Human Flourishing: What if?

What does it mean to truly thrive? Not just survive, but live a life that is rooted, growing, and fully alive? Trilith Foundation believes that flourishing is possible for everyone and that it grows best in community. This page is your starting point.

EXPLORE THE FIELD GUIDE → WATCH THE VIDEOS →

What is Human Flourishing?

Flourishing is more than happiness. It is the state in which all aspects of a person's life are going well — mentally, physically, spiritually, relationally, and creatively including the contexts and communities in which a person lives. 

Drawing on the groundbreaking Global Flourishing Study, a $43.4 million, five-year research initiative spanning 200,000 people across 22 countries, Trilith Foundation has developed a suite of resources to help you explore, understand, and practice human flourishing in your everyday life. 

Global Fourishing Study - Trilith Foundation

Our work is grounded in the research of the Global Flourishing Study


The Global Flourishing Study is a landmark initiative led by the Baylor Institute of Global Human Flourishing and Harvard University's Human Flourishing Program, in partnership with Gallup and the Center for Open Science.

Harvard University

City skyline

Photo By: John Doe
Baylor University

Blurred Lines

Photo by: John Doe

The Flourishing Field Guide

Your Guide to a Fuller Life

Historically, Field Guides have helped navigators explore the natural world, making sense of what they find. This Field Guide does the same for your inner life. Human Flourishing: A Field Guide Be Well, Do Good, Together is a five-week curriculum book developed by Trilith Foundation to help you engage with what it truly means to live well. Each week offers five days of reflection, current research, ancient wisdom, and gentle invitations to grow spiritually, mentally, physically, artistically, and relationally.


Whether you walk through it on your own or experience it in community, this guide will be a companion on the journey.

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Six companion videos bring the Field Guide to life through real stories, research insights, and personal reflection. These are the human faces of flourishing.

Sometimes, the best way to understand flourishing is to see it, not in a perfect life, but in a real one. These six films feature researchers, musicians, athletes, and everyday people sharing what it means to be well, do good, and live in community. Watch them alongside the Field Guide or simply let them speak to where you are right now. 

The Video Series

01

Flourishing | Meet Tyler


What does it really mean to live a good life — and why does it matter for all of us?

Play Flourishing Video

Tyler VanderWeele, Director of Harvard's Human Flourishing Program, introduces flourishing as more than survival — it is life that is rooted, growing, and fully alive. He explores how suffering, sacrifice, faith, gratitude, and curiosity can paradoxically deepen flourishing, and invites viewers to see it not as a personal achievement but as a shared pursuit of the common good. 

02

Be Well | Meet Laura


True wellness isn't something you achieve. It's something you surrender into.

Play Flourishing Video

Laura Hergott's story of physical limitation, mental health, and surrender reframes wellness as an inward transformation rather than an external performance. Diagnosed with a genetic disorder and shaped by years of mental and physical resilience,, she discovers that being well is not about mastering outcomes but living from belovedness and freedom.

03

Do Good | Meet Sho


Doing good begins not with what you do, but with who you are becoming.

Play Flourishing Video

Sho Baraka weaves creativity, justice, faith, and family into a compelling vision of doing good. He challenges performative activism, showing that goodness flows from a life rooted in integrity, rest, and contentment — and that flourishing emerges when creativity becomes love made visible.

04

Together | Meet Al, Daniel, Laura, Stefanie and Tedashii


We do not flourish alone — being known changes everything.

Play Flourishing Video

Artists, leaders, and athletes share how vulnerability, trust, and presence shaped their journeys through suffering and growth. Community matters most not in convenience, but in adversity — when others show up to listen, carry burdens, and speak truth.

05

Choosing Flourishing | Meet Katherine, and Robert 

 

Flourishing is not accidental — it is a daily, intentional choice.

Play Flourishing Video

Through reflection and lived experience, this film explores how flourishing is not circumstantial but responsive — shaped by how we orient our lives toward meaning, character, relationships, and hope. Choosing flourishing often involves sacrifice, trust, and resilience rather than ease or control.

06

The Road Ahead | Meet William 

 

A visual invitation to step forward — mapping the journey from insight to lived flourishing.  

Play Flourishing Video

Sketch Effect artist William Warren translates the Flourishing Field Guide into a visual roadmap in real time. As ideas unfold on screen, the artwork captures the movement from understanding flourishing to practicing it personally, relationally, and communally — a synthesis and send-off for the journey ahead.

Be Part of the Research 

You can be part of the continued research on human well-being, gathered by the Global Flourishing Study team. By participating in the survey, you contribute to a growing body of knowledge that is shaping policy, inspiring communities, and helping people everywhere flourish more fully. It takes only a few minutes, and your voice matters. 

Baylor University
TAKE THE GLOBAL FLOURISHING SURVEY →
Be a part of the research, partnering with Baylor University, take the survey today.