Self-Improvement by Numbers

Over the past few weeks I've been trying to turn my self-improvement journey into useable data. I've used the PERMA Profiler (an empirically validated questionnaire by Julie Butler and Margaret Kern) to assess psychological wellbeing in the past, but was also tracking variables such as weight, depression (through the PHQ-9), mood, food intake. Around the four week mark I noticed the only one I was getting any useable information from was the PERMA-P. So I jazzed up my spreadsheet to generate predictions and trends, noticing that a boost in "Wellbeing" score produced a boost in mood, less over-eating, less depression etc. Effectively the PERMA-P became the only self-improvement tool I needed, and I believe it could be the only too you need too!

PERMA

PERMA (positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and achievement) are the core components of psychological wellbeing. You can get a full overview of the science of PERMA in my article "What does mental health REALLY mean?".  The PERMA Profiler will allow you to assess all those areas of your life plus health, negative emotion and loneliness.

Trending

Plain old numbers might not be very interesting but the fact that through data we can predict what the next week might hold blows my mind! The challenge is to get all the areas in the green. Good luck!

Download

I'm sharing my blank spreadsheet here for free. Click HERE to download the Excel file [252kb].

References

Butler, J. & Kern, M. L. (2015). The PERMA-Profiler: A brief multidimensional measure of flourishing. Available fromhttp://www.peggykern.org/questionnaires.html