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The Happiness Habits Course
Want to feel happier and help spread a bit more happiness?
The Happiness Habits course will help you boost your happiness and become part of an incredible community of people making the world a happier and kinder place. Developed by the passionate team at Action for Happiness, this unique science-based program draws on the wisdom of experts across many fields, to help you learn habits for happier living and spreading happiness to others.
This six-week course has been specially designed to gather the insights of the world's leading experts on six fundamental aspects of a happy and meaningful life: Gratitude, Self-Care, Relationships, Resilience, Kindness, and Meaning.
The course is currently offered online on zoom in locations around the world.
Each week features a 2-hour long session with expert videos, group discussion and self-chosen actions that you can build into life-altering habits.
Each course is run by local facilitators volunteering their time so that we can offer it on a donate-what-you-can basis.
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"I wholeheartedly support the course and hope that many thousands will benefit from it and be inspired to take their own action to create a happier world"
~ H.H. Dalai Lama
“Sharing and learning from each other allowed us space to grow and taking away action plans each week focused our minds on pro active action.” ~ Jacqueline, London
“More or less everything is a highlight as it is mightily well researched and factual.” ~ Annick, Lindfield
“Being able to believe that I could be brave enough to change my circumstances/life, in order to be happier/make others happier around me.” ~ Michelle, Farnborough
ABOUT THE COURSE
Happiness Habits is a secular, science-based course for people who want to learn how to live happily and spread happiness to those around them. It was created to help people tune in to what really matters in life, connect with people around them and find simple ways to start taking action.
By finding small actions that really fit into our existing routines we can actually have dramatic impacts on our wellbeing.
On the course you will:
- Connect - Meet with like-minded people to explore what really matters in life and find new ways of looking at things.
- Learn - Enjoy expert videos, mindfulness practices and group exercises to help you apply the lessons to your life.
- Apply - Take time each week to think of small actions you can take to create happiness for yourself and those around you.
By the end of the course, you will have had the opportunity to look deeply into several important areas of life that we don’t always have the support to explore properly.
You’ll have been inspired by some of the world’s leading experts in wellbeing and happiness and will have gained supportive relationships with others who are also looking to boost their wellbeing.
You will have tried out some new approaches to finding happiness in your everyday life and feel better equipped to create happiness for yourself and others.
People find it really valuable and often refer to what they learn on the course as life-changing.
WHO THE COURSE IS FOR
This course is for anyone interested in exploring how to create happiness for themselves or others. Maybe you’re someone who could do with some new approaches to try out in your own life. Or maybe you’re passionate about creating happier communities and a happier world.
Whether you are already very experienced, or just starting out on your happiness journey, by coming together with others locally on this course you can find the inspiration and support you need to find the actions that work for you.
We want the course to be available to all, so that’s why we’ve designed it to be open to anyone (aged 18 and above) from all sorts of backgrounds.
Please note: this course is not group therapy, if you are experiencing severe challenges at the moment we recommend seeking alternative professional support.
HOW IT WORKS
The course is run for groups of between 10 and 20 people by approved volunteers who step forwards to help spread happiness in their local area.
Although the volunteers are unpaid, collecting donations is essential to cover the other costs of maintaining the programme such as maintaining the website and booking system, volunteer training, paying for course promotion and the development and maintenance of materials.
Everyone who joins the course makes a donation of their choice to be there. You can choose to either give the recommended donation of £60 or give more or less depending on your circumstances.
If someone can't make a donation online or needs a place on the course without making a donation then they can email us for a free place.
We welcome everyone on the course equally whatever they are able to give (we won’t turn anyone away).
WHO RUNS THE COURSES
As with the previous course all individual courses are run locally by pairs of trained and selected volunteers.
All our volunteers have been through our volunteer training programme and are individually vetted and supported through calls with our volunteer manager.
The volunteers are there as facilitators rather than experts and the course has been specifically designed to maximise participant involvement - with volunteers in place just to guide things along.
Whilst they are not there to ‘teach’ on the course, we ensure all our volunteers are well briefed on the content, skilled in managing groups and are warm and compassionate people.
HOW THE COURSE WAS DEVELOPED
Happiness Habits was developed by the Action for Happiness team who together have decades of experience in developing wellbeing interventions.
It is based on the earlier ‘Exploring What Matters’ course which impacted thousands of participants from 2015-2020 and shown to significantly raise wellbeing and pro-social behaviour when evaluated by Oxford University and the London School of Economics.
Happiness Habits keeps the core model of the previous course:
- Tune In: use mindfulness exercises, expert speakers and personal reflections to help ground participants in the topic.
- Connect: use group and paired discussions to benefit from collective wisdom and feel supported by others.
- Take Action: commitment to taking action outside the sessions to practice and get first-hand experience.
And improves up on it by making it easier to access, making the focus more practical than philosophical and bringing all the content up to date.
We are immensely proud of the Happiness Habits course and hope you get the chance to experience it soon!
Download the FREE Action for Happiness app for iOS or Android
Gives you friendly nudges with an action idea each day Sends you inspiring messages to give you a boost Helps you connect & share ideas with like-minded people
