The Four Life Profiles: Success, Happiness, and How They Intersect
Success and happiness do not always travel together. You can meet a high-earning executive who feels empty, and a modest earner who feels content. Research separates success (status, income, career progress, achievement) from subjective well-being (daily feelings, life satisfaction, and a sense of meaning).
Governments and scholars now track these well-being dimensions alongside economic data, which makes the picture clearer and more practical for your life and work.
This article explains four common profiles:
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unsuccessful & unhappy
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unsuccessful & happy
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successful & unhappy
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successful & happy
You will see what typically drives each state and how to move toward sustained success with well-being. The guidance blends leading theories—Self-Determination Theory (autonomy, competence, relatedness) and PERMA (positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, accomplishment)—with evidence on income, time, relationships, prosocial choices, and work design.
Table of Content
- The Four Life Profiles: Success, Happiness, and How They Intersect
- How Researchers Define “Happiness” and “Success”
- The Two Frameworks You Can Apply Immediately
- Profile 1: Unsuccessful and Unhappy
- Profile 2: Unsuccessful and Happy
- Profile 3: Successful and Unhappy
- Profile 4: Successful and Happy
- Why People Move Between Quadrants
- A Practical Map to Move One Step Right and One Step Up
- Evidence-Based Levers You Can Use This Month
- Measurement: Track What You Want to Improve
- Conclusion
- FAQs
How Researchers Define “Happiness” and “Success”
Subjective well-being (SWB) covers life satisfaction (a 0–10 life evaluation), frequent positive emotion, lower negative emotion, and eudaimonia (meaning and purpose). Policy bodies use all these lenses, not only money.
Success refers to social or economic attainment—income, promotions, publications, awards, market share—plus goal attainment in personal projects.
A long-running debate concerns money. One line of work reported that life evaluation rises with income, yet daily emotions level off beyond a threshold; later studies using real-time measures reported continued gains in daily feelings at higher incomes. Read both to understand why two careful conclusions can sit side by side.
Two broad takeaways steady the rest of this piece:
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Happiness can support success. A large research summary found that people with more frequent positive emotion tend to do better at work and in relationships and that positive emotion can lead to later success.
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Relationships are a strong health and longevity factor. A major review linked stronger social ties with a 50% higher chance of survival across studies.
The Two Frameworks You Can Apply Immediately
Self-Determination Theory (SDT)
People report and sustain well-being when three needs are met: autonomy (volition), competence (effectiveness), and relatedness (connection). You can use SDT as a weekly check: where did you choose, where did you grow, and where did you connect?
PERMA
Five levers to build a balanced life: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. Treat these as practical planning categories.
Profile 1: Unsuccessful and Unhappy
Typical patterns
You may have little control over tasks and time, limited skill growth, and a thin support network. Work exhausts more than it energizes. Burnout is recognized in ICD-11 as an occupational syndrome with three features: exhaustion, detachment or cynicism, and reduced efficacy. Global data also show many workers feel disengaged and stressed.
What helps
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Stabilize energy and connection. Book two short weekly meetings that feed learning or friendship. Protect one evening for family or community. Social connection is a health asset.
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Create small wins. Set specific, challenging, near-term goals and review them. Goal-setting research shows better performance under clear, trackable goals with feedback.
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Job craft the current role. Adjust task emphasis, relationships, or how you frame the purpose of your work; even small shifts can increase meaning and engagement.
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Buy back time. When possible, spend modest sums to remove chores that drain you; field experiments link time-saving purchases to higher daily happiness.
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Give where you can. Directing some spending to others (prosocial spending) is linked to higher happiness than spending on oneself.
If money is tight, low-cost levers still matter—gratitude journaling and consistent volunteering each show measurable well-being gains in trials and reviews.
Profile 2: Unsuccessful and Happy
Typical patterns
Income or status looks modest on paper, yet life feels rich due to close ties, community roles, and time affluence. Focus rests on meaning and relationships rather than external markers; this matches SDT and PERMA and often sustains mood even when career metrics lag. In many countries, average life satisfaction does not track perfectly with GDP because surveys measure well-being directly.
What helps
Protect time affluence. Keep an uncluttered calendar where possible and use time-saving swaps to preserve freedom to meet friends, help family, or learn.
Keep giving and connecting. Prosocial acts and volunteering strengthen mood and purpose over time.
Translate happiness into gentle progress. Use short cycles of clear goals to move one career lever each month (skill, credential, portfolio piece). Research favors specificity and feedback loops.
Watch-outs
Satisfaction can become a reason to avoid growth. A light rhythm of learning and contribution keeps options open without sacrificing well-being. Use the PERMA element of accomplishment to nudge forward.
Profile 3: Successful and Unhappy
Typical patterns
Status or income is high while daily positive emotion is low. Hours are long, recovery is shallow, ties grow thin, and identity fuses to metrics. Many managers report disengagement and stress; falling manager engagement is a risk for teams and organizations.
Why this happens
Income and daily mood do not always move together. Earlier studies linked a plateau in daily emotions at higher incomes; newer work with real-time sampling finds continued gains for many people. Life evaluation and affect are different constructs, so you can win on one and lose on the other. Need frustration adds to the gap: autonomy collapses under micromanagement, competence stalls under constant firefighting, and relatedness fades when relationships are crowded out.
What helps
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Redesign the job you already have. Shift time toward strengths and valued clients or problems, renegotiate one draining meeting series, and recast the story of your work to reconnect with purpose. Job crafting offers concrete levers.
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Rebalance goals. Add learning goals and process goals next to outcome goals. This reduces all-or-nothing pressure and restores progress signals.
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Invest in relationships. Long-term work connects strong ties with health and happiness. Block time for a weekly relationship habit.
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Convert money into time and impact. Buy time back and direct a share of spending to others; both moves show consistent benefits for well-being.
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Name burnout early. If you tick the ICD-11 triad—exhaustion, cynicism, lower efficacy—raise it with leadership or a qualified professional and adjust workload.
Profile 4: Successful and Happy
Typical patterns
Achievement sits alongside positive emotion, meaning, and strong ties. Calendars reflect a few priority projects, daily micro-recovery, and regular prosocial acts. SDT needs are met: room to choose, room to grow, room to belong. PERMA elements are nurtured on purpose.
Habits that keep this quadrant stable
Goals with feedback and reflection. Targets are specific, challenging, measured, and reviewed.
Relationship-first mindset. Social connection predicts better health and longevity; teams tend to perform better under engaged managers.
Periodic job crafting. Quarterly edits to tasks, relationships, and purpose keep engagement high.
Time and generosity. Buying time and giving to others keep emotional well-being from eroding as workloads grow.
Why People Move Between Quadrants
Hedonic adaptation explains part of the shifts. Emotional spikes from events—promotion, bonus, new car—fade faster than expected; satisfaction rebounds toward baseline. You need fresh sources of meaning and connection, not only new goals.
Need satisfaction versus frustration explains the rest. When autonomy, competence, or relatedness drop, mood and motivation slide; when they rise, energy returns. This is the SDT engine at work.
A Practical Map to Move One Step Right and One Step Up
If you feel unsuccessful and unhappy
Pick one 30-minute learning block every other day to rebuild competence.
Book two connection slots this week (mentor, friend, community).
Set one clear, week-long goal with a visible metric. Review on Friday.
If you feel unsuccessful but happy
Keep your time affluence.
Choose one career lever for the next 30 days: certification, portfolio, or networking. Track progress with a simple dashboard.
If you feel successful but unhappy
Cut or delegate one recurring meeting or task; redirect that hour to relationships or learning.
Add prosocial and time-saving spending to your monthly plan.
Run a PERMA audit and add one habit per letter (for example, a daily “three good things” gratitude practice).
If you feel successful and happy
Guard the habits that got you here.
Refresh goals quarterly; rotate a learning goal to stay engaged and avoid stagnation.
Evidence-Based Levers You Can Use This Month
Relationships
Schedule a weekly lunch or call with a close tie. Health and longevity data back this investment.
Time
Trade money for time where possible: delivery, cleaning, or admin support. Field and lab evidence link this to higher daily happiness.
Giving
Direct a small, regular share of spending to others or a cause you value. The literature on prosocial spending shows consistent benefits.
Gratitude
Two to three minutes daily: note three specific events or people you appreciate. Randomized trials report gains in mood and better sleep quality.
Work design
Map tasks into energize, neutral, and drain. Shift 5–10% of time from drain to energize with job crafting moves.
Goals
Use clear targets with feedback. Keep a visible score for one priority. Strong evidence links this to performance and satisfaction.
Measurement: Track What You Want to Improve
Public bodies use three families of well-being measures. You can mirror them.
Life evaluation: “Overall, how satisfied are you with your life these days?” (0–10).
Affect: brief daily check of positive and negative feelings.
Eudaimonia: items on meaning and purpose.
Add one team measure if you lead others: engagement. Reports connect engagement with performance and lost productivity when it falls.
Conclusion
Success without well-being drains life. Well-being without progress can stall growth. The research gives you a way to move one step right (more success) and one step up (more happiness) through needs-supportive environments, purpose-linked goals, rich relationships, time affluence, and giving. You can start small this week—one clear goal, one connection, one act that buys back time, one gift to someone else—and repeat.
FAQs
1) Can you be happy with low income?
Yes. Life satisfaction often rises with income, yet daily feelings and meaning depend strongly on relationships, autonomy, and purpose. Many national surveys and SDT-based studies support that pattern.
2) I earn well but feel flat. What’s the fastest lever?
Trade money for time and reconnect with people. Evidence links time-saving purchases and social investment with higher daily happiness. Add one job-crafting change to restore engagement.
3) Which framework should I follow: SDT or PERMA?
Use both. SDT helps you check needs; PERMA helps you plan habits across five domains. Each has strong support and they work well together.
4) Do goals help happiness or only performance?
Clear, specific goals with feedback can raise performance and support satisfaction by creating visible progress. Keep a mix of outcome and learning goals.
5) What one habit helps across all four profiles?
Strengthen relationships. People with richer social ties live longer and report better well-being across contexts. Book time for it like any key task.
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