Does your life feel OK? Good enough? Or does it make you feel exquisitely alive? Vibrant, hopeful, fulfilled? Excited for the next day, week, and decade?

If it's the former, you may be living what, in my research and teaching, I've come to call a "B+ life," which is certainly better than a stick in the eye, but can also be more damaging in the long run.

Because when things are "OK" and "good enough," we rarely make the effort to make the changes to find something better. For instance, an A+ life, filled with authenticity and fulfillment. 

By the way, and to be clear, the "grader" in all this life-rating is not society. It's not your family or your boss. It's you.

Hear me out. As a business academic who studies career trajectories, I completely understand that just surviving in this complex economy can sometimes feel like a victory. I also know that life's many challenges, like the death of a loved one or a struggle with mental illness, can make achieving a "perfect" life unattainable.

But after working with thousands of early and mid-career professionals, as a professor, researcher, and mentor, I know that for many, settling for B+ is not an imperative — but a habit. We get used to living in a suit that's a size too big or too small, to use an image that for many, feels uncomfortably accurate. 

We tell ourselves, "The dreams I once had were stupid; no one gets what they want."

Before I list the more concrete signs you're living a B+ life yourself, a bit of context and background.

Do you know your values?

I'm a professor and researcher who studies career trajectories. The culmination of my work is a scientifically-validated methodology taught at NYU Stern School of Business in a class called "Becoming You: Crafting the Authentic Life You Want and Need." On campus and in numerous workshops for the public and within organizations, the Becoming You methodology, and its various components, has been used by more than 10,000 people around the world. 

My method is based on the premise that our purpose in life lies at the intersection of our deeply held values, cognitive and emotional aptitudes, and economically viable interests. Aptitudes and interests are usually self-evident, but unfortunately, very few people actually know their values in specific detail. This information has to be excavated, for lack of a better word, with values testing.

But once it is, we can move away from living by default to living by design. There is no easy hack to it, but the end result is the roadmap from B+ to beyond.

To assess whether you are living a B+ life, consider these five signs:

1. You regularly feel drained, even when your life looks 'successful' on paper

Despite hitting external milestones — whether at work or in your personal life — your energy is low and you often feel numb, disengaged, or secretly exhausted. This misalignment can show up in what my values testing instrument, The Values Bridge, calls the "Authenticity Gap," the measure of how much your outer life doesn't match your inner truth.

2. Your values show up more in fantasy than in reality

You talk about what matters to you (self-determination, creative self-expression, service, community), but your calendar and choices don't reflect those priorities. 

3. You feel like you're performing your life rather than enjoying it

If you're fully honest with yourself, you would have to admit you are curating your image or chasing validation. Dan Harris, an expert on self-awareness and host of the acclaimed 10% Happier podcast, might frame this as a lack of "mindful presence"; you're so caught in striving that you've lost the ability to just be.

4. You experience recurring friction in key relationships

Conflict, resentment, or emotional distance can show up when you're suppressing needs, boundaries, or truths about yourself. My research clearly demonstrates that not living authentically has a strong tendency to distort how we connect with others.

5. You fantasize about escape, not evolution

You daydream about quitting, running away, or starting over. This is less about reinvention and more about fleeing a life that feels misfitted to who you actually are.

Can you do better than a B+ life?

As I said, for some people a B+ life is more than they ever imagined given their life circumstances. It can indeed be "good enough."

But for others, more fulfillment and authenticity is a yearning that slowly builds, and along the way, causes increasing discomfort, sometimes ending in the kind of disruption that has us starting again, by our own volition or not.

The antidote is understanding your values in their specific detail, and just as importantly, acknowledging whether you are living them as much as your heart and soul desire. Only then can we break out of our comfort zone, to something that can be even better.

Suzy Welch is an award-winning NYU Stern School of Business professor, acclaimed researcher, popular podcaster, and three-time New York Times best-selling author, most recently with "Becoming You: A Proven Method for Crafting Your Authentic Life and Career,″ which is also a #1 bestseller on Amazon. A graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Business School, Dr. Welch is a frequent guest of the Today Show and an op-ed contributor to the Wall Street Journal. She serves on the boards of public and private companies, and is the Director of the NYU | Stern Initiative on Purpose and Flourishing.

Are you ready to buy a house? Take Smarter by CNBC Make It's new online course How to Buy Your First Home. Expert instructors will help you weigh the cost of renting vs. buying, financially prepare, and confidently navigate every step of the process—from mortgage basics to closing the deal. Sign up today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off $97 (+taxes and fees) through July 15, 2025.

Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It's newsletter to get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life, and request to join our exclusive community on LinkedIn to connect with experts and peers.