
inhaling and exhaling. Do this for a minute or two. This will align you with the present
moment once again. Very simple and effective.
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See things as for the first time
To step into the present moment I imagine it like that, I take that role. Like someone who
has never experienced this before. Like a child or someone who has never been here
before. I like this one and I have been doing it from time to time for years (although back
then I didn’t really understand why it felt nice when I did it).
Pick up presence from other people

I have few audiobooks by Eckhart Tolle on my mp3-player that I listen to from time to
time. Books like Stillness Speaks and Even the Sun Will Die. This helps me to snap back into
the present moment and also reminds me about things I have forgotten. It is often said
that emotions are contagious. So is presence.
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"If you want 5. Help and Make Other People Happy

happiness for an
hour — take a nap. It is vital to look beyond yourself to experience a larger sense of happiness. Because we
If you want are all social creatures and by helping each other we feel happier.
happiness for a
day — go fishing. This may sound like an empty cliché but it surely works. One of the best ways to become
If you want happier is simply to share your love and make other people happier.
happiness for a
When you do the right thing and make people happy you feel good about yourself. When
year — inherit a
you make someone else happy you can sense, see, feel and hear it. And that happy feeling
fortune.
flows back to you. And since the Law of Reciprocity is strong there is another upside.
If you want
People will feel like giving back to you. And so the two – or more – of you keep building an
happiness for a upward spiral of positivity and happiness.
lifetime — help
someone else.” So focus on giving happiness instead of zeroing in on receiving it. It’s better for everyone.
Chinese Proverb
Give Value
So how do you give happiness? One good way is give more value to the people around
you.
In your daily life it may be things like:
 Bringing a positive attitude and vibe into interactions.

 Offering useful advice or knowledge to someone.
 Just offering a listening ear to someone who needs it.
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by Henrik Edberg
 Cheering someone up.

 Hugs.
 Helping someone out with moving, cooking, cleaning up etc.
 Taking the lead and creating a fun situation for your friends such as a picnic or a
night out on the town.
 Being totally present in conversation and focused on the other person. This is a
quality that I believe is often mentioned about networkers that are great at creating
new relationships like Bill Clinton.
The Ego Wants More

It’s funny, for quite a long time I thought that the way to feel better was to get people to
give me things. To give me some kind of value.
And that makes you feel good. For a short while. Then your emotions sort of snap the
other way like a rubber band. And, once again, you don’t feel so good.
Why? Well, you are taking these things and adding them to yourself. But the ego always
wants more. The positive feelings you get from whatever you are given wears off pretty
quickly. And so you want people to give you more value again. It’s like when you buy a
new shirt or pair of shoes. You feel great about them for a while but after that they lose
their magic. They become “normal”. And so you go the store again.
Now, giving value is a better way to feel good. You control how much value you want to
give and how you feel. It’s a more consistent way to feel good. To me it’s almost always
more powerful than the quick hits of positive emotions you get from getting value.
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by Henrik Edberg
"Since you get But it’s a bit counter-intuitive. When you’re feeling down, it seems pretty natural to need
more joy out of a compliment to feel better instead of giving someone a compliment. So I have a reminder
giving joy to in the form of a post-it note on my desk that says: ”Feeling bad? Give value.”
others, you should
put a good deal of By giving value in a genuine way you also tend to take more action than if you are waiting
thought into the for someone to give you value. And by taking more action and giving more value you tend
happiness that you to – over time – create more interesting and fun situations. Because more action simply
are able to give.” leads to more things happening.
Eleanor Roosevelt
A Great Way to Start a Relationship
Giving value and making people happier is not just a great way to improve your
relationships. It is also a great way to start a relationship.
If you read any blogs about blogging then you may have read that a not so useful way to
email a blogger and create a relationship with that person is to just ask him/her to do
something for you. I agree with that.
If someone sends me an email where s/he offers value – perhaps give me a compliment,
constructive criticism, offers to help if I would need it in the future – I tend to feel grateful
and think that this person who emailed me is a cool and sympathetic person. If I, on the
other hand, get an email where someone just wants me to do this or that then that’s often
a bit of a turn-off. I think this is true in off-line interactions too.
So bring more value and happiness into the lives of the people around you. Review the
tips in the previous pages. Think about how you can add value in your own unique
situation in life. Take action on the ideas you come up with.
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"Loving people live And remember what Seneca said.

in a loving world.
Hostile people live “It is another’s fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful
in a hostile world. man, I will oblige a great many that are not so.”
Same world.”
Even though all people may not appreciate the value and love you give you can still feel
Wayne Dyer good about yourself.
You and Your Relationship with Yourself

Now, increasing the love and value you give isn’t only about other people and what they
give back. By doing positive things for other people you start to see yourself as a person
who is better and more deserving of more love, good things and happiness in life.
This is essential to avoid self-sabotage on your path to more success and happiness in life.
If you don’t think you deserve something you tend to sabotage for yourself in some subtle
or not so subtle way.
One common way to sabotage your relationship and own happiness is to be judgemental
towards other people. Here are three reasons to let go of those judgements to improve
your own life:
 People don’t like judgemental people. People don’t like to be judged. So there will
be a resistance towards someone who is judgemental.
 Waste of time. You can spend your time doing more fun, constructive and positive
things.
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 The more you judge people, the more judge yourself. What you see in other
people is often what you see in yourself. So if you judge them all the time for their
looks or intelligence then you probably judge yourself often about these things too.
Letting go of judging others can lead you to letting go of judging yourself too. As you
lift the limitations you put on others, you lift the limitations you put on yourself.
So learning to love yourself more and creating more happiness is to a large degree about
doing what you know deep down to be right.
Another good way to learn to love yourself more is simpler. You just make the conscious
choice to be appreciative of yourself and to not just look at your flaws. You can do this by
use some of the focus tips from chapter 1 like the gratitude journal.
By appreciating the positive and good things that you think and do you can replace the
need for approval from outside sources. You are giving yourself approval instead. This is a
lot better than the alternative, because this is an unlimited source that you are in control
of.
Don’t compare yourself to other people

Finally, one thing that can cause quite a bit of unhappiness is comparing yourself to other
people and their lives.
You compare cars, houses, jobs, shoes, money, relationships, social popularity and so on.
And at the end of the day you create a lot of negative feelings within. And perhaps also
outside of yourself. This won’t help anyone.
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by Henrik Edberg
"If men would But how can you stop doing it? Or at least get control of it and use it in a better way?
consider not so
Be kind
much wherein they
differ, as wherein I wrote about this in the previous section about you and your relationship with yourself.
they agree, there
The way you behave and think towards others seems to have a big, big effect on how you
would be far less behave towards yourself and think about yourself. Judge people more and you tend to
of judge yourself more. Be more kind to other people and help them and you tend to be
uncharitableness more kind and helpful to yourself.
and angry feeling
in the world.” So focus your mind on helping people and being kind. Focus on the positive things in
Joseph Addison yourself and the people around you. You become more OK with yourself and the people in
your world instead of ranking them and yourself and creating differences in your mind.
You are OK and so are they.
Just realize that you can’t win
Just consciously realizing this can be helpful. No matter what you do you can pretty much
always find someone else in the world that has more than you or are better than you at
something. Yes, you may feel good for a while when you get a nicer car than your
neighbor. But a week or two later you’ll see someone from the next block with an even
finer car than yours.
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by Henrik Edberg
Compare yourself to yourself
Instead of comparing yourself to other people create the habit of comparing yourself to
yourself. See how much you have grown, what you have achieved and what progress you
have made towards your goals.
This habit has the benefit of creating gratitude, appreciation and kindness towards
yourself as you observe how far you have come, the obstacles you have overcome and the
good stuff you have done. You feel good about yourself without having to think less of
other people.
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by Henrik Edberg
"Success is not the

key to happiness.
6. Do What You Love to Do
Happiness is the It’s easy to trap yourself in doing what you don’t want to for many, many hours. And
key to success. If seldom do what you really love to do.
you love what you

are doing, you will And I guess this one ties into habit #1, to choose your happiness. You may not be able to
be successful.” choose to do what you want to do on a full-time basis right now. Or for many hours each
Albert Schweitzer day or week. But you almost always have a choice to do more of what you really want to
do. There is always time. Or time you can free up by using the focus and action tips earlier
in this book. You have a choice.
I for example love to learn about things. I’m quite curious. I also love to write and
communicate helpful stuff. I have done so for over 10 years, by writing about music and
movies and for the last few years about personal development in different forms.
Still, some days aren’t easy and I just don’t want to write or read another word. Loving
something isn’t like in a movie – not in my opinion at least – where everything is like some
blissful dream. It’s still life. But it’s a lot more fun a lot of the time.
How Do You Find What You Love to Do?

When you find something you really love to do it doesn’t seem like work that much
anymore.
When you do something you love you don’t have to push yourself so much. You keep
going because you like doing it, not just because your want to reach some goal (although
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by Henrik Edberg
that can be exciting too). Taking action also becomes natural when you doing something
you really want to do. A lot of the time you can’t wait to get going with it.
So the problem many of us encounter may not be that we don’t know enough tips to keep
ourselves motivated. The problem may be that we are working on the wrong thing all
together.
So do you find out what you really want to do?
Good questions bring your clarity

Asking yourself good questions can bring clarity to your life. Here are a few good ones for
finding out what you love doing:
 What makes you feel alive?

 What activities make you feel the happiest?
 What do you do for free just because you are so passionate about it/it’s so much
fun?
 What activities that you do make time just disappear? What stuff can you spend
hours on and makes you forget about time, hunger and the TV?
 You may also want to think back and explore your past. If you are really, really busy
with life – family, long hours at work etc. – then what were the things you used to
do when you were younger and had more free time?
 And what things did you have a talent for or what skills have you developed
throughout your life?
Write all those answers down.
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by Henrik Edberg
"Happiness is not What value can you bring through these things?
in the mere
possession of If you just want to spend a few more hours each week with doing things you love then you
money; it lies in can figure what those things are and then find time for them by applying the tips in the
the joy of previous pages of this book.
achievement, in If you on the other hand want to work on it part-time or be able to do what you love full-
the thrill of time then you need to start to look for job that lets you do that. Or you can start your own
creative effort.” company on the side while you work a regular job or study in school.
Franklin D.
Roosevelt And then it won’t be enough to just love doing something. You also have to find activities
that will bring value to other people. Because when you can give value to other people
then there will be an opportunity to make money.
Sure, I like hanging out with friends and drinking a couple of beers. And that brings both
them and me value because it’s fun, interesting and exciting. But I can’t make money from
it.
But by sharing what I have learned about life and personal development on my website I
can give value to tens of thousands of people at the same time. This also allows me to
earn an income from the website and my writing.
By using your talents and skills and at the same time helping people and giving them value
in some way you can find the opportunities to both do what you love and to earn money
to support yourself from it.
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by Henrik Edberg
But realize that it will probably take time to build your business – if you choose to go that
way – until it is profitable enough to live on. If you have job now, don’t ditch it right away
to work on your newfound passion. You still need to pay the bills and possibly provide for
a family. Work on your company at nights, early mornings and on weekends.
Research it
So you may come up with a few things you love doing. But you may think that there is no
way to make money from it. Don’t be too sure.
Use Google to find out if there are people already making a living from what you would
like to do. Use amazon.com to find out if there are books on making a living out of what
you want to do. Or just to find books that can provide you with more in-depth information
than this chapter.
Two good books that I have come across are:
 Jonathan Fields - Career Renegade. If you want to learn more about how to how to
make a living by doing what you love then I would highly recommend this book. It
has tons of practical tips, tools and strategies for making your dream work in real
life. It also contains Jonathan’s story of how he did it plus a lot of other case studies
of people who are not only doing what they love but also making a good or great
living from of it.
 Tim Ferriss - The 4 hour Workweek. You may already have read this very popular
book. If you haven’t, go buy it now. It has a lot of practical tips and strategies for
running your own small company.
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by Henrik Edberg
Go exploring
Finding something you love to do that can also make you enough money to live on isn’t an
easy thing. I certainly don’t have all the answers for this challenge. But I’d like to add a
final tip for finding out what you love: just explore life.
Just try things out and see what you love. It’s easy to have theories about what you may or
may not like. But you never know until you have tried it for a while in real life.
So go exploring.
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"When I let go of
what I am, I
7. Let Go
become what I
might be.” We often cling to possessions like it’s our life. We cling to people like we possess them
sometimes. We cling to the past and can’t live in the now. We cling to fears of what the
Lao Tzu
future might bring as a way to feel comfortable and perhaps sometimes have excuses to
not go do what we really want to do deep down.
We often carry with us a lot of stuff. Not in our hands perhaps. But in our minds. It can
become like you are carrying half the world on your back. Not very helpful. So you need to
let go of things. Not only to move lighter and more freely. But also to be able to fully move
forward in life.
I believe that letting go is one of the most potent habits in this book and one I feel is often
forgotten compared to for example doing what you love and improving on physical
fundamentals like exercise and sleep.
It is also deeply connected to other habits in this book. Letting go is, for example, an
awesome way to reconnect with the present again. It also ties back to chapter 1, letting
go enables you to drop irrelevant stuff and makes the choice to focus on the stuff that
bring you happiness easier.
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by Henrik Edberg
So How Do You Let Things Go?

A few tips that have made it easier for me to let go are these:
Ask yourself helpful questions

Again, ask yourself helpful questions:
“Is this helping me or is it just some nonsense or something I’m reliving from the past?”
“Am I clinging to it because it’s what I have known for such a long time and it seems
comfortable and safe even though it is holding me back?”
“Who cares?” (one of my absolute favourite questions)
Give up “being right”

Realize that you may cling to things because they might make you feel right as you replay
an argument or conflict over and over in your mind. It gives you a certain sense of
satisfaction as the other person is wrong. But you have to give up that kind of satisfaction
to move on.
Understand that you get better at letting go as time passes

Not just because what you are carrying gets lighter with time and less painful. But also
because your mind over time – for me it took months of practise – becomes more and
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by Henrik Edberg
more open to letting things go. It understands that letting go is something you can do
nowadays. That it’s just a mental habit.
Accept it. Then let it go

I like acceptance. I like it because when you accept something instead of resisting it you
stop feeding more energy into your problem and you stop making it even bigger. A bit
counter-intuitive. This is also useful when it comes to letting go. If you first accept what
you want to let go you aren’t so emotionally attached to it and still feeding it with your
focus and energy. And so it becomes less powerful and easier to just drop. As long as you
resist it then it will be hard to let it go.
Let it go if it shows up again

In my experience it’s pretty common that what you let go shows up in your thoughts
again. And that’s ok. Just let it go each time it shows up.
What to Let Go?

Here are a few things you might want to let go of.
Let go of negative, small, petty, judgemental and unimportant stuff

If you dwell on that stuff – like how someone cut in front of you while you were driving or
something negative your boss told you – and blow it out of proportion all the time how
will you be happy? How will you be able to focus? And how will you be able to handle
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by Henrik Edberg
"We need to learn something really big when it comes along like a serious disease, a break up or getting laid
to let go as easily off? Be smart about that stuff.
as we grasp and
we will find our Don’t make yourself weak by making mountains out of molehills. Let that stuff go and
hands full and our focus on the more important and positive stuff you have and want in your life.
minds empty.”
Let go of distracting stuff
Leo F. Buscaglia
It’s easy to get caught up in checking your inbox all the time. Or filling your time with tasks
that are kinda important but in the end are mostly distractions.
Letting that distracting stuff go from your life and thoughts as best you can makes is a lot
easier to focus, find free time and remain on track.
Let go of trying to control the results of your actions
I already mentioned this tip in the chapter about creating an action habit. Here is a quote
from the ancient scripture Bhagavad Gita that first alerted me of this way of going about
and thinking about things:
“To action alone hast thou a right and never at all to its fruits; let not the fruits of action be
thy motive; neither let there be in thee any attachment to inaction”
This quote tells me to understand that I cannot control the results of my action. I can’t
control how someone reacts to what I say or what I do. And that I should do what I do just
because it is something I want to do rather than because of some outcome I’d like. But at
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the same time I should not let these two ideas lead me to become passive and get stuck in
sitting on my hands and not taking action at all.
Basically, I do what I think is right and that is my responsibility. And then the rest (the
possible results, how people may react etc.), well, that is not up for me to decide about or
try to control. I let it go.
Let go of information you don’t need

If you have read a lot about personal development then you might have a lot of tips on
different topics in your head. But you might not need 25 ways to handle nervousness.
Now, articles with that many tips can be helpful but it’s important to try that stuff out for
yourself and see what tips that work most effectively for you. And then to simplify so you
always know what action to take if you get nervous for example. Instead of having your
mind so cluttered with information that you become paralyzed and take no action at all.
Let go of the past and old self-images

I think this can be a big problem for many people. They get caught up in the past and
relive it over and over (perhaps in their minds as old conflicts are on replay or by making
the same negative decisions over and over again). Or sometimes they become trapped in
their current circumstances as they think that they are what happened to them in the
past. Of course, our self-images are fluid.
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by Henrik Edberg
A few years ago I for instance saw myself as someone who didn’t eat healthy food or was
athletic and worked out. Even when I started to do that a bit more I still felt like the
person I used to feel like when I was living in an unhealthy way.
Over time I started to think more and more of myself as someone who was healthy. But
still shifted between the two self-images of being a healthy person and an unhealthy
person. So since sometime around the beginning of 2009 I let go of that reassuring past
image of myself that felt kinda comfortable. Since then, as my self-image as a healthy
person has become consistent in my mind, I find it much easier to work out and eat
healthy food. It seems like the natural thing for me to do now.
I think at some point you have to make a shift and let your old identity go if you want to
grow. It may be your identity when it comes to health. Or money. Or socially.
If you try to improve but still cling to that old identity of who you were then it will be very
hard to move forward at your full capacity. And also harder work than it needs to be.
When you are not holding on to that past image, when you stop working against yourself,
then your current work to improve some part of yourself becomes more natural and many
of the mental obstacles just disappear.
You will still be you if you let your past or an old self-image go. But it’s a new you, a
simpler and lighter you. A you that feels truer, more comfortable but at the same time
more exciting to you.
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by Henrik Edberg
Final Thoughts
That’s it. 7 habits and dozens of tips and techniques that can help you to live a happier
life.
It may feel overwhelming so I would like to emphasize what I wrote in the beginning of
this book.
Don’t try to do this all at once. Focus on one habit at a time for 30 days or more. It may
seem slow and I understand that it’s easy to get wrapped up in the enthusiasm and the
hope that you will give your life a total overhaul right now. Nothing wrong with that.
But in my experience you won’t be able to keep it up until your new habits are
established and stable. Sure, you can live on your enthusiasm for a week or two. But
sooner or later life interferes or the stress of doing it all at once causes too much inner
and outer resistance and you give up.
Changing a habit is a lot of mental effort. You have resistance from within as your mind
tries to drag you back to the comfort it has known for so long (no matter if that familiar
place isn’t that healthy for you). You may face resistance from the outside as people
question your change.
Changing just one habit at a time may seem pretty boring. But do you want the
excitement of the thought that you are completely changing your life but then have little
to no results later on? Or do you want a real change in your life?
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by Henrik Edberg
Thank you!
Finally, I would like to thank you for reading this book and I hope you enjoyed it as much
as I loved writing it. And thank you so much for supporting me and the Positivity Blog!
If you would like to connect with me then I’m on Twitter, Facebook and you can shoot
me an email from this contact page.
Have a happy and awesome life!
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The 7 Timeless Habits of

This book is for informational purposes only and it contains my opinions

According to some, the meaning of life.

About the author

about improving your happiness, social life, health, and general

How to implement these habits

“I must die. Must I 1. Choose Happiness

Must I then also

Be grateful for what you got

The gratitude journal

Use big and written goals

“I earn 7000 dollars per month.”

Ask yourself useful questions

What is awesome about this situation?

Focus on the essentials

“Very little is need Choose an Environment of Happiness

Socialize with people that lift you up

Choose positive information

"Those who think

Know what and how much you are eating

minerals. And it can also tell you if you are overeating.

 Mark’s Daily Apple

Find a way that fits you

Get Enough Sleep

"Action may not

how bad things are for you.

"Twenty years 1. Use a morning ritual

"Happy people 2. Do things even if you don’t feel like it

3. Don’t hurt yourself

the past, nor to

7 Awesome Benefits of Being in the Present Moment

1. Improved social skills

tune out possible interruptions or distractions in your surroundings.

3. You appreciate your world more

again, discovering things while they still feel fresh.

5. Less worry-warting and over-thinking

Use guided meditation

Focus on your breathing

See things as for the first time

Pick up presence from other people

"If you want 5. Help and Make Other People Happy

In your daily life it may be things like:

 Bringing a positive attitude and vibe into interactions.

 Cheering someone up.

The Ego Wants More

"Loving people live And remember what Seneca said.

You and Your Relationship with Yourself

Don’t compare yourself to other people

You are OK and so are they.

Just realize that you can’t win

Compare yourself to yourself

"Success is not the

you love what you

How Do You Find What You Love to Do?

So do you find out what you really want to do?

Good questions bring your clarity

 What makes you feel alive?

Write all those answers down.

Two good books that I have come across are:

So How Do You Let Things Go?

Ask yourself helpful questions

Again, ask yourself helpful questions:

“Who cares?” (one of my absolute favourite questions)