why the 17 Living Goals were created
For decades, GDP has been the leading scoreboard. It counts what we produce, not whether life is good to live. The 17 Living Goals ask the other question:
Does this make life better to live?
what are the 17 Living Goals?
A quality-of-life framework created by the Business Hippie Club. Seventeen reference points on how people actually live, work, feel and contribute.
Each one names something a good life needs: time to truly live, work that supports life, a body that carries you through the day, and more.
Together they show where life stands and where it could be better. That distance is the gap. The starting point for your ideal world.
one holistic view, four pillars
Quality of life is not one thing. It is the result of different parts of life working together. The 17 Living Goals look at the whole of life through four connected pillars:
Live Good
How we live and the conditions that make life work.
Work Good
How work can support a good life.
Feel Good
How we experience life, physically and emotionally.
Do Good
How we contribute to others and the world around us.
Together, these four pillars provide the holistic framework behind the 17 Living Goals.
the 17 Living Goals
All 17 goals. Click any goal for its core question and indicators. Filter by pillar to read one group at a time.
01A life with dignity, for everyoneLive Good
Does every person here have what they need to live with basic self-respect – and does that hold as true for the people at the edges as for everyone else?
Indicators
Freedom from humiliation
Absence of daily interactions that demean, dismiss, or dehumanise.
Dignity and discrimination surveys, lived experience research
Stable identity and respect
Being able to show up honestly without fear of judgement or exclusion.
Social inclusion indices, qualitative fieldwork
Access to basic rights
Practical access to housing, healthcare and education, without structural barriers by gender, race, class, disability, sexuality or age.
Rights access audits, discrimination data, inequality reports
Absence of coercive control
Freedom from relationships or systems that run on fear, shame or dependency.
Domestic abuse data, coercive control research
Whether it holds for everyone
The same question asked group by group rather than on average. Who is doing well here, and who is not.
Disaggregated wellbeing data, equity indices
Felt dignity and fair chance
The sense of being treated with basic respect, and of having the same room to move as anyone else.
QOL self-assessment, perceived opportunity surveys
Dignity is the floor beneath every other goal. And an average hides the thing that matters most here – a place can score well overall while a group inside it lives quite differently.
02Basic living conditions for everyoneLive Good
Can people meet their everyday needs without falling behind – reliably, without chronic stress, without being one event away from losing the foundation?
Indicators
Housing stability
Stable, adequate shelter – not overcrowded, not temporary, not under threat of loss. Affordable relative to income.
Housing cost-to-income ratio, eviction rates, overcrowding data
Food security
Regular, reliable access to adequate and culturally appropriate nutrition. Low emergency food reliance.
Food insecurity surveys, food bank usage, diet quality data
Energy and water access
Consistent clean water, heating, cooling, electricity. Absence of fuel poverty or disconnection.
Utility disconnection rates, fuel poverty indices
Financial baseline
Income sufficient to cover basics without chronic deficit. Low dependence on high-cost credit.
Income vs living wage gap, financial stress surveys
Healthcare access
Essential health services accessible without financial barrier or prohibitive wait.
Unmet health need surveys, cost-of-care barriers
Felt stability
The subjective sense that the basics are secure – no constant background anxiety about meeting everyday needs.
Wellbeing surveys, QOL self-assessment
A 3 is not a good score here. The goal of this framework is not adequacy – it is conditions that support a life worth living.
03Places built for humansLive Good
Does the built environment support how people actually live – or was it designed for something else?
Indicators
Walkability
Daily needs reachable on foot or by bike without danger or excessive distance.
Walk score data, pedestrian safety statistics
Green and open space
Access to parks, nature, and public outdoor space within reasonable distance.
Green space per capita, access by neighbourhood
Public transport quality
Reliable, affordable, and dignified public transport that actually serves where people live and work.
Transit coverage, reliability data, cost-to-income ratio
Affordable local services
Key services – food, healthcare, childcare, education – accessible locally without long travel or prohibitive cost.
Service access mapping, local amenity indices
Human-scale design
Streets, spaces, and buildings designed for human comfort, safety, and social interaction – not just vehicles or commerce.
Urban design audits, public space usage data
Felt liveability
Whether residents feel their neighbourhood supports their daily life.
Resident satisfaction surveys, QOL field reading
The fieldwork BHC conducts in places like Lisbon, Bologna, and Ibiza consistently reveals a blind spot: a city's liveability reputation against the daily reality of its residents.
04Enough instead of endlessLive Good
Is the culture of this life, organisation, or place oriented toward sufficiency – or toward perpetual accumulation and growth at the cost of living?
Indicators
Felt sufficiency
A genuine sense of "enough" in how one lives – not deprivation, but freedom from the compulsion to always have more.
Wellbeing surveys, sufficiency research
Low chronic financial anxiety despite adequate income
Absence of money anxiety in people who objectively have enough.
Financial anxiety surveys cross-referenced with income data
Relationship with consumption
Consumption driven by genuine need and pleasure, not anxiety, comparison, or compulsion.
Consumer behaviour research, debt patterns
Growth orientation vs life orientation
Whether decisions are driven by growth metrics or by quality of life metrics.
Strategic planning language, investment priorities, policy framing
This is a BHC-original goal. It exists because the exhaustion of endless striving is one of the defining quality of life problems of our time – and no major framework names it directly.
05A peaceful and safe lifeLive Good
Can people move through daily life without fear – in their home, their neighbourhood, their work, and their community?
Indicators
Physical safety in public space
Ability to move through public life at all hours without reasonable fear of violence or harassment.
Crime statistics, safety perception surveys by gender and group
Freedom from domestic violence
Safety within the home – from intimate partner violence, coercive control, or family abuse.
Domestic violence data, safe house capacity, reporting rates
Workplace safety
Freedom from harassment, coercion, bullying, or unsafe physical conditions at work.
Workplace harassment data, safe reporting mechanisms
Access to justice
Practical ability to access protection, recourse, and justice when safety is violated.
Reporting and prosecution rates, access to legal support
Felt safety
The subjective experience of feeling safe – which can diverge significantly from statistical safety.
Safety perception surveys disaggregated by group
Safety sits in Live Good because it is a floor condition, not a contribution outward. Safety data disaggregated by gender and group almost always tells a different story than aggregate statistics.
06Work that supports life, not drains itWork Good
Does work fit around life – or does life shrink to fit around work?
Indicators
Working hours
Total hours worked per week, including informal availability and digital extension of the working day.
Labour force surveys, working hour data
Ability to disconnect
Real freedom to be unreachable after hours without professional consequence.
Right-to-disconnect policies, employee surveys
Flexibility for life
Ability to manage personal and family needs without jeopardising job security or advancement.
Flexible working uptake, family-related leave data
Energy at end of day
Whether work leaves people with enough energy to actually live the rest of their lives.
Burnout indices, end-of-day vitality surveys
Commute and transition
Time and energy cost of getting to and from work and transitioning between work and life.
Commute time data, boundary-setting research
This goal is about the structural relationship between work and life – not individual time management. A person cannot solve this alone.
07Work with purpose, not just outputWork Good
Does work connect to something meaningful beyond the transaction – or is it purely an exchange of time for money?
Indicators
Sense of contribution
Understanding of how one's work connects to something that matters beyond the immediate task.
Employee purpose surveys, engagement data
Values alignment
The degree to which the work one does reflects what one actually cares about.
Values-work alignment research, exit interview data
Craft and quality
Ability to take genuine pride in how work is done, not just that it is done.
Autonomy and mastery measures, job quality research
Mission clarity
Whether the organisation's purpose is clear, credible, and genuinely guides decisions.
Internal culture surveys, leadership consistency data
Felt meaningfulness
The subjective sense – on an ordinary day – that what you do matters to something beyond yourself.
Day reconstruction studies, job meaning surveys
Purpose is not a luxury added on top of decent work. People spend too much of their lives working for that work to be purely hollow.
08A fair exchange for your timeWork Good
Is what people receive for their work genuinely fair – in pay, respect, and recognition?
Indicators
Pay relative to living cost
Compensation that genuinely covers the cost of a decent life in that place – not just market rate.
Living wage benchmarks, cost-of-living adjusted pay data
Pay equity
Absence of unjustified pay gaps by gender, ethnicity, age, or employment type.
Pay gap reporting, equity audits
Pay transparency
Clarity about how pay is determined and how to progress.
Pay transparency surveys, progression clarity data
Non-financial recognition
Voice, respect, development opportunities, and genuine acknowledgement as forms of fair exchange.
Employee recognition surveys, voice and participation measures
Felt fairness
The subjective sense that what one gives and what one receives are in genuine balance.
Fairness perception surveys, organisational justice research
The market determines what pay is normal. That is not the same as what is fair. This goal asks the harder question.
09A body that carries you through the dayFeel Good
Does the body hold up for the life being asked of it – with the health, rest, movement and food that daily life actually needs?
Indicators
Everyday health
Freedom from conditions that limit what can be done in a normal day.
Self-rated health, limiting long-term condition data
Rest and recovery
Consistent, restorative sleep – not just sufficient hours but genuinely recuperative rest.
Sleep quality surveys, sleep disorder prevalence
Movement that feels good
Regular movement that is genuinely enjoyable – not obligatory exercise for health management.
Physical activity surveys, movement quality research
Access to food that nourishes
Fresh, decent food close enough and cheap enough that eating well is not a trade-off against other basics.
Food desert mapping, food cost-to-income ratio, healthy eating cost benchmarks
Time and knowledge to eat well
Enough time, energy and practical knowledge to prepare and eat nourishing food – not just whatever is fastest.
Time-use surveys, food literacy research
Felt physical capacity
The subjective sense that the body is up to the life being lived.
Vitality surveys, energy self-report, QOL self-assessment
Health is the second strongest predictor of how a life feels, after the state of your head. Food sits inside this goal rather than beside it – how you eat is one of the ways a body is kept, not a separate question.
10Feeling alive, not just functioningFeel Good
Do people feel steady and present in themselves – not just free of diagnosed illness, but genuinely inhabiting their own life?
Indicators
Steadiness of mood
A generally even footing day to day, rather than being thrown by ordinary events.
Mental wellbeing scales, mood stability research
Freedom from persistent anxiety or low mood
Absence of a background hum of worry or flatness that colours everything else.
Common mental health prevalence data, wellbeing surveys
Support without a price
Practical access to help, professional or personal, and no cost to asking for it. Not just whether help exists, but whether reaching for it damages standing at work, at home, or in a community.
Mental health service access data, unmet need surveys, stigma and disclosure research
Which way it is going
Whether the last months have been steadier or harder. The direction is often clearer than the level, and it is what people notice first.
Longitudinal wellbeing data, repeat self-assessment
What is doing it
Whether the pressure comes from the life around a person – the hours, the money, the housing, the isolation – rather than from the person themselves.
Social determinants of mental health research, working conditions and wellbeing studies
Moments of aliveness
Regular experiences of genuine presence, joy, or heightened vitality in ordinary life.
Positive experience surveys, eudaimonic wellbeing research
There is a difference between not being ill and feeling alive. Most health systems are built around the former. This goal asks the latter – and it is the strongest single predictor of how satisfied someone is with their life. It also asks where the pressure comes from, because a life is not only lived inside a head.
11Learning how to live, not only how to workFeel Good
Are people equipped with the wisdom, skills, and self-knowledge needed for a good life – not just for employment?
Indicators
Life skills and self-knowledge
Practical and emotional capacities for navigating relationships, decisions, money, health, and meaning.
Life skills curricula, emotional literacy research
Access to reflective space
Time, culture, and opportunity for genuine reflection on how one is living.
Mindfulness and reflection practice data
Intergenerational wisdom
Access to the practical wisdom of older generations – passed on through real relationship, not just content.
Intergenerational programme data, mentorship access
Whole-person development
Learning environments that develop the full human – not just cognitive and professional skills.
Holistic education research, development programme quality
Learning how to be
Exposure to philosophy, meaning-making, and the deeper questions of how to live a life worth living.
Philosophy and humanities access, wellbeing education programmes
This is a BHC-original goal. The question "how should I live?" is perhaps the most important a human being can ask – and almost no formal system helps people answer it.
12Time to truly liveFeel Good
Do people have unstructured, unmonetised time – time that belongs entirely to them, not to productivity or obligation?
Indicators
Free hours per week
Hours of genuine discretionary time – not filled with domestic labour, commuting, or secondary jobs.
Time-use surveys, discretionary time data
Cultural permission to rest
The social and cultural licence to rest, play, and be unproductive without shame or justification.
Rest culture research, guilt and productivity studies
Leisure access without cost pressure
Ability to enjoy free time without it requiring significant financial expenditure.
Leisure cost data, free leisure infrastructure
Quality of free time
Whether free time feels genuinely restorative and self-directed – or just exhausted recovery.
Free time quality surveys, restorative activity data
Absence of time poverty
Not experiencing the chronic sense that there is never enough time – even when hours exist on paper.
Time poverty research, subjective time pressure surveys
Room to make things
Time, space and energy to create something of your own – to make, play or express – for no reason beyond the doing of it.
Creative activity and wellbeing research, time-use surveys, QOL self-assessment
This is a BHC-original goal. The right to genuinely free time – unmonetised, unscheduled, and unashamed – is not on any major policy agenda. That is precisely why it needs to be here.
13Belonging in an age of disconnectionFeel Good
Do people have someone close to them, and a community that knows and holds them?
Indicators
Quality of close relationships
Depth and reliability of intimate relationships. The people who would actually show up.
Social support surveys, loneliness research
Community belonging
Sense of being known and held by a wider community – neighbourhood, interest, or identity group.
Social capital measures, community cohesion surveys
Sense of place
Feeling genuinely at home in and connected to where one lives.
Place attachment research, local identity surveys
Low chronic loneliness
Absence of the persistent experience of being fundamentally unseen or disconnected.
Loneliness indices, social isolation data
Reciprocal connection
Relationships of genuine mutuality – giving and receiving, not just consuming social contact.
Reciprocity research, social network quality data
Close relationships are second only to the state of your head as a predictor of how a life feels. Loneliness is a public health concern – but it is also a design failure in how we build cities, run organisations, and structure working life.
14A say in your own lifeFeel Good
Do people have real influence over what happens to them – in their own days, in their work, and in the place they live?
Indicators
Control over your own day
How much of an ordinary day is genuinely yours to shape.
Time-use surveys, job autonomy measures
A voice where decisions get made
Presence and influence in the decisions that affect you, at work and in public life.
Participation and representation data, works council coverage, civic participation surveys
Being able to change something
The sense that raising a thing leads somewhere, rather than disappearing.
Civic efficacy research, employee voice surveys
Real choices, not just permission
Whether the alternatives actually exist. Formal freedom with no options is not a choice.
Capability and opportunity research, mobility and choice data
Felt agency
The subjective sense of steering your own life rather than being carried by it.
Autonomy scales, freedom-of-choice items, QOL self-assessment
Freedom of choice is one of the strongest predictors of how satisfied people are with their lives – stronger than income, and stronger still in places where it grew. It sits in Feel Good because a say is something you feel from the inside long before it shows in any structure.
15Progress that feels humanDo Good
Do the changes around people actually make daily life better – or only faster?
Indicators
Felt sense of progress
Whether people subjectively experience their life and world as moving in a genuinely better direction.
Life direction surveys, personal progress perception
Trust in institutions
Confidence that public and civic institutions are working for the genuine benefit of people.
Institutional trust surveys, public confidence data
What you were told, against what you got
Whether what was promised by the changes around you matches what actually arrived.
Perception vs indicator gap research, delivery tracking
Made with people like you in mind
Whether the changes around you look like they were decided with your kind of life in view.
Consultation coverage, impact assessment practice, public confidence data
Direction of travel
Not just where things are now, but whether they are genuinely improving – in ways people feel.
Longitudinal wellbeing data, progress trajectory surveys
This goal is about the relationship between measurement and reality. BHC exists partly because of this blind spot.
16Protecting life, now and after usDo Good
Are decisions made with the long-term health of life on earth in mind – not just short-term human benefit?
Indicators
Ecological footprint
The environmental impact of daily life, work, and civic decisions – relative to planetary boundaries.
Ecological footprint data, carbon per capita, material flow analysis
Long-term thinking in decisions
Whether decisions consider consequences beyond the immediate horizon.
Long-termism research, decision-making frameworks
Intergenerational fairness
Whether current choices leave future generations with equivalent or better conditions.
Intergenerational equity indices, environmental inheritance data
Relationship with nature
Quality and regularity of genuine connection with the natural world.
Nature exposure research, biophilia indices
Felt responsibility
The subjective sense of being genuinely responsible for the life that comes after – in daily choices.
Environmental responsibility surveys, values research
This goal is about more than environmental policy. It is about whether long-term thinking is genuinely embedded in how people, organisations, and cities actually decide.
17Belonging to a larger wholeDo Good
Do people feel genuinely part of something beyond themselves – a community, a story, a living world that extends beyond their individual life?
Indicators
Sense of wider connection
Feeling part of a shared human story – local, national, or universal.
Social connectedness research, cosmopolitan identity surveys
Active contribution beyond self
Regular engagement in something that serves others or a larger purpose.
Volunteering data, civic engagement, contribution measures
Low nihilism
The sense that collective action matters – that the world can change and that one's participation counts.
Civic efficacy research, nihilism and disengagement studies
Spiritual or philosophical grounding
Access to a framework that locates one's life in a larger meaning.
Meaning-making research, spiritual wellbeing data
Felt part of something
The subjective experience of belonging to something larger than oneself – and of mattering to it.
Transcendence surveys, meaning and purpose research
This is the final goal for a reason. All 17 Living Goals point toward this one. That is, ultimately, what quality of life is for.
These are the goals themselves – the same for a person, a business, or a city. How each one is scored, and what moves it, sits with the lens.
ready to use the 17 Living Goals?
The 17 Living Goals are a practical lens for looking at your life, your work or your city differently.
The 17 Living Goals are open. Use them freely, including commercially, under a CC BY 4.0 licence. Credit the origin: the 17 Living Goals were created by the Business Hippie Club.
what would you change?
The Ideal World Compass is an online reflection tool built on the 17 Living Goals. Score your life across all 17, see where you stand, and find the gaps that deserve your attention first.
Part of the QOL study. 10 minutes, free.