Everyone aims to be happy, but it can be hard to know if you are actually making progress toward that goal. After all, happiness is a feeling, not a tangible thing you can quantify. Or is it?
In this post, I am going to share the method I use to quantify happiness. Knowing how to measure your happiness will help you to assess your satisfaction in various areas of your life. You will figure out what is working and what could be improved.
Read my posts on optimal life design and happiness-creating habits for more relevant information!
How It Works
My happiness assessment takes into account ten major areas of your life that are proven to have major impacts on your happiness and mental wellbeing. You will rate your current level of satisfaction in each category from 0 (totally dissatisfied) to 10 (extremely satisfied) and then sum them for a score out of 100.
I want to stress the importance of being honest with yourself. If you only give yourself 9s and 10s because that is what seems desirable, then you are missing the benefit. The point is to be brutally honest and have the courage to admit to yourself that maybe you are unhappy with a certain aspect of your life. Honestly though, having room for improvement is fun. It means you have the capacity to improve something and grow.
After adding your score up, do not be alarmed. Yes, 100 is the best, but you should never assume that you need complete and total perfection to be happy. Happiness comes from an acceptance of and gratitude for where you are at now. If you take the assessment and score lower than what you want, you will have guidance as to how to improve it. And remember, it is supposed to be a current snapshot of your feelings. Think about how you truly feel right now, and not in your ideal future. Honesty now will get you to progress later.
The Categories
When assessing each of the categories below, think about your overall satisfaction with where each particular area of your life is at right now. Rate that out of 10. You can think of it in this way: “How much joy is brought to me by category x?” I also recommend writing a short note with each category to summarize why you gave it that score. The categories, in no particular order, are…
- Health – your overall state of physical wellbeing
- Predominant Mental State – the way you have been feeling lately and the quality of your thoughts
- Family/Friend Relationships – the quality of your connection with those closest to you
- Romantic Relationships – the quality of your connection to your significant other
- Meaningfulness of Work – how fulfilling your work is in regard to your life mission and how much satisfaction it provides
- Achievement Towards Goals – the amount of progress you have been making (even small progress) toward your desires
- Pursuit of Fun and Experiences – how much time you have made to let go and have fun, particularly in a social context
- Personal Development – how much you have been challenging yourself to learn, try new things, and make positive changes
- Generosity and Helping Others – how often you do selfless, beneficial things for other people (in any capacity)
- Security – how secure you feel (financially, health-wise, in your relationships, with your career, etc.)
Next Steps
You now have a complete picture of what parts of your life provide the most happiness and which parts need some work. Look at your notes for each and consider the reason you may feel good or bad in a certain area. If a category provides great happiness (e.g. a score of 8+), then do more of what you have been doing. Look for ways to expand upon that, possibly utilizing the techniques in other areas, too.
On the flip side, if a category is quite low (e.g. 2 or less), then you have some room to try new things and improve. I suggest that you focus on your three lowest categories. Write them down with something actionable that can be done to make improvements. Sometimes, you may not know what to do to create more happiness, but taking action and trying things will be your best friend. See what works and what doesn’t, and you will create the curiosity and exploratory interest needed to grow your mind and your joy. By leveraging your strong points and simultaneously looking for ways to make small improvements in lower categories, you are on the fast track to having well-rounded happiness.
I recommend doing this self-assessment every 1-3 months. Done too often, you won’t have time to see progress, but you also don’t want to just do it once per year because that would slow your progress. Check in with yourself and the actions you have taken between each checkpoint, and make a plan for what you hope to improve (or keep doing) before the next checkpoint.
Happiness is yours if you take charge of your life. Simply knowing where you are and what you can improve will make a drastic difference in the way you feel. Happy introspection! Thank you for reading! 🙂
