What makes a good life? How can you find the sweet spot between feeling energized and having a sense of purpose?
Living well isn’t just about happiness—it’s about finding the right mix of vitality and meaning in your daily experiences. In You Only Die Once, Jodi Wellman explores how these two elements combine to create a life that’s both exciting and purposeful, offering practical ways to assess your current situation.
Keep reading to discover what it means to have a fulfilling existence and to learn how to evaluate your life with the Life Quality Quadrant.
How to Evaluate Your Life
Wellman argues that people who lead good lives experience both vitality and meaning. She defines vitality as the feeling of being alive and energized, most often experienced when you do things that spark joy, excitement, and curiosity. Meaning, on the other hand, is the sense of purpose you get from participating in activities or relationships that matter to you and align with your core values. The combination of vitality and meaning, Wellman explains, creates a balanced and fulfilling life that is both rich in experiences and deeply purposeful. In her book, she provides a framework for how to evaluate your life.
(Shortform note: While other researchers in positive psychology agree that vitality and meaning are essential to a good life, they offer broader perspectives on both elements. Richard Ryan and Edward Deci’s Self-Determination Theory frames vitality not as momentary joy or excitement, but as the energy that flows from living authentically and meeting our basic psychological needs. Similarly, Emily Esfahani Smith expands our understanding of meaning in The Power of Meaning. Beyond simply living according to our values, she argues that meaning emerges from four key sources: belonging through valued connections, storytelling to make sense of our lives, purpose that contributes to something larger, and transcendent moments that lift us beyond ourselves.)
Wellman argues that most of us walk through life not fully alive—lacking in either vitality, or meaning, or both. Therefore, Wellman suggests you first evaluate your life before making any drastic life changes. Wellman asks you to consider how you feel about your life on a 1-10 scale from despondent to thriving. Based on this subjective self-assessment, Wellman categorizes people into three groups: “suffering,” “struggling,” or “thriving.”
(Shortform note: This approach is similar to other established frameworks in psychology and well-being research. Corey Keyes’s mental health continuum categorizes individuals into three states: “languishing,” “moderately mentally healthy,” and “flourishing,” based on assessments of their emotional, psychological, and social well-being. Similarly, Gallup’s research on workplace engagement employs a three-tier model: “actively disengaged,” “not engaged,” and “engaged.” Both of these frameworks, like Wellman’s, highlight that well-being exists on a continuum, and recognizing your current position on it is an essential first step toward improvement.)
Wellman explains that those who are thriving are typically engaged and energetic people whose lives align with their core values and who find joy and meaning in their lives, while those who are suffering are more likely to experience chronic issues, like stress and physical pain. Wellman, citing the 2023 World Happiness Report, writes that people around the world rate their lives at an average of 5.5 on the 10-point scale.
(Shortform note: The World Happiness Report shows that people in some countries tend to be consistently happier than others. For instance, Finland has been ranked as the happiest country in the world for several consecutive years, with a happiness score of 7.741 out of 10 in the 2024 report. This high ranking is attributed to several factors, including strong social support systems, high GDP per capita, and a sense of freedom among its citizens. Following Finland, Denmark and Iceland also consistently appear in the top three, reflecting similar societal structures that promote well-being. In contrast, Afghanistan remains at the bottom of the list, scoring just 1.721, highlighting stark disparities in happiness levels globally.)
Wellman acknowledges that sometimes we might be thriving in one aspect of our lives, but struggling in another. She uses the term “dead zones” to refer to areas of your life that lack energy, passion, or fulfillment, causing you to feel stagnant or uninspired. For example, you may feel uninspired or lost at work or in personal relationships, or be unmotivated to take good care of yourself.
(Shortform note: To gain insight into your “dead zones,” consider using the Wheel of Life, a popular visual coaching tool designed to help people assess their satisfaction across various life domains. This tool represents life as a wheel with eight to 10 spokes, each corresponding to an essential area like career, health, family, finances, personal growth, and recreation. By rating satisfaction in each domain on a scale from 1 to 10, users create a visual map that highlights both their strengths and areas that require attention. Connecting the ratings in each domain forms a shape that indicates how “round” or balanced your life is; low scores create dips in the wheel, suggesting opportunities for growth and improvement.)
The Life Quality Quadrant
After getting an overall sense for your happiness, Wellman introduces what she calls the “The Astonishingly Alive Zones,” which we will refer to as the Life Quality Quadrant. The Life Quality Quadrant provides a framework to help you visualize how much vitality and meaning you currently have in your life. The x-axis of the quadrant is vitality, while the y-axis is meaning. Wellman encourages you to plot two points in this graph: your current state as it relates to the level of meaning and vitality in your life, and your desired future state.
Depending on where you plot yourself, you’ll fall into one of four categories or zones: stagnant (low vitality and low meaning); purposeful but stale (high meaning but low vitality); vibrant but shallow (high vitality but low meaning); or fully alive (high in both vitality and meaning).
(Shortform note: While Wellman emphasizes vitality and meaning as the key ingredients to a good life, Martin Seligman, often regarded as the father of Positive Psychology, presents an alternative framework for evaluating quality of life. The PERMA Model of well-being highlights five core elements that contribute to human flourishing: Positive Emotions (experiencing feelings such as joy, gratitude, hope, and contentment); Engagement (being fully absorbed in activities that utilize our skills and challenge us); Relationships (building and maintaining meaningful connections with others); Meaning (having a sense of purpose and feeling connected to something larger than ourselves); and Accomplishment (setting and achieving goals, developing mastery, and experiencing a sense of competence).)
This exercise serves as a wake-up call, providing a visual representation of your life’s richness or lack thereof, or the disconnect between where you are and where you want to be. Wellman suggests that recognizing your current position is the first step toward moving into the fully alive zone, which represents a life lived with both pleasure and purpose. She clarifies where you fall on the quadrant will naturally fluctuate over time and that your good life will look different from someone else’s. Ultimately, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to achieving a fully alive state.
(Shortform note: This relates to what psychologist E. Tory Higgins calls “self-discrepancy”—the gap between our current self and ideal self. The current self is our existing self-concept, while the ideal self encompasses our hopes, aspirations, and the standards set by ourselves and others. A significant gap between the two can lead to feelings of dissatisfaction, restlessness, and a desire for change.)
Exercise: Increase Vitality and Meaning in Your Life
According to Wellman, many of us journey through life without truly feeling alive—lacking vitality, meaning, or both. She advises first assessing your life before making any significant changes.
- Consider how you feel about your life on a 1-10 scale from despondent to thriving. Based on this self-assessment, which category do you fall into: “suffering,” “struggling,” or “thriving”?
- Given how you feel about your life currently, which dimension of a fulfilling life do you want to focus on: increasing vitality (feeling more alive and energetic), or enhancing meaning (cultivating a deeper sense of purpose and direction)?
- Identify a specific step you can implement in the upcoming week to either boost your vitality or enrich your sense of meaning. For instance, if it’s vitality, you might decide to cook a new recipe or invite a new friend for coffee; if it’s meaning, you might cook a meal for an elderly or sick neighbor or spend time on a passion project.
