Measuring Your Happiness Can Help Improve It
“How to Build a Life” is a biweekly column by Arthur Brooks, tackling questions of meaning and happiness.
On a scale of 0 to 10, I’d say my happiness ranks at about a 6. I’d guess my wife’s is at least a 9. I try not to envy her natural Spanish alegría, but sometimes it’s hard.
Still, I’m glad to know I’m a 6, because, as a famous management maxim puts it, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” This is generally used in reference to business operations, but as a social scientist, I can assure you that it works for life operations as well. If you want to improve an aspect of your life, you need to be able to assess progress toward your goal—and that means measuring it.
The goal of this column is to help you manage and improve your happiness. No surprise, then, that I make frequent reference to studies
