Well gang, we’ve just seen 1,000 Ways To Be Happy. But in the interest of living a balanced life, we should now explore the art of being miserable.

I’m running a contest sponsored by professional life coach Tim Brownson. Tim is offering these terrific prizes:

• A full life coaching session of one hour. (Tim suggests that helping the person understand their values would be most beneficial, but he’s happy to let them decide what they want the session to cover.)
• A signed copy of his book “Don’t Ask Stupid Questions – There Are No Stupid Questions” (mailed anywhere in the world).
• A copy of his ebook “Know Yourself – Change Yourself.”

The 1st place finisher will choose the prize they want, the 2nd place finisher will choose from the remaining two prizes, and the 3rd place finisher will get the remaining prize.

To enter the contest, you’ll write a post about how to be miserable. To see some sample ways to be miserable, and to get an idea about the spirit of the contest, watch Tim’s video Ways To Be Miserable.

There are three steps to entering:

1. Write a post about how to be miserable. The style and format is up to you. You might pick your favorite method of misery and describe it in detail, or you might write a list post, or you might record a video post…whatever works for you. Entries will be judged by Tim and me on the basis of originality, humor, and insight.

2. Link to both Tim and me in your post. Exactly how you do that is up to you, just use decent keywords in the link text.

3. Leave a comment below to tell us you’ve entered the contest. We want to be able to see all the entries in one place, so just leave a comment below saying “Hi, my post about how to be miserable is here: http://…” Of course, you’re welcome to leave a comment without having entered the contest. And don’t worry about someone else reading your post and stealing your ideas, because we’ll know who wrote what first.

I’ll write a misery post just for fun and to demonstrate a sample entry, not to actually enter the contest. On the other hand, if we don’t have at least three people enter, then heck yeah I’ll claim a prize–I want that coaching!

(BTW, in my last contest, I said that if you entered but didn’t win, your entry would roll forward to the next contest. Obviously that won’t work here since this isn’t a random drawing, so your entry from last time will roll forward to the next contest after this one.)

All entries must be received by 11:59 PM EST Monday, September 1, 2008. Good luck, and may the most miserable person win!

• The Abraham Simpson Guide To Being Miserable
• How To Be Rich And Happy (Non-Cheesy Version)
• 1,000 Ways To Be Happy
• 5 Feel-Good YouTube Videos
• I’ll Get Around To It Someday
• 10 Ways To Raise Your Vibration In Under 10 Minutes
• 114 Ways to Celebrate Life
• A Tribute To Michael Jackson
• Outliers: The Story of Success
• Success Is For Suckers