How to Be Single and Happy: Science-Based Strategies for Keeping Your Sanity While Looking for a Soul Mate

by Jennifer Taitz

Single, less stressed, and free

If you're tired of swiping through dating apps, ghosting, and hearing well-meaning questions about why you're still single, it's hard not to feel "less-than" because you haven't found your soul mate.

Until now.

How to Be Single and Happy is an empowering, compassionate guide to stop overanalyzing romantic encounters, get over regrets or guilt about past relationships, and identify what you want and need in a partner. But this isn't just another dating book. Drawing on her extensive expertise as a clinical psychologist, as well as the latest research, hundreds of patient interviews, and key principles in positive psychology, Dr. Jennifer Taitz challenges the most common myths about women and love (like the advice to play hard to get). And while she teaches how to skillfully date, she'll also help you cultivate the mindset, values, and connections that ensure you'll live your best, happiest life, whether single or coupled up.

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Relationships, Psychology, Personal Development, Mental Health, Audiobook

217 pages, Paperback

First published January 16, 2018

About the author

Dr. Taitz aims to provide you with practical strategies to heighten your joy, wellbeing, and productivity.

Reviews

[Sophia Hanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone who knows me well knows I tend to scoff at self help books. I often find them fruity—if well intentioned. I took a chance on this book in a moment of lonely desperation and I am very glad I did.

How to be Single and Happy is a comprehensive guide to finding and maintaining contentedness in the midst of romantic and platonic aloneness. It goes much deeper than just that, though. It gives you some simple tools to increase your happiness in life in general. It was organized, logical, and here is the kicker—it has already started to work. Now to be clear, just reading a self help book will not change your life for the better. You actually have to do the legwork. But I have started to employ some of the methods the author recommended (i.e. mindfulness, breaking judgmental loops etc.) and I swear I feel like an anchor has been lifted from my chest.

Beyond its general helpfulness, I also appreciated that this book catered to people of all ages, faiths, sexualities, and identities flawlessly.

I highly recommend this book to anyone struggling with loneliness, anxiety, or depression.

[Maria Almaguer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book should be given to every woman upon high school graduation. Like the author, I also forged ahead with a career with the goal of always being able to support myself. But I also wanted love and marriage and had it for 21 years...until I didn't. I especially like how Taitz incorporates real-life cases with current research and study, as well as valuable and practical here-and-now tips for instant use.

[jenny✨]

Saw the luminous & illuminating Kenzie Brenna reading this (to the background music of Taylor Swift's "the 1" no less 😍) and I hit that WANT TO READ button so fast.

[Ain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love it.
Some sort of upgrading your life in different view.
Your happiness cannot be determined by your marital status.

[La Toya · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is not just for single people. Anyone that wants to practice mindfulness or just live well should read this book. It also has the wonderful bonus of suggesting other books for more depth.

[Sonia · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing!!!! less a book about dating etc and more a book about living well. while this is definitely written for people who aren’t in relationships but want to be, anyone can benefit from reading this book as it explains applied CBT and mindfulness techniques in a really accessible and friendly/loving way. if anyone thinks it’s “lame” to read self-help books, kindly withhold judgement until you read something like this 💕💗💞

[Kristen · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is recommended a lot on reddit on dating threads and the divorce one. i'm not magically happy now that i've read it, but it had a lot of good points and i basically highlighted the whole thing.

the parts about becoming a mother - something a lot of women struggle with emotionally when they are single - made me cry. i liked that she gave lots of information and not the insulting 'you can always volunteer with kids or spend time with your nieces and nephews' that other well-intentioned but still insulting people spout when i dare to bring that up as something that upsets me.

this book is definitely geared towards women and i did appreciate that, felt more specific and helpful vs a more generic rounded approach.

at the end of the book, a friend of hers says "you didn't really write a book on being single, you wrote about advances in living well." so yes, this could be read by anyone and it's really about being happy in your current stage of life no matter what it is. but i still found it helpful for the single-specific-ness of it. i liked all the tips and scientific approaches to things.

like i said, didn't magically make me happy, but i doubt anything will. it gave me lots of tools and ideas on how to think about things and hopefully make my way to happy one day. i actually liked it so much that i basically read it twice - listened to it and then went back through the ebook and re-read my favourite parts.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I picked this up (upon recommendation from my wonderful therapist!) I was embarrassed. I’d hide the book when people came over and there was literally no way in hell I was putting it on my public goodreads profile. But this was such a lovely read, packed to the brim with insightful, RESEARCH-based techniques and practices. That was key for me. I can’t do self-help that’s all rah rah boss bitch. But science I can do.

[Eustacia Tan · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s interesting how book discoveries are made. I started off by looking at one of the books recommended by the NLB – How to Be Alone – stumbled across this book, and ended up borrowing it instead. And I have absolutely no regrets because this was a helpful book that *surprise* is more than what it means to (not) be in a relationship.

Utilising Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Dialetical Behavioural Therapy, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Jennifer Taitz draws on her and her clients’ lived experiences to show you how you can live a happy life even without a significant other.

I’ve got to admit, the subtitle “science-based strategies for keeping your sanity while looking for your soul mate” isn’t my favourite because while the book is scienced-based, looking for your soul mate isn’t the end goal. The goal of the book is to help you be happy in the present, no matter what your relationship status and I think that is a very important message. Aiming to be happy while single isn’t a consolation prize for not being happy and in a relationship – it’s how you should be because it’s your life and you are not defined by your relationship status.

Now that I’ve got my thoughts on the subtitle out of the way, let’s talk about the book. It’s broken into two main sections: Part 1 is titled “The Misery Formula” and it looks at various thinking pitfalls that single people can make, resulting in feelings of sadness, loneliness, hopelessness, etc. Part 2 is called “The Sane Solution” and this is where Taitz introduces various techniques to keep your emotional health on a happy footing.

Taken together, the book presents a method for getting rid of negative thoughts you may have about yourself and teaching you how to stay in a healthier emotional place. A lot of the advice can be applied to non-relationship related things (for example, ruminating and what to do about it), making this book suitable for anyone who’s looking for ways they can help their mental health, especially in stressful times such as these.

While this book is written primarily for women (in the sense that it’s by women and most of the examples are of women), I think that the advice given is gender neutral – in fact, I’ve already recommended it to a guy friend of mind. If you’d like to learn more about how to be happy in general using various therapy techniques, I’d definitely recommend this book.

This review was first posted at Eustea Reads

[Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite its limited (and rather terrible) title, this book offers a number of helpful points for improving your quality of life-- whether you are in a relationship currently or not. I love its no-nonsense, science-based approached to the squishy topics of self-worth and "happiness." For someone who does quite a bit of eye rolling over these topics, I found that the author's approach resonated with me.

Something it took me a long time to appreciate or understand is that in life, I am not only the sum of my titles. For the duration of my twenties, and into my thirties, I valued my life based on my stature as a Wife, a Friend, a Professional, a Daughter. Over the last couple of years, I've learned to broaden my self worth, instead honoring my Compassion, my Intelligence, my Work Ethic, and my Dependability, among other traits. This book does an excellent job of guiding one's thinking toward that broader lens.

Jennifer Taitz, a practicing CBT therapist, provides an effective mix of her own stories, combined with composite examples from her practice. These relatable scenarios helped me to identify thought patterns I've fallen into myself, and methods for a healthier approach.

Five stars, recommended to all women who need to consider themselves outside of their titles.

[Caitlin Trepp · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book difficult to read at times because I often had to put it down because it was depressing. I did like some of the research elements such as the tendency of people to overestimate how much marriage will elevate their mood. However the statistics and anecdotes of people being in relationships and not being happy did not make me more optimistic about being single. It just made me feel less optimistic about relationships. I suppose you could say it’s a more “realistic” perspective. But the personal anecdotes and case studies of this therapist’s patients I just didn’t relate to. I think I would have preferred more analysis of the current stats and research on this topic from a more neutral point of view. I’m not sure how much I learned or took away from this book. It was okay.

[Rebecca Johnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book should be titled “if you work on yourself enough your partner will show up.” I read this book looking for some insight on how to live a full life even if a partner doesn’t show up. The author gave general self help advice and ended each story with her or her client’s happily ever after. I think it’s pretty disappointing for someone who is consistently single to read this and each person’s life for better and they found a partner in the end. Not bad, just misleading.

[Salman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helpful. Enlightening. Friendly.

[Abby Riley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Listened to a podcast with this author and she was incredible and so insightful so I decided to look into her work. Feels sad and pathetic reading a book with this title.. HOWEVER, the book itself is mostly about how to live a fulfilling, great life filled with happiness and genuine connections, and less about actually being single. I enjoy being single and was seeking enlightenment on making the most of my single years, I got that and so much more. Highly recommend to anyone, single or not, looking to live to their highest potential.

[Maddy Speal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was it embarrassing to be gifted this from claire, sure - will I gift it to others in the future, 100%

[Alicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's not just a book about how to be single and happy, but about learning to enjoy life regardless of the circumstances. Although it does focus on being single, mostly from the perspective of (people raised as) women. From a young age we grow up with the pressure to find Mr Right and we're often judged on our relationship status.

It helped me to read this, after recently finding out someone I had feelings for had neglected to tell me he was married. I felt like a loser, jealous of his wife living the life I would have liked to have, intimidated by her beauty and intelligence. It doesn't help that I've been rejected a couple of times and haven't been able to connect to anyone else in the past eight years.

It resulted in feeling desperate en depressed, thinking it's never going to happen for me, I just suck and I'm going to die alone. It was really comforting to read stories of women feeling the same thing and it made it clear to me how ridiculous this way of thinking is.

A lot of the techniques in the book I was already familiar with. I spent some time with a physiotherapist working on mindfulness for chronic pain. But that was years ago, and reading about it again reminded me to be more present and aware of my feelings instead of thinking about what could have been or might never be. There's a lot of practical advice on how to deal with overwhelming emotions and rumination.

All in all, it's a good book to read when you're not feeling your best, going through a break-up or feeling lonely for whatever reason.

[Jenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed how the author used real life scenarios to give examples of what worked for others and what didn’t. I feel like a lot of self help books just give random inspirational quotes but don’t actually get to the root causes of behaviors and feelings.

The one thing I didn’t super like about this was the huge emphasis on being alone. It felt like that was just the only solution is being okay with being alone. I get what the author was trying to do of encouraging the reader to be okay with being alone and getting to know yourself more and you should enjoy being alone but I felt like there was an over emphasis on it. Tbh I don’t think it’s wrong to want to dream about a healthy relationship or marriage. I don’t think it’s good to deceive yourself or manipulate yourself into thinking being alone is what you want. As someone who is a huge hopeless romantic, being in a healthy stable relationship is a goal of mine. And I don’t think it’s wrong for me to strive to have achieve that.

Idk if I’m explaining this right but otherwise I liked this and it was very comforting to read. Thank you Cari for letting me borrow this I love u bb🫶🏻

[Tad · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the perfect book for me to read right now as I try to learn how to be single and happy. This book gave me some practical, solid advice about how to do that. My only quibble with it is that it is written for a female audience so all the advice is written strictly for them. I would have liked some more insight for and about men. Would have given the book a more well rounded perspective. But overall, a quick, easy read.

[Katelyn Jackman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for a client- I'd probably recommend this book to a single friend, client, or as a supplement to therapy (as long as I felt like the person fit demographic it addresses, which I'd say is primarily cis-gender, straight women). This book gives a great first pass at some great, evidence-based therapy techniques. Overall pretty accessible to the layperson and very grounded in research.

[Shmuli · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great read. Evidence based, insightful and practical.

[Maria Giacchino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. The title is misleading. The entire book is more about how to live mindfully and in the present. Would recommend to any friend for quick “how to live well” mentality. Quick read. Author is easy to understand and personable

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was fantastic. I highly recommend it. It would make a very nice “sequel” to the book “It’s Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You’re Single” by Sara Eckel. The Eckel book is the rational analysis of the issue, but this book is the empowering, hands-on approach to how you’re actually going to go about your life. (Interestingly, much of this book could be used for any life situation where your life doesn’t contain a specific thing you’d like it to contain but you can’t control that aspect.)

Key Tips From this book:
* Don’t ruminate. Ways to stop ruminating: practice mindfulness and/or consciously refocus your thoughts/mind on to something you find captivating and meaningful.
* Focus on values, not goals.
(Finding a partner is a goal. Focus on your values: quality relationships, or being involved in your community, or whatever.)
* Pursue your priorities; devote more time to your priorities than any non-priorities.
* Identify fun activities you want to do, and then throw yourself into them.
* Have compassion for yourself, contribute to others, practice gratitude.
* Spend 5–10 mins/day on loving kindness mediation, going over a list of about 6 different kinds of people and wishing them good things.
* Practice mindfulness.
* Practice cognitive reappraisal—rather than assume the worst thought about a situation, reappraise how you might think about that situation constructively.
* Practice mindfulness of thoughts—consider some thoughts to be “mere mental events rather than realities.”

One critique:
I did struggle with her direction about how to handle negative feelings. She said not to “indulge the emotion” and definitely not to ruminate, but to seek/practice radical acceptance. I don’t have enough awareness to understand how you can practice radical acceptance without indulging the emotion or ruminating. So I don’t quite follow how you’re supposed to process negative or uncomfortable emotions. p55, 127 This is a concept I’ve not fully followed in other places/people, too—not only with this author.

Some quotes:
“Just because you have a thought doesn’t mean you have to believe that thought.” p158

“A Chapman University study of 25,000 people led by sociologist Brian Gillespie found that the two biggest predictors of life satisfaction are quality of friendships and job engagement.” p196

“Christopher Masi and a team of researchers at the University of Chicago analyzed more than 77 research studies to pinpoint what created feelings of loneliness. They found that maladaptive social cognitions, or negative thoughts related to interpersonal situations, were strong predictors of loneliness, and that thinking differently turned out to be the most powerful way to feel more connected.” p197

“…Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist and psychologist at the University of Oxford, famously suggested that to be happy, most people need a group of roughly 5 people with whom they can deeply bond.” p198

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was gifted to me slightly as a joke.
I don’t think that it really is accurately titled- it focused on mindfulness and basically finding contentment in life regardless of your relationship status.
I describe myself as a happy person- and I am because it is a choice.
Anyway- I feel indifferent about anything this was targeting to me as my “single” status. It was an interesting enough read and had I actually been struggling with finding my happiness or feeling some kind of insecurity about being single there are some helpful insights for that in here.
As it is- I’ll keep on enjoying my life and relishing in my singleness as long as I’ll have it. Having spent most my life in an unhealthy, unhappy, soul sucking relationship- knowing I won’t compromise my values or happiness just to fill momentary voids and occasional loneliness brings me a deep level of comfort.
So that’s that.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Guess what, being single isn't painful, being invalidated by those "well meaning" people is.

I don't find a lot of new things in this book as I have been practicing the exercises (mindfulness, following your values, etc) without knowing some are scientific in a way, but it feels great to be validated that I'm on the right track.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

My friends and I have been passing this book around to each other for years and every time I read it, I’m struck by just how poignant it is.

Although there’s lots of helpful advice for not losing your mind while dating, the book is really about living a mindful and fulfilling life, regardless of what your circumstances are. The title is a bit of a misdirection and I kinda hate it.

This book is a gentle reminder that life has the potential to be wonderful and amazing if you are acting in a way that makes it so — no one and nothing can take that power away from you!

[Cari · Rating 5 out of 5]

I usually really struggle with getting through self-help books and this one really was phenomenal. I had to get my journal out and write so much down because there was so much to learn from this. I loved her writing style and am probably going to re-read it!

[Brenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book overall. It gave me new ways to think, and if I hadn’t been listening to it on audio, I probably would have enjoyed it even more since it had mindfulness tips and practices. I will definitely revisit it, and I think it’s a good book for anyone, though the target audience is definitely women.

[Jasmina · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5 believe this book would make everyone happier. a crashcourse on mindfulness, kindness, and the art of living well. dík samko a.

[Celeste Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book for anyone - single or not. Highly recommend!

[Hannah Darr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly would recommend to anyone feeling lonely and needing some strategies!