It is important that we have activities in our lives that we feel good at. In order to feel good about ourselves, we need to have a sense of achievement. This can also help with our self-esteem. This doesn’t mean actually being ‘the best’ in comparison to others, but feeling that we are doing the best we can in whatever we do.

This can also involve feeling like we have mastered activities and skills-training that are important to us in the workplace. It can include creativity, like being able to create or make new things, come up with new ideas, or be artistic or practical in some way.

This is about how people spend their time and the range of activities in which they are involved. It is important for people to see that all activities are worthwhile and for people to have activities which offer elements of fun, excitement, challenge and achievement. This might involve hobbies, work, and exercise. This is also about achieving a balance of activities, for example, work/life balance.

Whoever we are, it’s important for us to feel like we understand our purpose in life. This could stem from religion but it doesn’t have to. This could be something like ‘being a good friend’, ‘being a good brother/sister’ or contributing to your community in some way.

This is about feeling peaceful and comfortable. It means that we should feel free from difficult feelings, and that we should know how to deal with these feelings if we have them. This also means feeling safe; physically and emotionally.

This is about how we live our lives in terms of our physical health (exercise, diet, feeling comfortable with our appearance) and emotional health (looking after ourselves inside).

This is about having intimate, romantic and familial relationships.

This is about feeling like we can manage and control our lives. The ability to make decisions and feel as though we have a say in our lives is very important. This is also about being able to manage the way we behave and the way we feel, for example, knowing what to do if we have had a bad day. This is also about being able to make decisions and solve everyday problems in life.

This is about having knowledge and understanding so we feel informed about our world, so that we feel we understand what is going on around us. Knowledge can come from life experience, what we learn at school, from books or from the media. It does not mean ‘being clever’, but feeling as though we know what we need to in order to feel alright in the world.

This is about having a sense of belonging and responsibility to the social group we live in. This also includes a sense of fitting in. It is important that we have a group of people where we feel we fit. Belonging might stem from friends, family, colleagues, a religious group or another group of people.

Feeling good in the here and now. This is the ability to anchor ourselves in the moment and have gratitude for what we have, rather than worrying about the past or the future.