Book Review: How Life Works, by Andrew Matthews

Today, I want to do something a little different. I read tons of inspirational and self-help books, and it occurred to me you might be interested in them too!

Let me introduce: How Life Works, by Australian best-selling author Andrew Matthews. I’ve spoken about the first book by Matthews, Being Happy!, in the Resources page. How Life Works is the follow-up to it.

I read this book at least once a year, and every time I discover another useful nugget. It feels like the book’s lessons work for each situation in my life that I need to work on. It helped with my anxiety, and it helped focusing on my goals.

How Life Works is about: 
Why the same things keep happening to you
Why bills come in bunches

It is about:
How to find the love of your life
How to find the work you love
Why some people always fall on their feet – and how you can be like them.

How Life Works explains why:
It’s not WHAT you know
It’s not WHO you know

It’s all about how you FEEL.

How Life Works, available on Amazon

As you might have guessed, the central part of this book is the famous “Law of Attraction”. But, unlike other books on the same subject, this one is filled with concrete examples and illustrations made by the author himself. It’s not just “theory”, it’s practical advice about changing the way you see life and the way you feel on a daily basis. I love the fact that Andrew Matthews seems to have thought about every objection I might have to what he says, because he replies to all of them.

You Get What You Feel

This is the main point of the book: how you feel is creating the reality around you. Have you ever felt angry about a little issue, and then several little issues happened just afterwards? For example you left work stressed and overworked, had someone bumping into you in the street without saying sorry, suffered through a loud group of drunk people in the tube, then arrived home to find out there’s no food left? No? Just me?

Andrew Matthews says that when you feel that life is against you, it is. On the other hand, when you feel happy and lucky, events will rearrange themselves to prove you right. Your feelings create your reality, and not the other way around.

The idea is therefore to change your feeling to change what happens to you. It’s to feel as if you have already accomplished your goals and as if you are already successful. It’s not an easy task, of course, because to feel better, you need to select your thoughts and only allow productive ones.

When the Law of Attraction Fails

The Law of Attraction is exactly this: positive or negative thoughts will bring very different experiences in your life. If you visualise what you want, and think about it all the time, eventually the universe will bring it to you. I have witnessed it many times in my life, and you might have too.

But sometimes, no matter how much I wished for something, it didn’t happen. Which is where this book is the most helpful in my opinion. According to Andrews, when the Law of Attraction seems to be broken, it’s usually because:

  • We chose a goal that didn’t really excite us
  • We got stuck in “reverse gear” – meaning we focused on LACK
  • Or we chose goals we didn’t really believe were possible

The book explains each of these points and how they prevent you from “feeling” your goals, and it’s enlightening!

We Are All Connected

The way you feel will not only influence you and the things that happen around you, but will also influence the people around you. The book talks about about an incredible study in Jerusalem where hundreds of people meditated for two months. It resulted in the violence in the whole area decreasing immediately. More incredible: as soon at the study finished, the violence went back to its former (higher) level.

The book contains other examples of this connexion between all of us, pulling data from several studies in various fields.

Success Will Not Make You Happy.

If you are miserable now, chances are you’ll be miserable even if you become successful. We all know examples of famous people who never managed to find happiness, despite their success and their money. Happiness is a muscle that you need to train now, in order to keep it when you become successful.

Furthermore, how you feel is going to greatly influence your success. If you feel good, your “vibration” will attract opportunities and collaborations.

Be Grateful. Live in the Now. Love Yourself

But how exactly do you feel good, if everything sucks right now? There are the three strategies that Andrew Matthews recommends to change your vibration:

  • Feeling grateful for every little things in life makes you see things differently.
  • Deciding to be happy now, instead of “when…”, helps you celebrate life and removes anxiety about the future.
  • Loving yourself. Every experience you have is coloured by how you feel about yourself. So to have good things happening to you, you need to accept yourself.

If you practise these three strategies every day, it will progressively change your outlook on the world and “elevate your vibration”.

In Summary

One of my favourite non-fiction books, from one of my favourite authors. If the concepts of happiness, thoughts and energy interest you, I highly recommend that you read it. And even if you have doubts about the Law of Attraction (perhaps you read stuff like “The Secret”, and didn’t like it?), I would recommend it because it’s much more concrete and less “out there” than most books on the subject.

I hope I convinced you to give this book a try! Don’t hesitate to give me your opinion on it in the comments, or to recommend me books that you think I should read and review!