The Six Happiness Pillars
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 7
- Confidence
- —
Samantha Clarke's diagnostic for working out whether a role is actually working, instead of asking the unanswerable question "am I happy at work?". She breaks work satisfaction into six separate areas — mind-body-soul, money magic, people and place, systems and flow, purpose umbrella, and portfolio pie — and has clients score each one independently. The value is in the separation: most people who want to quit are only failing on one or two pillars, usually purpose or mind-body-soul, and can fix that without a full career change. The gap between what matters most to you and what the job actually supplies becomes the direction of the next move, whether that is a tweak, a sideways step, or an exit.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
Audit mind, body and soul
Ask how the role is affecting you physically and psychologically. Notice where stress or tension sits in the body across the working day, whether you leave the company confident or depleted, and whether the working day starts with trepidation.
Pro tip Bookend the day: in the morning ask what you are excited to tackle, in the evening ask what worked well and what you want more of.
- 2
Map your money magic
Separate what you actually value from what you are chasing. Is it recognition or money? How are you managing what you have, what would you need to live off, and how much risk are you genuinely comfortable with if you went full time on your own thing?
Watch out Bonuses and vesting dates function as a carrot on a stick — there is always another one six months away.
- 3
Check people and place
Identify the types of people and the environments in which you flourish, and compare them to the ones you are actually in every day. Support and psychological safety are pillar-level factors, not soft extras.
- 4
Get granular on systems and flow
Break the job down into the actual tasks. Which ones put you in flow, which ones flatline you, and where in the day does the energy drop? This is task-level, not job-title-level.
Pro tip Distinguish strengths you are merely competent at from strengths that energise you — the sweet spot is the overlap.
Watch out Being good at something is not the same as wanting to do it; competence gets you pushed into cycles of work you resent.
- 5
Test the purpose umbrella
Ask who you want to become and how this work is shaping you. Then ask the harder question: does this job have to carry your purpose, or can purpose live outside it in mentoring, volunteering or a side practice?
- 6
Design your portfolio pie
Decide what mix of activities you want your work to be made of. Some people need one deep thing done well; others are wired for several. Name the mix rather than defaulting to whatever the org chart gave you.
- 7
Let the gap drive the move
Compare what is going right across the pillars against what is genuinely important to you and missing. That gap — not general dissatisfaction — is what should fuel a tweak, a sideways step, or a leave-it decision.
Pro tip Run an ask-a-friend survey: what do people come to you for when they need help with something?
In the wild
Clarke says the two patterns that dominate her sessions are purpose and mind-body-soul. A client will say the job is not guiding them anywhere and they feel like a cog in the wheel, while people, pay and place are all fine. Running the six pillars separately shows the deficit is isolated: rather than quitting, the question becomes whether purpose can be sourced outside the role — coaching young startups on IP law at weekends, mentoring, volunteering two days if they downsize — while the job continues to fund the life.
→ The client stops treating a single-pillar deficit as a reason to blow up an otherwise good job.
Ali describes running from one thing straight into the next, always late, with anxiety accumulating that he is never on time and never doing enough. That narrative then escalates into questioning whether he wants to be doing the business at all. Scored against the pillars, the failure is mind-body-soul and systems and flow, not purpose. Clarke's read is that the mission doubt is a symptom: without the break, he will keep cycling through the same question forever.
→ The fix is diagnosed as white space and a real break, not a change of mission.
Common mistakes
Judging the whole job on one bad pillar
When one area is failing, everything looks catastrophic and people conclude the entire career is wrong. Scoring the pillars separately shows most of the job is often fine and only one area needs a change.
Confusing competence with energy
Being great at organising things does not mean you want to do it constantly. Treating everything you are praised for as a strength gets you pushed into a cycle of draining work.
Expecting one job to satisfy all six
Like a partner, work cannot be everything. Insisting a single role tick every box guarantees permanent disappointment when a couple of core qualities would have been enough.
From the transcript
“and i guess i've done a lot more work on my like i guess methodology around what i call the six happiness pillars for individuals…”
“and then we get people in place so what are the types of people in the environments that really support me and that i feel…”
“purpose umbrella yeah so you know who who do i want to become and how is this work shaping me and then the last one…”
From the episode
How To Design Your Career For Happiness - Samantha Clarke
Samantha Clarke