7 Areas: How to Live a Truly Happy, Healthy, and Purposeful Life

A long and fulfilling life can be realized solely through a holistic way of living.

But what exactly does a “holistic way of living” mean? And how can it ideally be integrated into the everyday life of modern man?

The following 7 areas of life together form the foundation on which a holistically successful life is built:

  1. Personal Life and Mental Development
  2. Physical Health
  3. Spiritual Life
  4. Family Love and Intimacy
  5. Social Influence
  6. Professional Life and Vocational Service
  7. Financial Freedom

Every person who desires a blissful, healthy and meaningful life should effectively divide the time available to him among the 7 areas of his life. For as long as these areas are balanced and harmonious, he enjoys maximum quality of life, feeling profound satisfaction.

If, on the other hand, one or even more of these areas is permanently neglected, we speak of a one-sided way of life, which over time ends in crises, disasters and destruction. Some examples are persistent financial difficulties, depressive moods, broken relationships, as well as various physical and mental illnesses.

The core message of this article is therefore: By committing ourselves to a holistic way of living, we will automatically lead an extremely healthy and fulfilling life from a mental, physical, spiritual and social-emotional point of view. Longevity will be the inevitable result in this case.

Contents

The 7 Areas of a Happy, Healthy, and Purposeful Life

  1. Personal Life and Mental Development
  2. Physical Health
  3. Spiritual Life
  4. Family Love and Intimacy
  5. Social Influence
  6. Professional Life and Vocational Service
  7. Financial Freedom

The 7 Areas of a Happy, Healthy, and Purposeful Life

In the following, we have briefly explained each of your 7 areas of life with a few easy-to-implement, yet enormously effective tips and suggestions for practice. By applying the points listed here, you can ensure the sustainable functionality of your 7 areas of life and thus become holistically successful.

1. Personal Life and Mental Development

The mind is the most powerful and wonderful instrument we humans have at our disposal. There are practically no limits to its capabilities. However, in order for it to always function optimally and to fully unleash its infinite potential, we must constantly develop and grow mentally. We achieve this through a never-ending process of learning and knowledge acquisition.

To ensure your continued mental development, you can follow these steps:

2. Physical Health

To attain physical health means to acquire an entirely healthy, fit and vital body.  The majority of people seem to be very far away from this “utopian” goal. But it is much easier than most people think.

Because perfect physical health is the natural result of fulfilling only two main criteria:

a) Healthy Nutrition: Make sure that the following food groups are present in sufficient quantity in your daily diet:

Also, drink plenty of clear, clean water to meet your body’s daily fluid needs.

b) Versatile Physical Activity: As soon as exercise is mentioned, many of us automatically think of extreme sports. However, this is a fallacy. Because an active and vibrant lifestyle combined with 20-30 minutes of moderate and varied daily exercise is absolutely sufficient for your lasting physical vitality.

3. Spiritual Life

Spirituality is the area that gives a sense of direction to our lives. Negative feelings such as emptiness, meaninglessness and guilt coupled with excessive stress—which countless people by the way are suffering from nowadays—are the natural consequences of neglecting the spiritual area of life.

Meditation is a universally popular way to get to the root of our spiritual core and to become aware of the true meaning of our lives.

Stillness, silence, gratitude, being consciously present at the moment or a temporary retreat from the hustle and bustle of everyday life—all of these are the various forms of meditation that allow you to access your inner world and thus bring you closer to your spiritual mission.

4. Family Love and Intimacy

We all need a home where we feel safe, and a family that we love and are loved by—just as we are. Love, attention, familiarity and understanding are therefore among the basic needs of every human being.

However, building stable and deep relationships within a family does not happen by itself, but requires targeted prepayments into the “relationship accounts” of our family members. If we don’t do this, sooner or later a relationship will most likely fall apart. But you have to keep in mind that it’s not necessarily a matter of making major efforts. Rather, it’s small, regular investments that add up over time and subsequently becomes the foundation for a successful family life.

It is important to spend quality time with each other as a family by organizing frequent activities together. It can be a delicious meal, a weekend movie night, an exciting community game, or a relaxing walk. Individual values, priorities, needs and interests must be taken into account.

Always remember: love is not a feeling, it’s an ability that should be developed into an art through constant training. That’s why you have to work on getting better and better over time at expressing love to your life partner, children, parents or siblings. Listen to them empathetically, appreciate them, care for them, and show them that they are important and valuable to you.

5. Social Influence

We humans are social beings who desire esteem, recognition, significance and belonging.  Each of us strives—and it is absolutely natural—for a high status, influence and power in our social environment.

We fulfill these essential needs most effectively by investing in our social relationships, just as we do in our family life. The simple rule here is that what we give to others returns back to us.

6. Professional Life and Vocational Service

If your professional activity does not serve you exclusively as a possible source of income, but rather inspires you, fulfills you and, above all, gives you meaning, then it is called a vocation.

Many professionals are just longing to find their true calling and follow it. Unfortunately, this approach does not lead to the goal, because our vocation is not something we once lost and now have to find again. Rather, we have to shape and create it. And the way to do that is through our profession.

As you continue to learn and advance in your field, sooner or later you will develop a passionate love for your profession as you become better and more competent at it. Once that happens, you will find what you initially perceive as a lengthy and grueling process of development and growth to be pure joy.

Here you are also constantly looking for opportunities and possibilities to make a significant difference in this world by using your acquired skills and competencies. Once you have reached this stage, you are already in possession of your vocation.

7. Financial Freedom

The financial area acts as the fuel for creating and establishing all the other areas of our lives. As long as our finances are not stable, we will constantly face crises, shortages and difficulties in the other 6 areas of our life.

The reason for this is that we have to pay something in return for every service we use. If we have sufficient financial resources, we can pay the equivalent price for the acquired service with money.

However, if we are not doing well financially, we are forced to use other resources such as our time or health as alternative currencies. As a result of this approach, a negative downward spiral is created, so that we fall deeper and deeper into the abyss of self-destruction.

In order to prevent this, achieving financial stability should become our top priority. It is necessary to learn not only how to earn more money, but also how to keep and increase it.

Build a peaceful and happy relationship with your finances and always remember: money is only there to serve you and enrich your life. If this is not the case, then it’s time to start your financial education. We recommend these 20 books to help you on your journey towards financial freedom:

  1. Happy Money by Ken Honda
  2. The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
  3. The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach
  4. Cashflow Quadrant by Robert T. Kiyosaki
  5. Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker
  6. The Road to Financial Freedom by Bodo Schäfer
  7. I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
  8. The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
  9. The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
  10. Money Master the Game by Tony Robbins
  11. The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
  12. How Rich People Think by Steve Siebold
  13. Dave Ramsey’s Complete Guide to Money by Dave Ramsey
  14. The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko
  15. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
  16. Speed Wealth by T. Harv Eker
  17. The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles
  18. The Rules of Wealth by Richard Templar
  19. The Path of Prosperity by James Allen
  20. The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco