"How do you measure success in life?" asks Michael Wilmot, assistant professor of management in the Sam M. Walton College of Business. "It all starts with describing the world as it is. That's how we understand our world." 

Wilmot, together with Brenton Wiernik of the University of South Florida and Deniz Ones of the University of Minnesota, argues that a successful life is more like a complex building — one requiring multiple supports, frameworks and designs to stand strong. 

In their study, "Mapping Domains of Life Success: Insights from Meta-Analytic Criterion Profile Analysis," the team drew on 111 meta-analyses, 3,330 studies and over 2.25 million participants to assemble one of the broadest taxonomies of life success ever attempted. 

They began with the Big Five personality traits — emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion and openness — as the structural beams. Out of that came a rational blueprint of 14 categories of life success. Then, through empirical analysis, they distilled the framework into three broad wings of the building: contentment, agentic engagement and self-transcendence. 

"We found the five big traits are a reasonable way to come up with a profile of someone," Wilmot said. "It's not perfect, but it's the most dominant way of assessing personality." 

DIRECTION NOT DESTINY 

Philosophers from Aristotle onward wrestled with what makes a life well lived. Psychology often reduced the question to single outcomes or narrow definitions. Wilmot and his colleagues depart from that tradition and propose a more expansive view, conceptualizing life success as a multidimensional construct — less a final outcome and more a dynamic balance of living, relating and growing. 

This study underscores that life success is not a one-size-fits-all affair. My path to fulfillment may look different from yours, shaped by distinct goals and personality patterns. Greater self-awareness allows us to pursue the pathways most aligned with our strengths. 

For institutions, the insights are equally valuable. Career counseling can go beyond generic advice by matching personality profiles to pathways where traits offer an advantage. Organizations can develop leaders whose strengths align with specific needs, such as stability, innovation or inclusion. Educators, health professionals and policymakers can also benefit from recognizing that life success is plural, not singular. 

"Leaders tend to be outgoing people," Wilmot noted. "At the same time, they're going to have to ruffle feathers to stand out and take the lead." 

In the end, the research shows that there is not just one path to life success but many. Each of us can find the route that fits our strengths and values. 

MAPPING HUMAN SUCCESS

Life success, they suggest, reflects "the accumulation of societally valued psychological, physical, relational, educational and occupational assets and advantages that reflect effective attitudes, goal-relevant behaviors and outcomes" over an entire lifetime. 

Their classification organizes roughly 200 variables into 14 categories across three domains of life success: 

• Individual: psychological health, physical health and longevity 

• Interpersonal: relationships (home and work), social environment, societal attitudes, collaboration, leadership and family skills 

• Institutional: adaptability, task perceptions, work attitudes, performance (work, school and creative pursuits) and extrinsic rewards 

The real breakthrough came from the method: Meta-Analytic Criterion Profile Analysis. Rather than listing ingredients, MACPA operates like chemistry, showing how elements combine into compounds. Instead of focusing on a single trait, it examines whole profiles — the peaks and valleys across all five dimensions. It identifies not just single traits but how specific profiles predict different expressions of success. In chemistry terms, it is not cataloguing oxygen and hydrogen separately but identifying the water that emerges when they combine. 

"It's not deterministic. It's probabilistic," Wilmot said. "Personal choices, family support and social connections all play a role in how and whether someone succeeds." 

Using cluster analysis, the researchers identified three major configurations, or metaclusters, that encompass 10 smaller clusters of life success: 

1. Contentment: Stability, gratification, balance and deference, which together involve managing uncertainty and preserving well-being. 

2. Agentic engagement: Accomplishment, high performance, ingenuity, citizenship and leadership, which together involve advancing personal goals, influence and innovation. 

3. Self-transcendence: Inclusion, support and cooperation, which prioritize others and collective flourishing. 

These are less "goals" than ecosystems. Some people thrive by cultivating stability, others by competing and innovating, still others by nurturing community. Each represents a viable habitat of life success.