Happy new Year from AQB

\”Happy\” precedes the ancient celebratory wishes at the start of a New Year, and is also one of the most used, yet least understood words in the English language. Defining \”happy\” however, allows us to consciously increase both our well-being and \”wealth-being\”. Well-being is an umbrella term which incorporates happiness, as it is about our total engagement in life. \”Wealth-being\” is our term for both the creation and management of wealth, which impacts on our well-being. We live in volatile political and economic times, so a re-calibration of both these aspects of committed living during a brief respite prior to the beginning of a new year is important for our strategic life and financial planning.

QUICK LINKS

The Study of Well Being
Satisfaction with Life
Maintaining or Improving Your Satisfaction Level
Download OnBalance Life Plan

The study of well-being

The study of well-being is as old as the Acropolis, which was the backdrop to the ideas of Aristotle about what constituted the good life and whose theories have continued to be debated across time and cultures.

Today, the burgeoning movement of Positive Psychology has attempted to scientifically define well-being and its benefits to ourselves as well as to broader society.

The following two-pronged model gives a useful overview of well-being:

Hedonic well-being Eudaimonic well-being

FEELING GOOD!

(hedonism = the pursuit of pleasure)

FUNCTIONING WELL!

(eu=good, and daimon = spirit within/true self)
Happiness, pleasure, satisfaction, and comfort i.e. \”the pleasant life\” Description Meaning, purpose, expression of true happiness, pleasure, satisfaction, potential, being involved with something larger than self i.e. \”the good and purposeful life\”
Subjective well-being (SWB); what we think our lives are like, and how much we experience positive emotion as opposed to negative feelings. Defined as Meaning –making; managing life’s challenges , meeting goals, developing the best within one’s self.
Time perspective: Rooted in the present Time Perspective Time perspective: Integrates past, present and future.

Satisfaction with Life

We know from our own lives that feeling good and functioning well can occur separately, or be interrelated.

Experiencing them together in the right balance can contribute to flourishing. Adding money to the balance adds to the complexity of well-being. Does money make you happy? A qualified \”yes!\” People in a country with a high GDP score higher on happiness than those in a country with low GDP, and higher individual income is associated with higher SWB (subjective well-being), although once a certain level of income is attained it appears to have a less significant effect on well-being. The downside, however, is that constant ruminating about money and having strong material aspirations can decrease our sense of well-being. A complex relationship!

If you would like to evaluate your current satisfaction with life in a more scientific way, you may be interested in completing the following scale, which is one of the most widely used short measures of happiness.

(This scale has also been tested in several South African studies and among culturally diverse groups, and is regarded as a valid and reliable measure of life satisfaction in the South African context).

Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS):

Source: Ed Diener, Robert A. Emmons, Randy J. Larsen and Sharon Griffin as noted in the 1985 article in the Journal of Personality Assessment.

Instructions: (Approximately 2 minutes to complete)

Below are five statements that you may agree or disagree with. Using the 1 – 7 scale below, indicate your agreement with each item by placing the appropriate number on the line preceding that item.

Please be open and honest in your responding.

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7 – Strongly agree

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6 – Agree

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5 – Slightly agree

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4 – Neither agree nor disagree

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3 – Slightly disagree

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2 – Disagree

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1 – Strongly disagree

____ In most ways my life is close to my ideal.

____ The conditions of my life are excellent.

____ I am satisfied with my life.

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

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

TOTAL: _____________
Scoring:

30 – 35

Very high score: highly satisfied

25 – 29

High score: satisfied

20 – 24

Average: slightly satisfied
(ave. of life satisfaction in economically dev. nations)

15 – 19

Slightly below average life satisfaction

10 – 14

Dissatisfied

5 – 9

Extremely dissatisfied
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Maintaining or Improving Your Satisfaction Level

The purpose here would be to evaluate your general level of life satisfaction, and then determine what lifestyle or financial changes you could make to either maintain or improve on these self-determined levels in the relevant domains of your life. Our \”On Balance Life Plan\” can be accessed at the end of this article, and is a practical way to increase domain-specific subjective well-being.

Various research studies have indicated the following:

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Growth and challenge, as opposed to complacency, may be some of the reasons why people have high life satisfaction.

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Areas of dissatisfaction on the scale can be positive in that it provides motivation to change.

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If life dissatisfaction is a response to a particular event/s, then it is likely that a person will return to a former higher level of satisfaction over time.

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People scoring high on life satisfaction tend to have close and supportive family and friends.

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The experience of work as meaningful and important– whether paid or unpaid – positively influences life satisfaction.

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Failure to make adequate progress towards goals can cause dissatisfaction

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Engagement in a religious or spiritual life, learning , growth and productive leisure, contribute to higher satisfaction.

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Our innate temperaments influence our degree of life satisfaction.

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Certain losses such as being widowed can cause long-term decreases in life satisfaction.

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The pursuit of important goals that are based on our values and strengths contribute to our well-being.

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On average, levels of happiness stay stable across the lifespan, but it seems that older adults experience less intense emotions than younger people.

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High levels of well-being are associated with better health and fewer physical symptoms, more positive social interactions, higher productivity and work quality, less intolerance and more volunteering and community work.

In conclusion, your level of well-being is something that not only has personal ramifications, but societal ones as well! If you feel that your well-being is being negatively affected by your concerns with money, or if you feel that work or societal stresses are having a negative impact on your life satisfaction, it may be useful to talk to your financial advisor for an independent perspective!We wish you a happier New Year, filled with eudaimonic well-being and the right balance of hedonic happiness, with a strong underpinning of \”wealth-being\”.

Yours faithfully,
The PSG AQB team

Reference:

Wissing, M., Potgieter,J., Guse, T., Khumalo,T .& Nel, L (2014). Towards Flourishing. Contextualising Positive Psychology. Pretoria. Van Schaik Publishers.