Booklet Texts

Why Us, Gift of Happiness?

Most people have a deep, inner desire to give happiness to the family members and friends who are important to them. Since even the Internet cannot deliver a box of instant happiness, we instead buy objects and experiences that we believe will make our loved ones happy. If we know the other person well enough and can avoid giving them something that would actually make us happy rather than them, this strategy works for a while, and we get what we are giving for: a happy, joyful smile from someone who is important to us.

​​​​This happy state, however, almost never lasts. How many people have you met who received something for their birthday and were still getting up happily every morning because of it 10 years later? 

​​​​​Unfortunately, lasting happiness cannot be given as a gift. Happiness is actually a state. An inner state that is almost impossible to sustain permanently through external influences, objects, or people. True happiness comes from within, and its real source is the way we see, interpret, and process the world. Have you ever met people who think the whole world is a disaster and experience this disaster every day? Or perhaps you have known someone who is constantly bursting with happiness and always smiling? How is it possible that these two people live in the same world and yet feel so differently and see things so differently? Or perhaps you have experienced similar feelings yourself at some point in your life? Has there ever been a time when this changed from one day to the next? My guess is that it has definitely happened to you at least once… when you fell in love.
Have you ever wondered how it is that when you fell in love, regardless of how terrible your life had been up until then, from the 

moment Cupid’s arrow struck you, your life suddenly appeared in a completely different light? Your boss is suddenly not so annoying, your work is not so difficult, and even the neighborhood where you live suddenly seems much more beautiful. You feel as though the world around you is full of life, while you are full of energy, can hardly wait to try new things, and see your whole life as wonderful, almost floating in happiness. But what changed? Nothing about your circumstances; your life is exactly the same as yesterday. 

It’s just YOU who changed. All you did was replace the filter through which you see the world with a pink one.

What if you could consciously change this filter and didn’t have to wait for your one true love to appear? What if you could reprogram the way your brain observes the world and keeps track of the balance between good and bad in your life? What if this were actually possible, and what if it could be achieved in just three weeks?
Yes, it is possible. All you need is a little openness, your favorite pen, the notebook you are holding in your hands, and a dose of determination for the next 21 days.

Are you brave enough to give it a try?

How does it work?

Imagine that inside each of our brains sits a little security guard who continuously monitors the outside world. That security guard is our attention. It has all kinds of high-tech observation devices called senses, which flood it with information. Every second, it has to interpret and process millions of tiny pieces of information, images, sounds, smells, and sensations. Since it would be impossible to analyze all this information in detail, after a brief interpretation it filters out what is important and what is not, based on what it learned during its “security guard training.” What gets through the filter is analyzed in detail; everything else is literally left outside the scope of your attention.

This is an incredibly efficient system for concentrating your attention, but it has one huge weak point: the security guard’s training.

What if the security guard sitting in your head went through the wrong training and, for example, learned that the world is a dangerous place, that no one can be trusted, and that the world is full of pitfalls? Naturally, it will focus most of your attention on identifying anything that seems even slightly dangerous so that it can then analyze it down to the smallest detail. Literally, good things will escape your attention because you will no longer have the capacity for them. Your attention’s rapid-analysis system simply filters out the good things because they do not require detailed analysis.

The good news is that the security guard in your head is the most trainable security guard in the world. Numerous studies have shown that we can significantly reshape our attention in as little as 3 weeks.

You only need to think of the everyday example of deciding to buy a new item of clothing, phone, or car. The moment you decide which brand you want, suddenly the streets become flooded with those 

Why is this good for me?

From early childhood, we are taught that if we become rich, successful, good mothers, good fathers, and so on, then we will be happy. So first we have to achieve something, and then, once we have achieved it, the feeling of happiness will come and last forever. But as soon as we achieve something, our brain almost immediately starts focusing on the next goal, something more beautiful, better, bigger, more expensive, newer, and the initial good feeling quickly wears off in everyday life. The statement that “success brings happiness” has also been clearly disproven by the latest scientific research; in fact, research has shown that our brains actually work in the opposite way and that “happiness leads to success.” If we can raise someone’s level of positivity in the present, in other words, if they feel happier, their performance immediately improves in almost every respect. Their intelligence increases, they become more creative, their energy level rises, their immune system improves, and they become more resistant to illness.

You can experience this yourself within just three weeks!

All you have to do is train your brain a little for 21 days to notice and recognize the positive things in your life instead of filtering them out of your attention. For 21 days, this workbook helps you recall and somewhat relive the small positive moments.
The exercises in the workbook were compiled by Shawn Achor, the world-renowned positive psychology researcher from Harvard University, and you can read about them in detail in the book The Happiness Advantage, which has also been published in Hungarian 

or on the website.

You will also find plenty of help on the website for completing the workbook. For every task, you will find useful templates, ready-made examples, and tips on how to fit all of this into your busy everyday life.