I sometimes wonder what our grandfathers would have made of all the conversations we have these days about mental health, personal wellbeing, and finding greater meaning in life.
Imagine going back a hundred years and asking the average bloke how satisfied he was with his emotional wellbeing, whether he felt fulfilled in his relationships, or what he was doing to improve his quality of life.
I suspect you’d have received a rather puzzled look. Perhaps a few choice words, followed by a polite invitation to get off his property.
Of course, men back then had their own worries, hopes, and ideas about what made life worthwhile. But the expectations surrounding masculinity were often quite different. For many, being a good man meant working hard, providing for your family, keeping your troubles to yourself, and getting on with things.
There wasn’t much encouragement to sit around and reflect on how you felt about it all.
Thankfully, things have changed quite a bit, although I reckon some of those old expectations are still hanging around.
In my work with men, I often hear about the effort they put into building successful careers, supporting their families, maintaining relationships, and meeting the various responsibilities that come with everyday life.
And there’s plenty to appreciate in all of that.
But over the years, I’ve become curious about how much attention we give to the quality of the lives we’re actually living.
Not just whether we’re getting things done, earning enough money, or keeping everyone else happy, but whether we’re genuinely enjoying ourselves along the way.
Are we spending time on the things that matter to us? Do we feel connected to the people we care about? Are there parts of our lives that we’d like to be a little different?
These aren’t always easy questions to answer.
And perhaps that’s a good place to start.
What does living a good life actually mean?
It’s an interesting question, isn’t it?
Ask ten different men what a good life looks like, and I’d be surprised if you received ten identical answers.
For one bloke, it might mean having a rewarding career, a comfortable home, and enough financial security that he doesn’t have to worry too much about the future.
For another, it could be spending time with his family, enjoying a few close friendships, and having the freedom to pursue things he’s passionate about.
Someone else might place greater importance on adventure, learning, contributing to his community, or simply having a bit more peace and quiet.
And fair enough. We’re not all looking for the same things.
What makes this particularly interesting is that our ideas about a good life aren’t necessarily fixed, either.
What mattered to you in your twenties might be quite different from what matters today. A successful career might once have been your main priority, but now you want more time with your partner, better health, or the freedom to do something you’ve been putting off for years.
Perhaps your circumstances have changed. Or maybe you’ve changed.
Either way, I think there’s something worthwhile in occasionally asking ourselves whether the life we’re living still reflects what we care about.
Psychologists have spent a great deal of time studying these questions, often using terms such as mental health, personal wellbeing, and quality of life.
They’re closely related ideas, but each offers a slightly different way of thinking about how life is going.
Let’s have a look at what they mean in everyday terms.
Mental health is about more than feeling happy.
When we hear the words mental health, it’s easy to think about anxiety, depression, stress, or other difficulties that might lead someone to seek professional support.
And of course, those experiences are part of the conversation.
But mental health is also about how we’re managing the ordinary business of living.
How we respond when things don’t go to plan. How we make decisions, handle difficult emotions, maintain relationships, and navigate the challenges that come our way.
Think about a time when life was particularly demanding.
Perhaps you were under pressure at work, dealing with a difficult relationship, or trying to manage several responsibilities at once.
What helped you get through it?
Maybe you spoke with someone you trusted, made a difficult decision, adjusted your expectations, or found a way to give yourself a bit of breathing room.
Those responses tell us something about the ways we look after our mental health.
And here’s an important distinction. Being mentally healthy doesn’t mean feeling happy or confident every day.
You can experience sadness, frustration, uncertainty, or disappointment and still be responding to your circumstances in understandable and constructive ways.
Sometimes life is genuinely difficult. Feeling distressed doesn’t automatically mean there’s something wrong with you.
Our mental health can also change over time. There might be periods when we’re managing things well and others when we could use a bit more support.
I find it helpful to think about mental health as something we continue to care for, rather than a destination we eventually arrive at.
Much like physical health, it deserves our attention even when things seem to be going reasonably well.
What about personal wellbeing?
Wellbeing is another word we hear a lot these days.
We’re encouraged to improve it, invest in it, and prioritize it. There’s certainly no shortage of advice about how we ought to go about doing that.
But what does it actually mean to feel well in ourselves?
For me, one of the more useful ways of thinking about wellbeing is to consider two different experiences: enjoying life and finding it meaningful.
Psychologists sometimes call these hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing.
Now, those are rather grand terms for something most of us would recognize.
Hedonic wellbeing focuses on pleasure, enjoyment, and feeling good.
It might be the satisfaction of sharing a meal with good friends, spending an afternoon doing something you love, or simply having a quiet Sunday with absolutely nothing planned.
For one bloke, enjoyment might come from riding his motorbike. For another, it’s working in the garden, playing music, going fishing, or spending time with his children.
There’s no particular rule about what you should enjoy.
Eudaimonic wellbeing is a little different. It’s more concerned with living a life that feels meaningful and worthwhile.
This might involve pursuing something important to you, developing your abilities, contributing to others, or feeling that the way you’re living reflects your values.
You might not enjoy every moment of raising a family, building a business, caring for someone you love, or learning something difficult.
In fact, some of those experiences can be bloody hard work.
But they can still give you a tremendous sense of satisfaction and purpose.
And I think that’s an important distinction.
A meaningful life isn’t necessarily easy, just as an enjoyable life doesn’t automatically feel fulfilling.
Ideally, we get to experience both.
Psychologist Carol Ryff has spent many years researching psychological wellbeing. Her work identifies six important dimensions: having a sense of purpose, continuing to grow, building positive relationships, accepting ourselves, having some influence over our circumstances, and making choices that reflect our own values (Ryff, 1989, 2013).
I particularly like the idea that wellbeing isn’t simply about how good we feel. It’s also about how we’re living.
Consider your own life for a moment.
When do you feel most like yourself? What are you doing? Who are you spending time with? And what is it about those experiences that makes them worthwhile?
Your answers might tell you something interesting about what wellbeing means to you.
And what about quality of life?
Quality of life brings these ideas together, but it also asks us to consider something broader.
How satisfied are you with the life you’re living, given your circumstances, expectations, and what matters to you?
It’s not simply about how much money you earn, where you live, or what you’ve achieved.
Those things can certainly influence your quality of life. Having somewhere safe to live, access to healthcare, financial stability, and opportunities to participate in life can make an enormous difference.
But our personal experience matters too.
You might know someone who appears to have everything going for him. A successful career, a lovely home, a comfortable lifestyle, and all the usual signs that life is going rather well.
Yet privately, he might feel lonely, exhausted, or disconnected from the things he once enjoyed.
On the other hand, you might know someone whose life looks fairly ordinary from the outside but who seems genuinely content with how things are going.
He enjoys his work, has a few good mates, spends time doing things he loves, and feels reasonably comfortable with the direction his life is taking.
Neither man’s circumstances tell us the whole story.
And that’s why I think it’s worth being cautious about measuring our lives against other people’s ideas of success.
We can spend years pursuing the things we’re supposed to want without stopping to ask whether they’re actually the things we want.
Which raises another question.
If you looked at your life today, what would you say is going particularly well?
And where might you like things to be a little different?
A better life doesn't always require a complete overhaul. Sometimes it's about making a little more room for the things that already make life worthwhile.
Simon Niblock, MA, LMFT
What if life could be just a little better?
One thing I’ve noticed in my conversations with men is that we can become rather good at identifying what’s wrong.
We know when work is getting on our nerves, when we’re not spending enough time with the family, or when our health isn’t quite what we’d like it to be.
And, understandably, these things occupy our attention.
But when we spend most of our time thinking about what’s missing, we can overlook the parts of life that are already working reasonably well.
Perhaps you have a friendship that’s lasted for years, a relationship that brings you genuine comfort, or something you do each week that gives you real enjoyment.
Maybe you’ve already made changes that have improved your life, even if you haven’t given yourself much credit.
I’m interested in those experiences because they can tell us something about what matters and what we’d like more of.
Imagine, for a moment, that over the next few months your sense of wellbeing improved.
Not that everything suddenly became perfect. You’d still have responsibilities, the occasional difficult day, and probably a few things that didn’t go as planned.
But overall, life was feeling a little better.
What might you notice first?
Perhaps you’d be enjoying your time at home more, feeling less preoccupied with work, or making room for activities you’d almost forgotten you enjoyed.
Maybe you’d feel more connected to your partner or find yourself looking forward to things again.
And what might someone close to you notice?
Would they see you laughing a little more? Being more present when you’re together? Taking better care of yourself? Or perhaps being more willing to talk about what matters to you?
There’s no right answer.
What interests me is that imagining these small differences can help us recognize what we’re actually hoping for.
And sometimes, when we look a little closer, we discover that parts of those experiences are already happening.
What are you already doing that helps?
Before deciding your life needs a complete overhaul, it may be worth looking at what you’re already doing to support your wellbeing.
Think about a recent day when you felt particularly good about how things were going.
It doesn’t have to have been a remarkable day. Perhaps you enjoyed your work, had a good conversation with someone, got outside for a walk, or felt a little more relaxed than usual.
What was different about that day?
Did you do something that contributed to how you felt?
Maybe you made time for something you enjoy, approached a difficult situation differently, or let yourself step away from a responsibility for a while.
These are the sorts of things we can easily overlook.
I also think it’s worth considering the qualities and abilities we already bring to our lives.
Maybe you’re someone who maintains good friendships, has learned to manage stress reasonably well, or genuinely makes an effort to look after the people you care about.
Those things don’t happen entirely by accident.
What do you do that helps those parts of your life go well?
And if you were to do a little more of that, what difference might it make?
Rather than assuming that improving our wellbeing means becoming an entirely different person, perhaps we can begin by recognizing what already works and finding ways to build on it.
A small way to start
If this article has got you thinking about your own wellbeing, here’s something you might like to try.
Find a quiet moment sometime this week and consider three questions.
What’s going well in my life right now? Take a moment with this one. Think about your relationships, health, work, friendships, interests, or anything else that matters to you. It doesn’t need to be perfect to be worth appreciating.
What would I like to be a little different? Maybe there’s something you’ve been meaning to make time for, a relationship you’d like to give more attention to, or an aspect of your health that could use a bit of care. Try to think about what you’d like instead of focusing only on what you want to get rid of.
What’s one small thing I could do that might make a difference? Nothing too ambitious. It might be arranging to catch up with an old mate, heading out for a walk, having a conversation you’ve been putting off, or making time for something that brings you genuine enjoyment. And if you’re already doing something that helps, the next step may be to keep doing it.
I know it can be tempting to come up with a grand plan to improve our lives. New routines, big commitments, and a long list of things we’re finally going to sort out.
But I’ve come to appreciate that meaningful changes don’t always begin with dramatic decisions.
Sometimes they begin with noticing something that matters and giving it a little more attention.
What would a good life look like for you?
I often return to the question we started with.
What does it actually mean to live a good life?
I don’t imagine my grandfather would have spent much time talking about hedonic wellbeing or the various dimensions of psychological health.
But I suspect he had his own ideas about what made life worthwhile.
And perhaps that’s something we can all relate to.
We each have things we care about, people who matter to us, and hopes for how we’d like our lives to unfold.
Some of those things will change as we get older. Others may remain important for as long as we’re around.
I don’t think there’s one particular way we’re supposed to live, and I don't believe improving our wellbeing means always striving for something more.
Sometimes we might want to make significant changes. At other times, perhaps the most valuable thing we can do is appreciate the life we’ve already built.
What matters is having some say in what a good life looks like for us, rather than simply following a script we’ve inherited or measuring ourselves against everyone else.
So here’s a question I’d leave you with.
If you were living a life that felt just a little more satisfying, meaningful, and enjoyable than it does today, what would be different?
And what are you already doing that might help you get there?
Perhaps those are questions worth revisiting now and again.
After all, we’re not just here to get through life. It would be rather nice to enjoy a bit more of it along the way.
If this article has encouraged you to think about your own wellbeing, relationships, or the direction you’d like your life to take, that could be worth a conversation.
In my work with men, we explore what a more satisfying and meaningful life might look like, what’s already working, and the changes that could make a difference.
If you’d like to explore some of those questions for yourself, you’re welcome to arrange a free introductory phone consultation. It’s an opportunity to talk about what you’re hoping for and whether working together might be a good fit.
Cheers, Simon
