Audit your life against PERMA

Check well-being across all five pillars — emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, accomplishment.

Why it works

Well-being is multidimensional, so optimizing one pillar (say, accomplishment) while starving another (relationships) leaves you flourishing on paper but flat in practice. Auditing across all five of PERMA surfaces the neglected pillar, which is usually where the highest-leverage change lives. The model’s value is diagnostic: it stops you over-investing where you’re already strong.

How to do it

1. Rate each PERMA pillar honestly: Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment.
2. Find the lowest pillar — that’s your leverage point, not the one you’re already good at.
3. Choose one concrete action that strengthens the weakest pillar this week.

Evidence

PERMA is a well-being framework backed by Seligman’s theoretical work and supported by questionnaire research showing its components relate to flourishing; it is a model, not itself a single tested intervention. (observational)

PERMA is a useful organizing framework; debate continues over whether its five elements are truly distinct, and the audit itself is not an RCT-tested exercise.

Common mistake

Doubling down on the pillar you already score highest in (often accomplishment) because it’s comfortable, while ignoring the weak pillar that’s actually dragging well-being down.