There have been huge advances in the study of happiness and how to attain it in recent years. Forbe’s Rebecca Ruiz writes about Ten Ways To Be Happier Now, prompted by a new book The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want by Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California.

To summarise, the ten ways are:

1. Be at the Center of Your Network: People at the centre of their networks are more likely to be happy and those on the fringes are more likely to be melacholic. If you feel you’re at the edges, organise regular get togethers with your family, friends and neighbours.
2. Surround Yourself With Happy People: Happiness (and depression) are contagious - even up to three degrees of separation!
3. Watch Less TV: Watching too much TV and gaming have been known to make people feel less in control of their lives. Dr. John P. Robinson, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland found that unhappy people watch over 30% more TV per day than very happy people with no other differences in their lives. 
4. Lead an Active Life:  Dr. Robinson found that  happy people spend more time socializing with relatives and friends, attending church, reading the newspaper, working and being active. 
5. Manage Your Time Wisely: Dr. Robinson found that using time unwisely–having too much of it or not enough–was recently correlated with increased levels of unhappiness. He found that 51% of unhappy respondents felt they had too much time, compared with 19% of those who felt very happy.
6. Find Ways to Cope: Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky found that developing an effective coping strategy is key to overcoming most troubles. There’s also no single way to cope, though she recommends trying to develop strengths you didn’t know you had–like the ability to manage a household budget in the midst of a financial crisis.
7. Set and Pursue Goals: According to Dr. Lyubomirsky, goals give us a sense of purpose, they tend to cultivate self-esteem, since the sense of accomplishment can segue to feelings of confidence and they add structure to the daily routine of life, which Dr. Robinson’s findings on time-use revealed can be an important component of long-term happiness.
8. Don’t Think Too Much: Dr. Lyubomirsky often encountered a behavior known as self-focused rumination (in other words, obsessing over the unknown), which many people believe might lead them to clarity or resolution. But according to studies conducted in the past 20 years, such behavior actually fosters biased thinking, impedes concentration and diminishes a person’s ability to solve problems. Breaking this habit can be tough, but Lyubomirsky recommends distracting yourself with engrossing activities.
9. Practice Gratitude: A study conducted by Dr. Lyubomirsky required a group of 57 participants to write down five things for which they were grateful once a week. A second group of the same size did so three times a week. A third control group of 32 did nothing. Six weeks later, participants in the first group were happier, healthier and exercising more.
10. Experiment With Happiness: If the so-called secrets to contentment don’t exactly work for you, try another version or interpretation of the guidelines. You may not have the same success with a particular strategy as others do, says Dr. Lyubomirsky, because achieving happiness doesn’t happen in a uniform way. Instead, think of it as a sliding scale on which some methods work better, while others make little or no difference.

I’ve recently seen my TV watching creep up on me - mostly it’s been to keep my husband company in the evening but I’m now finding it distracting me from my reading or whatever I may need to do in the evening. While it would be unreasonable for me to stop him from watching the programs he likes, we’ve come to a compromise where the TV is switched off no later than 10pm (one day I’ll push this back to 9pm) - anything on after that time is just recorded.  This gives us adequate time to do some quiet reading and wind down in the evening.

I also liked that there was some clinical evidence for the benefits of practicing gratitude - writing down five things that we’re grateful for everyday is a wonderful habit to cultivate.

In a related story on How to Buy Happiness, giving money away - not buying things for yourself - is more likely to bring happiness. And if you give to registered charities, you’ll also have the bonus of it being tax deductible!

As my second hub in the Hub Challenge, I just put up a huge list of ideas for articles for places like HubPages and Squidoo and Ezine Articles. I’m basically using it as a cheat sheet for the Hub Challenge.

Here is a small selection:

• Idea Source 14: Archives of big blogs and websites: Look through the archives of websites/blogs in your niche that are massively prolific. Examples are http://Mashable.com, http://Gizmodo.com, http://www.bhg.com - they are an ideas goldmine.
• Idea Source 17: Email Newsletters: Look through any email newsletters that you subscribe to (if you don’t have any, you should subscribe to a number in your areas of interest - make sure you set up a filter so that they bypass your inbox - this is purely for reference when you need it not to make your inbox more unmanageable): the tips and advice can be idea starters for Hubs.
• Idea Source 28: Twitter Search: Type your keyword or niche into Twitter Search and you’ll get a list of recent conversations that feature that word. Often there will be links but what I love is looking for questions or problems - these you can answer in a Hub.

For more go to my hub: 30 Sources for Ideas for the Hub Challenge - A Cheat Sheet. And remember, you can follow my hub progress at my HubPages homepage.

You can keep up with progress on my Hubpages profile or my new-ish Twitter account (and if you follow me, as long as you’re legit and are decent, I’ll follow you), I’ve also installed a Hubpages widget on the side.

There is the choice of 30 hubs or 100 hubs in 30 days. 

You can download badges from the official page for info if you want to join up. It’s also worth reading the post on Courtney Tuttle’s blog that originally inspired the contest: 100 Hubs In 30 Days.

I think with a schedule like 100 or even 30 posts, most of the hubs that come out of this won’t be of the best quality but it’s good practice and I’m hoping it will train me to write more and quicker. Though perhaps it’s not the worst thing to be a thoughtful writer.

I LOVE Print on Demand - I love how it has completely democratised the whole publishing process. No longer do we have to wait for a book deal - we can now go ahead and be sold on Amazon through createspace or in bookshops with lulu.

Now there is a service especially for producing and distributing magazines called MagCloud.

The magazines are printed on a “80# matte text stock that is FSC-certified and 50% recycled — 10% post consumer waste and 40% pre-consumer waste.” You supply an 8.5″x11″ original and they trim it down to a final size of 8.25″x10.75″. You can have any number of pages between 4 and 60 (and it must be a multiple of 4).

Here is an example magazine put together by the University of Arizona’s Dream|Reality Print Project:

All you need to do is upload a formatted PDF. MagCloud charge 20 cents a page and then you can put your own markup - they sell directly to your audience and mail it to them and send you your markup directly. Too easy!

Unfortunately, they have yet to work out a subscription service but they are working on it!

It’s been a while since I’ve featured a quote, but this one was too good. Kevin Riley who is a product creation genie is currently rolling out some free success coaching which he’s calling Success Manifesto 2011 - Breaking down the Barriers. Not sure where it is all leading to but there are some neat little reminders on the importance of sticking to your goals.

In his latest video installment, he quoted Henry Ford:

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. 

It’s too easy to see the obstacles and let them blur your vision of the goal. I know I’m guilty of that! I’ll have some great idea and then the doubts will creep in, the problems, and then the idea doesn’t seem so great after all.

The thing is that all great ideas will have obstacles or else there would be someone already doing it. But bykeeping your eye on the goal rather than the obstacle, the obstacle is kept in proportion and doesn’t take on an importance and size that it doesn’t actually deserve.