Drawing on her own research with thousands of people, psychologist Lyubomirsky has pioneered a detailed yet easy-to-follow plan to increase happiness in our day-to-day lives--in the short and long term. This book that offers a guide to understanding what happiness is, and isn't, and what can be done to bring us all closer to the happy life we envision. Using more than a dozen happiness-increasing strategies, it offers a new way to understand our innate potential for joy and happiness as well as our ability to sustain it in our lives. Lyubomirsky's "happiness strategies" introduce readers to the concept of intentional activities that they can use to achieve a happier life, including exercises in optimism and how best to savor life's pleasures in the here and now. She also helps readers understand the obstacles to happiness as well as how to harness individual strengths to overcome them. --From publisher description.