What would make your life feel full?
The Big Five for Life is a simple idea from the author John Strelecky: know why you are here, name the five things you want your life to be about, and check how your days add up to them. It is also where the name ifeelfive comes from.
The Big Five for Life in short
The Big Five for Life are the five things you most want to do, see or experience in your life, the ones that would make it feel fulfilled. The idea comes from John Strelecky's books The Why Café and The Big Five for Life. It asks two things: why you are here, and whether your days are spent on what matters to you.
Where it comes from
John Strelecky worked as a business consultant before he wrote a short novel about a man who gets lost on a night drive and ends up in a small café. On the menu are three questions: Why are you here? Do you fear death? Are you fulfilled? In English the book is known as The Why Café, in some countries as The Café on the Edge of the World, and it became a bestseller in many languages.
In a later novel, The Big Five for Life, Strelecky tells the story of a business leader who builds a company around the idea that people do their best work when their job fits their own purpose and their own Big Five.
- John StreleckyAmerican author of The Why Café and The Big Five for Life Why your friend listens to John →
The idea in five points
Your purpose for existing
Why are you here?
Strelecky calls it your Purpose for Existing, PFE for short. Not a job title, but the reason you get up. Most people never ask. The idea is that asking alone already changes how you spend a day.
Five things, not fifty
Pick what really matters.
Your Big Five are the five things you want to do, see or experience before your life is over. Five is few enough that you can remember them and many enough to cover more than one part of life.
Museum Day
Imagine the museum of your life.
Picture a museum at the end of your life, with a room for every day you lived. What would visitors see? Days spent on your Big Five, or days you just got through? It is a gentle way to look at how your time is really spent.
Work that fits
The best teams know each other's five.
In The Big Five for Life, a leader hires people whose purpose fits what the company does, and helps them reach their own Big Five through the work. The lesson for the rest of us: work feels lighter when it moves you toward your five instead of away from them.
Your five can change
Write them in pencil.
The five you write at 25 won't be the five you write at 50. That's fine. Coming back to them once a year is part of the idea.
Your friend's five
Your friend has five of their own. They spell a word: Inspire, Family and friends, Explore, Enjoy every day, Longevity. I-F-E-E-L. A day that touches all five is what your friend calls a good day. That is where the name ifeelfive comes from. Who is your friend?
Often misunderstood
The Big Five are often mistaken for a bucket list of trips and adventures. They can include those, but the point is fulfilment, not ticking boxes. 'Be there for my kids' or 'build something that outlasts me' count as much as 'see the northern lights'.
Try it today: five questions
- If you had to explain why you get up in the morning in one sentence, what would it be?
- Which five things would make you say, at the end, "that was a full life"?
- Which of the five did you touch this week?
- What would the room for today look like in the museum of your life?
- Which one small thing could you do tomorrow for one of your five?
How do you feel, out of five? Take the 2-minute check-in → Purpose affirmations →
You don't need to know all five today. Writing down the first one is enough to start. Why not tonight?
Go deeper
- The Why Café (The Café on the Edge of the World) by John Strelecky
- The Big Five for Life by John Strelecky
ifeelfive has no connection to the people named here. This is a short summary in our own words, not their official material, and not medical or therapeutic advice. The links are not affiliate links.
Questions people ask
Who came up with the Big Five for Life?
The American author John Strelecky. He introduced the idea in his novels The Why Café and The Big Five for Life.
What is Museum Day?
A thought exercise from The Big Five for Life: imagine a museum of your life with a room for every day you lived, and ask which days you'd be proud to show.
What does PFE mean?
Purpose for Existing: Strelecky's term for the reason you are here. The Big Five are how that purpose shows up in a life.
Is the Big Five for Life the same as the Big Five personality traits?
No. The Big Five personality traits are a model from psychology. The Big Five for Life are five personal life goals you choose yourself.