Many people think that the law of attraction is going to get them everything they want in their life and then they’ll be happy.  It’s really the other way around.

When we’re happy our energetic vibration is higher, and we are able to draw in more of what we want in our life.  So really Happiness I believe is the ultimate key to having the law of attraction working most effectively in your life to bring you what it is you want.

It’s very clear that trying to be happy from the outside in, from chasing after all of the things that you think will make you happy, is ultimately futile.  You may get a lot of the goodies in life, but ultimately they will not last.  The only way that you can have lasting, deep and true happiness, is to develop an inner state of peace and well being. It’s what I call being happy for no reason, happy from the inside out.  When you have this deep inner state of well being, remarkable things happen in your life.  Because its not that you’re coming at them from a level of need.  They are manifesting because you are already living in a state of joy, and from that joy you are drawing phenomenal miracles in life.

People are always wondering, what is it I can do to be happier, and I’ve found the only difference between happy people and everybody else, is that happy people have different habits. I’ve actually distilled them down to 21 core happiness habits that anyone can practice to raise what’s called your happiness set point, to raise your ongoing level of happiness, I’ll give you one of them right now.  It’s a simple technique and its called wishing other people well.

I interviewed a woman named CJ, and CJ had been very depressed.  She had lupus, which is an auto-immune disorder.  She had it for 15 years.  She was in a wheelchair.  She was very miserable, she was overweight, and she heard about this simple practice, of wishing other people well.  What she would do everyday, she would spend a few minutes, sending other people wishes of well being, happiness, joy, health to everybody around her.  She would actually do this throughout her day to her family members, coworkers, her friends, even strangers on the freeway that she would pass by.

A year after doing this I can’t tell you what happened to the people she sent wishes to, but I can tell you what happened to her.  Her happiness level soared, she’s out of the wheelchair, exercising 3 times a week.  The doctor said it was a medical miracle, and all she did was silently in her heart send a wish of happiness, peace and well being to other people.  The wish simply went like this, “may you be safe, may you be happy, may you be healthy, may you live with ease.”

That is something so simple that anyone can do it throughout the day, doesn’t even take any extra time, but the effects in your life can be dramatic.  And imagine also the effects that we’d have in the world.

I once heard someone say that their entire life changed when they shifted from the question, “What is it that I want in life?” to the question, “What does life want from me?” Now that’s a very simple difference in a question, but an entire paradigm shift.

When we are looking for what does life want from me, what am I really here for, and we move from that energy, then life lines up in magical ways.  We end up moving in ways where we are led to where we are supposed to be next.  We are open to the amazing possibilities that are out there.  Rather than coming from the angle, What do I want?, instead opening up to the angle of, What does life want from me?

One of the oldest studies on happiness started in the 1920s and it showed that when people give, they come from a place of giving, their happiness level is raised.  In fact they researched people who were in high school in the 1920s and those people in high school who were the most generous and giving of their time, of their energy, 50 years later ended up being the happiest people.

When we come to life with the question “What am I here to give, what can I give today?” life becomes magical, we become happier, and we serve so much more. Now I want to be clear that this isn’t about over-giving.  This isn’t about being a martyr.  This isn’t about being a people pleaser.  It’s about coming from a place of really feeling, what is my gift here on this planet and how can I most give that gift in everyday, in every moment? How can I serve?

One of the biggest things I noticed in interviewing people who had unconditional happiness, is that they all shared one key belief, and that belief is that the Universe is out to support them.

One of the most important things that people can have in life to support their life is a belief that this is a friendly universe. Einstein actually said that the most important question you can ask yourself is,  “Is this a friendly universe, is this a benevolent universe, is the universe out to support you?”

What I found is that people who were able to answer unconditionally yes, the universe is out to support me, are those who are the happiest.  When you believe that the universe is out to support you, it doesn’t mean that things will always go your way, bad things can happen.  But you will always end up asking the question, rather than why did this horrible thing happen to me in a victim mentality, instead you will ask the question, what is the higher purpose of this?  If this were happening for a higher purpose what is it that I can learn from this?

If I know that the universe is always out to support me, I will look for the lesson and the gift in every circumstance.

Marci Shimoff is one of over 20 leading experts appearing in the film Beyond Belief, produced by Jim Holzknecht and Becky Hays.