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Two things you can do today

The first places a careful number on how you are reading your life, with the five statements shown one by one. The second is a ten-minute audit of the three sources — what you do, who you are with, how you are there — that quietly keep you going, with one concrete thing to repeat this week.

1 · The SWLS, item by item

The Satisfaction With Life Scale (Diener et al., 1985), five statements on a 1-7 scale. The tool looks similar to the one on the hub page, but here you see each item on its own, the seven bands explained, and what a low score does not mean.

Choose how much each statement describes you, right now.

1. In most ways, my life is close to my ideal.

How close your life is to the life you actually want — not to the life you were told to want.

2. The conditions of my life are excellent.

Income, housing, health, neighborhood, time. Conditions feed the meter; they do not close the empty space.

3. I am satisfied with my life.

The single item that carries the most weight on the global score. The meter is responding to your overall verdict, not to a list of complaints.

4. So far, I have gotten the important things I want in life.

Things you actually wanted, not things you were supposed to want. Read it out loud; the cadence usually tells you what is missing.

5. If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing.

Not "would I change one thing" — almost nothing. A "no" here weighs a lot; a "yes" here is the most useful signal.

What the seven bands mean

The SWLS sums five 1-7 answers into a single score from 5 to 35. The bands below are the thresholds the original authors proposed (Diener et al., 1985; Diener & Diener, 1996). They are descriptive, not diagnostic.

Score Band In a sentence
31–35Extremely satisfiedYour life reads close to where you want it. Keep feeding the three sources.
26–30SatisfiedMostly worth it today, with one or two places where the meter is dragging.
21–25Slightly satisfiedA passing grade; without a small change, the next quarter is going to feel similar.
20NeutralNeither worth it nor not worth it. Look for the days in the last week that were not neutral.
15–19Slightly dissatisfiedThe reading is moving below the line. Without intervention, the trend tends to drift further down.
10–14DissatisfiedMost days your life is costing more than it gives back. Looking at the three sources helps.
5–9Extremely dissatisfiedThe reading is at the bottom. Telling one trusted person is a fair first move.

What a low score on the SWLS does NOT mean

  • Not a diagnosis. The SWLS measures how you rate your life as a whole, not symptoms of depression, anxiety or any clinical condition.
  • Not a personality verdict. People with low scores are not less grateful, less ambitious, or less capable. The meter is responding to the conditions of the last weeks.
  • Not a recipe for feeling better. Improving the score is not done by raising the score; it is done by changing the conditions the score is responding to.

Signals that what you are missing is not having more

When the meter is low and the list of conditions is long, the missing thing usually is not on the list. Mark what you recognize from the last three months — the more you check, the stronger the signal.

2 · The three sources audit

A ten-minute exercise that looks at a recent normal day through three sources — what you do, who you are with, how you are there — and ends with one thing to repeat this week. You do not need more income, more holidays or more advice: you need to see what is already there.

Step 1 · Pick a normal day from the last week

Step 2 · Note three moments of that day

One line per moment: what you did, with whom, how you felt at the end. Aim for ordinary moments — breakfast, a meeting, a walk, a conversation. Specific and small wins over grand and vague.

Moment 1

Moment 2

Moment 3

Step 3 · Mark which moment gave the best hour

Step 4 · One thing to repeat this week

Pick a single concrete action you can repeat in the next seven days, shaped by what the best moment was. Put it in your calendar before closing this page.

The script, if you prefer to do it by hand

  1. Pick a day. Pick a day from the last week that was normal — not the best, not the worst. A single weekday is usually enough.
  2. Three moments. On a sheet of paper, write three moments of that day, one per line. For each: what you did, who you were with, how you felt at the end. Specific over grand.
  3. Mark the best. Read the three lines. Which one gave the best hour of the day? Underline it. That one is where the meter is still responding.
  4. One thing to repeat. Write the one concrete action for the next seven days that comes out of the best moment. Day and time included.
  5. Put it on the calendar. Open your calendar. Add the one thing with its day and time. The minute the event exists, the meter stops treating the week as empty.

Why three sources. The research that has held up across decades (Diener, 1984; Ryan & Deci, 2000; Heintzelman & King, 2019) keeps landing on three places where life satisfaction is built: what you do, who you do it with, and how present you are when you do it. None of them is a purchase. The audit does not make any of them bigger: it makes them visible, so you know which one your week is underfeeding.

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