Beyond Happiness: The 6 Secrets of Lifetime Satisfaction
Beyond Happiness: The 6 Secrets of Lifetime Satisfaction
“Dr. Guttman’s book is a game changer. It offers a crystal clear plan on how to transform everyday patterns and lead a more joyful life.”
— Amy B. Scher, bestselling author of How To Heal Yourself When No One Else Can
“A veteran cognitive behavioral therapist and clinical psychologist shares what she knows to help readers achieve satisfaction beyond reaching for the sometimes-elusive emotion of happiness… Guttman’s program is based on the ‘six core techniques of sustainable life satisfaction’… Each strategy is fully fleshed out and illuminated by accounts of the author’s work with clients, quotes from experts in her field of cognitive behavioral therapy, and cited data.”
— Kirkus Reviews
Change the Goal, Not the Feeling.
A psychologist’s six-step roadmap to a life beyond happiness—one of sustainable lifetime satisfaction.
How often do you find yourself asking “Am I happy?” and do you struggle to answer the question? Don’t worry—you’re not alone. Society instills in us that being happy is binary. But happiness isn’t a mindset—it’s a feeling, and like any other emotion, it comes and goes. So stop chasing something that by definition is fleeting, and start focusing on an attainable goal: sustainable satisfaction. Beyond Happiness is a roadmap that utilizes various techniques and skills that are easy enough to use in everyday life but challenging enough to make a meaningful impact. When you move beyond happiness to achieve authentic life satisfaction, you become more confident, self-empowered, self-reliant, and resilient.
Dr. Jennifer Guttman received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Long Island University. She is trained in cognitive behavioral therapy with specializations in trauma treatment and family systems. Over the past five years Dr. Guttman has launched a motivational brand platform Sustainable Life Satisfaction® with four SLS® YouTube web series. She authored her first book, A Path to Sustainable Life Satisfaction Workbook (Amazon 2017), released the Audible Original, Beyond Happiness, The 6 Secrets of Life Satisfaction (October 2022), and the same title was published as a hardcover by Post Hill Press (May 30, 2023).
Dr. Guttman is a regular contributor to Psychology Today, Thrive Global, MindBodyGreen, and has written articles for the Washington Post, Newsweek, NBC.com, Marie Claire, Entrepreneur Magazine, Readers Digest, Redbook, Health, TeenVogue, among others. She has been a guest on several network television programs across the country including, KTLA, ABC News, Channel 20, Springfield, IL, NBC Bloom, and CBS Georgia Channel 13,WMAZ. In addition, she has been featured on dozens of podcasts including Beyond Well, Longevity Live, Unshakeable Self-Confidence, Harvesting Happiness, Resilience Unraveled and The Hidden Why.
Over the past 30 years, she has sustained robust practice with offices in NYC, Connecticut, and virtually as a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist nurturing exciting personal interactions with thousands of clients from diverse walks of life.
Excerpt from Beyond Happiness
I began to explore the factors that had glued me together and helped me move forward even in the worst of times. If I could map those out, I could share my strategy. That’s how Sustainable Life Satisfaction was conceived.
I realized there was a through line of techniques that had carried me across all the traumatic events of the past years. If defiant resilience is the final and crucial component of an empowered life, the key to sustainable satisfaction, how do we get there? As I thought about all I’d gone through, I noticed some patterns. I had consistently done six things:
- I avoided assumptions.
- I reduced people-pleasing behavior.
- I faced my fears.
- I made decisions.
- I followed through and became a closer.
- I actively self-reinforced.
As I began to teach these skills to my clients, I saw something incredible happen over and over again! As people consistently applied my Sustainable Life Satisfaction techniques, they were not only becoming more satisfied and resilient, but they were also realizing that happiness isn’t the goal—it’s a feeling.
It took time, motivation, and patience, but they developed the capacity to rebound and transcend, not only from ordinary, everyday problems—a traffic jam that made them miss a big meeting, a child struggling with schoolwork, an argument with their partner—but also the gut punches that can cause lasting pain, like divorce, injury, illness, injustice, or the death of a loved one. Bad stuff will happen—there’s no avoiding it—but we can choose to make it a path forward, a path toward hope, and nobody is exempt from possibility.
My wish for you is that the path of Sustainable Life Satisfaction will be your road map to your best opportunities, to your life of defiant resilience: beyond happiness.