Let’s face it, everyone’s quality life definition is going to be unique to that individual.
To some, a quality life can be spending time with family, having time to pursue your hobbies or interests.
While for others, it’s more about material things; the car you drive, the clothes you wear, and what kind of money you make.
Today I would like to share with you my quality life definition. Hopefully I’ll leave you with some helpful suggestions to improve your quality of life and outlook on this topic.
My Quality Life Definition:
When defining quality of life, I think it’s a balance & combination of multiple factors. If you’ve got all the money in the world, but your health is poor, your quality of life is pretty lousy.
But if you are really healthy; not too bright, avoid learning, and can’t get a job, again, poor quality of life.
Now if you can combine and maintain a balanced perspective and ratio of the following factors, you’ll have a well balanced, happy and healthy life.
Let me know if I missed any factors here in the comment section below, thanks.
My Quality Life Definition Includes:
1). Good physical & mental health:
Strive to maintain a good 3-5 days per week working on your cardiovascular training, strengthening, and flexibility. Add meditation or yoga to maintain mental balance and improve focus.
2). Job satisfaction:
Find something you’re passionate about, that you just enjoy getting up and doing every day. Hopefully it makes decent money for you as well.
If that’s not your case and you want to improve this aspect of your life, you can see how to make extra money through affiliate marketing.
Also, you can check out my guide to making money online for more resources.
3). A supportive social network of family and friends
Community, friends, and family can add to our joy and satisfaction in life. Sometimes they add stress, but positive relationships do wonders for human beings.
4). Personal freedom to set you own schedule
Forget alarm clocks and have the freedom to live at your own pace. Not a lot of jobs allow this. But if you have your own business where you can set your own hours, that’s a huge quality of life booster.
5). The ability to travel and explore the world
Now maybe this one doesn’t interest you. But if it does and you can fit 1-2 months of travel per year, I think you will find a more fulfilling and enriched life experience.
Even if it’s just to travel and see friends and family that you haven’t seen in a while.
6). New challenges to overcome
Not on everyone’s list. But I value continual education in life and new challenges contribute to new learning and a “I’m greater for overcoming this” experience.
7). Living in an environment that encourages learning new information
Keep your brain going throughout your 30’s to 90’s. You’ll ward of Alzheimer’s disease and actually have a much younger brain.
Most all new learning occurs in years 0 – 20, so learning new information is a great way to maintain a great quality of life throughout your entire life span.
8). Having enough money
Not just enough to pay the bills, but an additional 15 – 20% of your net income going to a Roth IRA or some form of retirement saving.
Plus you should try to save 10 – 30 thousand dollars a year if possible for potential investments or just to contribute to your “nest egg”.
9). Eating quality, nutritious and delicious foods
This really makes all the difference in the world on how you feel “energy wise”.
You actually can feel a dramatic difference when you’ve been eating healthy and you’re forced to eat fast food. It just feels bad afterwards.
Also avoid canned foods, sodas, fruit juices, etc. An overabundance of salt and sugar is the recipe for advanced cardiovascular diseases.
10). Having personal time for lazy days at the beach 🙂
This is just a given, right?
Now obviously it’s tough to have all 10 of these aspects in our lives all the time. But this is what I look at when I think of having a good quality life.
However, I know people lose perspective sometimes when they think about this topic.
We want more and more stuff, we want a better car and bigger home. We get trapped associating quality of life at times with material needs and we loose focus on what’s really important.
Gain Some Perspective:
I want you to try to imagine something a bit drastic.
Imagine that instead of sitting here reading this article, you woke up this morning and found you couldn’t move your right arm.
Then you tried to get out of bed and fell to the floor due to the inability to move your right leg. You can’t coordinate the moments and when you try to speak, you’re speech comes out mumbled and incoherent.
If you think about this and imagine yourself in this position, it’s a pretty scary scenario. 
I just described what many have gone through when experiencing a stroke.
Hopefully you’ll never have to go through this traumatic and horrible experience.
My example of you experiencing the symptoms of a stroke is drastic but I want to make a point by it.
If you can imagine how bad this is, you might be able to imagine how complicated life can be after having a stroke.
Taking On Someone Else’s Perspective:
When you think about something like this happening to yourself, it’s puts things into perspective.
Compare your life to someone less fortunate for a moment.
This simple exercise can give you a brand new perspective on all the wonderful things that you’ve got going for you in your life right now.
Sometimes we take basic skills for granted.
We get caught up in reaching financial or personal goals, getting the latest iPhone, buying a bigger house and a new car, etc..
We’re not focused on all the wonderful things that we already have going for us in life at this moment.
Sometimes these things seem quite simple and easy to take for granted, but don’t do it. As we age or our health deteriorates, we see just how important the simple things in life are.
The “5 Things To Be Thankful For” Exercise:
Working with rehab patients (many of them stroke victims) for over 10 years, I have seen my fair share of despair, depression and anguish.
So I came up with a little treatment to try and break the depression/anxiety/despair cycle that interferes with my patient’s progress.
I call it my “Quality of Life Speech”.
Depending on what physical or mental losses the patient has suffered, I try to have the patient identify 5 positive things that they are thankful for in their lives today. Many patients can’t come up with ONE idea at first.
So I get the ball rolling for them. I try to find out if they have a supportive family and if so, that goes on the list.
If the patient can express themselves, think, and make their needs known to their caregivers, that too of course, goes on the list. Anything that is positive belongs on the list.
Once we have 5 things that the patient can identify, I ask them to think about this list throughout the day.
We write it down and put it on their bedside table. I have a caregiver review the list with them later that day and then I’ll review it a couple more times the next morning during therapy.
If I can get the patient to think of this list of 5 positive things that they are thankful for, some great things start to happen.
How Does This Help, What’s the Point?
The “Quality of Life Speech” gets people to see that although they have suffered a great loss, they still have abilities and positive things in their lives.
It also gets the person to focus on something positive and not just thinking or “obsessively thinking” about what’s negative.
This strengthens positive neural connections in the brain and starts to break depression, anxiety and negative neural patterns.
When we repeatedly think of something negative, we strengthen this “bad connection” and we continue to go down a negative spiral cycle.
If my patients think about the positive things in their lives, they will strengthen that neural connection.
This then leads to more positive feelings and people get out of the depression and start to focus on therapy and recovery.
Time and time again the “Quality of Life Speech” turns people’s lives around. I see hope returning on a daily basis.
People go from giving up to fighting back and many return home with their loved ones.
Focus On The Important Stuff:
Positive and negative behaviors can become hardwired into us and strengthened depending on which behavior we feed.
Focus on what is good and positive in your life, and your attitude and outlook will improve.
This can actually change you physiologically. Your demeanor, posture, neurotransmitter levels, and your energy levels all change for the better.
If you’re stressed on your quality of life, take a half an hour and think about all the positive things that you have going for you, your perspective will change for the better.
If you aren’t happy with the quality of your life, take action and make some changes. Sometimes this can be easier said than done, but you have to reach out and make an effort to improve your life.
I hope your quality life definition has been improved from reading my take on this subject. And more importantly, you have a new perspective to take away with you the next time you reflect on your own quality of life.
I can relate to your quality of life definition. Still working on some of my perspectives, but definitely moving forward with a great start.
I am starting to have control of my life with my new goal of having my own online business, so lets see how it goes. I am spending great effort to make it work, that way I can eventually spend my time with other aspects of my life.
Hi Irma,
You’re quality of life goals are awesome. They are the same that I had when I first playing with these online ideas.
Rather than repeating my daily work behaviors as a Occupational Therapist, I thought, why can’t I just video this and help people on a larger level for a better price while making passive income.
Was I crazy? No. There’s millions of us that feel the same way.
My only thought for your Irma is to take those aspects of your life you want to expand on and see if you can take your passion and actually put that online.
In other words, make your passion you niche idea for your online business. That way you’ll build something you love over time and will create something awesome.
When you love your online business, that shows through and eventually effects your long term online business’s success.
I’d encourage you to read our Free eBook on Creating Targeted Traffic That Actually Buys From You Site.
Best,
Todd
HI There,
That is a brilliant question. I think my quality life definition would be fairly similar to yours. Success and quality of life for me would be earning more money and traveling a lot more, earning the money via a residual passive manner to allow me more free time to enjoy life, study Qi gong, meditate and more family time.
That’s awesome Derek, great minds think alike. Quality of life should be important for anyone’s happiness and well being.
The passive income and ability to travel and work from anywhere is most easily achieved with an online business.
My favorite way, and most effective with little risk, is through niche websites and affiliate marketing. You can always add eCommerce and email marketing, etc. But this is the easiest way for most people to get started and really gives you a strong base for long term success.
I can testify to you that this really works if you’re really willing to work for it. It takes a couple months to learn the basics and get a niche site going, ranking content, and bringing in those first initial sales. But as you continue to build and grow your niche site, so does the income.
Every day I make money online and as I continue to build my online business, so does my income continue to grow. The cool thing about niche sites, is once you establish some authority with Google in your chosen niche, you can bring in money time and time again for the work you did one time.
For those that are serious about learning how to do this too, I’d encourage you to check out my #1 training program. It’s free to check out and super economical to use the premium services.
Thanks,
Todd
Hi Todd!
It is inspiring to read your article because it really shows you care and are trying to help.
I do agree with most of what you write, a good tip with regards to staying physically active could be to pick up a sport. This is something that has helped me tremendously as its fun and I do not see the excercise as boring or something I have to do.
At point 7 you write about living in an environment that encourages learning. How would you recommend someone would go about doing this? Thanks for another great article!
Thanks Anders and you’re welcome as well. Part of quality of life depends on your environment.
I think you either create a home environment that doesn’t have distractions but has an area that you can stretch out or do a little yoga, then stick with a daily program that will chronologically allows you to learn new material and apply that material to some project.
This is easy to do if you’re working online. Otherwise you should go to a school or library that fosters this type of environment to learn new things.
Thanks,
Todd
Hey there!
Great article on the quality of life. I have to say I am guilty of not doing a lot of these things but there is one thing that I always keep in mind and that is no matter how bad I think my current situation is – someone out there always has it worse. And this keeps me going even when I am feeling low.
As you have mentioned you can have a solid job and wake up happy but I have a lot of health issues and they can really bring you down over time. This leads to just a downfall in other aspects of life because you can’t find the energy, ability, or even motivation to keep going sometimes.
It is super important that people remember what they want out of life and push through the thick and thin to make it happen. The universe tests us in many ways and the only way to prove that you really want it is to keep pushing for it no matter what things may be thrown in your path.
I am currently focusing on getting healthier which I hope will increase my motivation and mental focus. Then it is time to focus on creating that at home career where I can work in my bedroom without having to worry about putting clothes every day!
Jean
Hi Jean,
Thanks for sharing your story and your experience in managing a quality life. And yes, it can be a challenge without additional problems. It’s when we have those additional health or life issues that we realize how precious life is.
As an Occupational Therapist, I’d get people in the latter stages of their lives having suffured strokes, hip replacements, and so forth, and it’s a really tough thing to go through. And so I’d give them a homework assignment after the end of our treatment sessions.
It was to write down 5 things that they are thankful for today. Many times I was coming up with the first 3 or 4 things. Once we’d get our list, I’d ask them to revisit this list 5-6 times during the day, and the next day we’ll create a new list.
Those that did this made great results in their therapy. And this only makes sense, we’re strengthening neural connections of positive emotions in our brain and taking away negative ones. Results: less stress, more appreciation in one’s heart, quicker healing, and progressive steps forward to attain the higher level goal.
I wish you the best in your physical and online goals. I know from personal experience that they work using the training programs provided by Wealthy Affiliate should you need the education, support and guidance.
Take care,
Todd
I had heard the list thing before but in a few different ways. I know one was to write down everyday how you want to improve your life or how you see your life in a year or two years and then do this everyday getting more and more detailed. The studies showed that people who did this felt more motivated and willing to get things done.
So i would have to assume to that if you do it on a regular basis with happy things in life then you will by default have a better outlook on things which is a great way to help with health.
Absolutely Jean, our small actions on a daily basis can have big results on our health and financial success. So staying focused and prioritizing the things that you want to accomplish by taking those baby steps will lead to a lot of success (financial, emotional, health, etc).
Thanks again for your feedback and have a great week,
Todd
Quality of life is certainly a balance of multiple factors, as you’ve mentioned. At the core, I think “happiness” has a lot to do with “passion” and “purpose”. If people are passionate about the majority of things they do on a daily basis, and also feel like they’re making a positive impact, then I think they’re on the right track.
Great point Matthew and I think you’re on to something. Passion and purpose is a big part of the quality of life definition. I think another aspect is to also see progress with whatever you’re doing in life.
This, I feel, is a good way to live a purpose driven life. Thanks for your feedback and take care.
Todd
The information you publish in this article is really valuable , Todd. People really need to read about and apply the strategies you suggest here to improve the quality of their lives. A totally agree with you…job satisfaction is a crucial element to have a balanced and happy life. For some people who feel unhappy in their workplaces and with their current work conditions, an online business like the one describes in this site is the answer. We must live our lives to the fullest….you are giving your readers the necessary tools to achieve this goal. Blessings!
Hilda
Hi Hilda,
Thanks so much for your feedback on this article. I think it’s a good guide that I have laid out here. But it is tough to follow on a daily basis. Hopefully we can all strive to live balanced happy lives.
Yes, owning an online business makes having a higher quality of life possible. It just takes time and hard work to get it started, but it’s a wonderful thing once it’s put together.
Thanks again and always nice to hear from you.
Todd
I love your list! The older I get, the more I realize how intertwined each of these components are, and when one of them is out of kilter, then they can all go off the rails. I have also realized over the years that money isn’t everything. In my youth, I chased all of the big money jobs. Later, I realized that I have traded my life for a paycheck. Suddenly, freedom of my time meant more than the big paycheck. It’s an adjustment that I think our society at large is beginning to make. Companies can no longer hold a person hostage for a paycheck. There are too many other options for people than to tolerate that.
I think your list is spot on and it really covers all almost all of the areas. You didn’t touch much on the spiritual side of the beings that we are, but having time for whatever feeds the spiritual side of of you, will add to your quality of life as well.
Once again, great post!
Hi Christy,
Yeah I missed the spirituality side of having free time to do things that feed our souls, but in general I think that you’re right about so many people chasing their financial dreams that cause them to miss out on the “Quality Life Definition”. And to me that really means balance between work and play. I think most people tend to put their efforts into work. It’s just part of Western Society, we are conditioned to plan and prepare for the future. And it makes sense too, we’ve had 1000’s of years to plan in the Spring, Summer, & Fall to prepare for devastating Winters. When you visit other cultures that are located around the equator you see a difference in culture, punctuality, concept of time, and lack of planning. Why? They didn’t have devastating winters to deal with. But I really appreciate your feedback and I thank you for your kind compliments.
Here’s to finding the right kind of quality of life.
Cheers,
Todd
Hi Todd.
Your 10 points hit home as it made me realize what I am truly lacking in my current state. Coming from a medical background, I too have seen my fair share of consequences as a result of not preserving a good quality lifestyle. No one just ended up in a bad state. It’s all about understanding situations and making personal decisions based on that.
I actually drew a picture of the things that defines my life and place it by my bedside. I will look at it every night before I go to bed, to remind myself (there goes my quality life speech…) of my blessing and other important goals that I have yet to achieve. I have started my journey towards time freedom, which I regard as my biggest reward and I am determine to make it happen within these few years.
It’s my life and I want to make it right.
Awesome Cathy,
That’s great to hear that the post is getting people to think. This “Quality of Life” idea has been on the forefront of my mind every since I went from being a mortgage broker to working as an Occupational Therapist. And once I started working more in therapy, I could really see the difference in peoples quality of life as they aged and began to have medical problems. Then connecting this with how we live and also seeing patients that had very few problems and looked great into their 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, & 100’s, this concept had a profound effect on who I am. I’ve dedicated a part of my life to conscientiously eating healthier and striving to workout on a weekly basis. From Yoga, Crossfit, Hiking, & Meditation. There are just too many wonderful activities out there and it feels so much better to be active and take care of oneself.
Thanks for commenting and sharing your personal story as well.
Have a wonderful day and talk soon,
Todd