The 9 Choices Happy People Make

1. INTENTION - the active desire and commitment to be happy and the fully conscious decision to choose happiness over un-happiness.

2. ACCOUNTABILITY – the choice to create the life you want to live, to assume personal responsibility for your actions, thoughts and feelings and the emphatic refusal to blame others for your un-happiness.

3. IDENTIFCATION – the ongoing process of looking deeply within yourself to assess what makes you uniquely happy, apart from what you're told by others should make you happy.

4. CENTRALITY – the non-negotiable insistence on making that which creates happiness central in your life.

5. RECASTING – the choice to convert problems into opportunities and challenges and to transform trauma into something meaningful, important and a source of emotional energy.

6. OPTIONS – the decision to approach life by creating multiple scenarios, to be open to new possibilities and to adopt a flexible approach to life's journeys.

7. APPRECIATION – the choice to deeply appreciate your life and the people in it and to stay in the present by turning each experience into something precious.

8. GIVING – the choice to share yourself with friends and community and to give to the world at large without the expectation of a “return”

9. TRUTHFULNESS – the choice to be honest with yourself and others in an accountable manner by not allowing societal, corporate or family demands to violate your internal contract.