Five Pathways to Happiness
Positive Psychology describes five pathways—major dimensions of your life– that get us closer to this goal. The aim of positive psychology is to broaden and build each of these dimensions as they all play a major role in driving happiness. The Good Life Survey asks questions across each of these areas. Take the Good Life Survey
- Positive Emotions: When you savor the present, are grateful for the past, and are hopeful for the future, you are experiencing positive emotion, the first pathway to happiness.
- Engagement: When you do what you do best, when you use your signature strengths in your life’s work, you are fully engaged and absorbed
- Meaning: When you are involved in activities that are beyond your self-interest, and that you believe matter to the world, you are experiencing the third component of happiness: your life is full of meaning and purpose
- Positive Relationships: When you are surrounded by loving and supportive relationships, you are trusting of others, you can share yourself with your friends, your family, your spouse (if you have one) and your colleagues
- Drawing on Character Strengths: This is a focus on what each of us naturally does well, as opposed to a cultural bias to shore up our perceived weaknesses. When we think of “self-improvement,” what most often comes to mind is trying to change the things that we feel we don’t do so well. Yet positive psychology offers an alternative vision whereby life-satisfaction is arrived at through an understanding and application of our natural character strengths. Everyone is endowed with a unique portfolio of strengths that can be actualized in the world.
At the end of the survey, you will receive a score for each of these dimensions as well as an overall “happiness” score. We will also provide you with an explanation of the scores and several caveats for interpreting the results. Finally, we provide you with a few suggestions as follow up to this survey. Note: the Good Life Survey does not report results on character strengths. Instead, we recommend that you take the VIA Strengths Survey available at Values in Action Survey .
