What Does It Mean To Live Well?
Read Time: 3 minutes 30 seconds
A few weeks ago I spent an hour and a half with some high level leaders in central Ohio. Small business leaders, entrepreneurs, ministry leaders, lobbyists leading in politics, and executive leaders of some of the top companies in the country. Some real shakers and movers. “Powerful” people in every sphere of our society.
I opened our session by asking a question I love discussing with people.
“What does it mean to live well?”
Despite the powerful leaders in the room, I still saw the same furrowed eyebrows and deep thinking that I see from teenage high schoolers, and 20-somethings college students when I pose the same question.
“What does it mean to live well?”
I think the question is often met with pauses and deep thinking because of a number of reasons.
No.1, it is intentionally broad, you can take it in many directions.
No.2, we don’t spend a lot of time pondering a question as deep as that, while we’re hustling and bustling, moving and shaking, taking the world.
What does it mean to live well? How do we define it? Is it material, like net worth? Is it social, like the number of friends and acquaintances in your sphere? Is it influential, like the number of followers on your chosen platform?
At first glance, it feels like we all can just define the term “well” anyway we want. Live your truth? You do you?
The reality is it’s not as up for grabs as we think it is.
The PERMA Model of Well-Being
Dr. Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology has devoted his life’s work to helping people live into positive well-being as opposed to the traditional avenue of psychology which is to minimize the damage of past painful experiences. In decades of research and active work in the field of counseling, Dr. Seligman helped develop a framework for measuring well-being. A framework to measure if you’re living well. It’s the acronym PERMA.
P - Positive Emotions
One way to indicate if we’re living well, as opposed to ill well-being (depression) is the presence of positive emotions. Emotions can be a tricky thing, but simple litmus test is to look over the past week or month and consider how often you feel positive emotions (joy, happiness, laughter, peace, contentment).
E - Engagement
Another way to indicate if we’re living well is to measure how often we’re actively engaged in our work. Do you experience flow or intense focus? Do you wish you were doing something else? Do you feel disengaged in your frequent tasks? The presence of engagement has benefits on our well-being.
R - Relationships
The third component of the PERMA model is to measure the presence of positive relationships. Life-giving friendships, community, a sense of security in your relationships in your life. Are you lonely? Do you have life-giving relationships in your life? Well, it’s going to impact your “living well.”
M - Meaning
The fourth component of the model is a deep sense of meaning. Does life feel meaningless to you? Are you grounded to a larger purpose in life? Do you feel connected spiritually at a soul level? Is life all just paper-pushing and trying to enlarge your territory? Or is there something more we’re designed to live into?
A - Achievement
The final component of the PERMA model is achievement. This is built on the premise that it is good for us to set and achieve goals. It can give a sense of direction in to our life stories, and releases all kinds of benefits in our lives when we feel the satisfaction of accomplishment.
The Overflow of Your Lifestyle
So what does this have to do with leading? Well, from fortune 500 executives to 16-year olds fresh out of study hall, your capacity to lead well is directly linked with your capacity to live well. Finding a definitive answer to the question “What does it mean to live well?”, can have a profound impact on the question most leaders are more concerned with “What does it mean to lead well?”
Your leadership is the overflow of your lifestyle. Ill health in one area is going to impact health in the total sum. Your well-being is going to influence your well-leading.
If I asked 100 leaders what their strategy for leading was, many would say the same things.
Create great culture
Cast vision
Build great teams
Streamline systems
Very few would say,
Protect my own well-being
It’s no wonder many leaders are burning out or blowing up.
If you’re concerned with how to lead well, start with a greater concern on how to live well. Both will get enhanced as you flourish inside-out. Your inner life, and your outer leading.