It can be hard to determine what makes an interesting life.

Some people spend their whole lives in one place, interacting with the same people over and over again, and yet they can find the interesting sides of what looks, from the outside, like a fairly monotonous existence.

Other people can travel the world and have incredible experiences, and yet still feel a kind of emptiness and boredom if it’s not the life they want.

Still, there’s no denying that some people’s lives are more interesting than others.

I’m no astronaut or explorer, but I do feel I’ve lived a more interesting life than most other people have.

I’ve lived in four different countries and have traveled to over thirty more.

I’ve published books. I’ve started businesses and had multiple different careers.

My life has been many things, but boring isn’t one of them.

If you’re wondering if you’ve lived an interesting life, there are some signs that suggest your life is more interesting than others.

Here are some things to look for.

1) You’ve had diverse experiences

One of the keys to keeping life interesting is diversity.

After all, to the astronaut I mentioned earlier, going into space is just a job.

Even people with very interesting jobs can get bored. Do anything enough times, and it becomes part of your daily routine.

That’s why a sure sign of having lived an interesting life is if you have had diverse experiences.

Interestingly, it doesn’t especially matter if the experiences were good or bad. After all, we all know that often, bad experiences make the best stories.

What matters, at least in terms of determining whether you’ve lived an interesting life or not, is the variety of the experiences you’ve had.

I’ve seen the northern lights. I’ve walked on top of a glacier. I’ve sailed the open ocean.

I’ve also been in love. I’ve been both worker and boss, CEO and entry-level employee, landlord and tenant, expert and novice.

It’s that diversity of experiences that has made my life as interesting as it has been.

There’s a psychological idea known as self-determination theory. Essentially, the theory states that our ability to determine the course of our own life is what keeps us interested and motivated.

It’s when we don’t feel able to determine our own life story that things start to get stale and boring.

Think back over your life and ask yourself why you did the things you did and how you ended up in the situations you encountered.

Whether they were good or bad doesn’t matter.

What matters is whether you got there by yourself, either by going after something you wanted or by trying to avoid something you didn’t want.

The self-directed life is an interesting life.

2) You have a lot of stories

It makes sense that people who have lived an interesting life have lots of stories to tell.

Do you often find when talking to other people that things they tell you about themselves will trigger memories of your own experiences?

And do you find that those stories tend to be more exciting and impressive than those of most of the people you talk to?

I’m not talking about trying to one-up others.

Conversation is not a competition, and if you truly have an interesting life, you won’t waste your time trying to make others think you’re better than them by trying to top their stories.

But it is true that an interesting life is going to give you a ton of different adventures to talk about.

And as psychologist Dan McAdams points out in this Ted talk, the stories we tell about ourselves not only say something about the kind of life we have lived.

They also help to shape that life as we construct a narrative about ourselves.

This is known in psychology as narrative identity theory.

Telling ourselves a story about our lives is crucial to forming a cohesive identity.

And when that story is an interesting one, it’s easy to get caught up in and want to continue pursuing ambitious goals.

In other words, living an interesting life can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

3) You have a wide circle of friends

Some people have lots of friends, and some people, me included, prefer fewer, deeper relationships.

One sign of a life well lived is that your circle of friends contains as much variety as your experiences of life do.

Here’s the thing: living an interesting life means having a variety of different experiences.

And those experiences can help you relate to people from all walks of life.

I know what it’s like to toil for years in a warehouse or dig ditches on a building site for very little money.

I also know what it’s like to run a company, manage employees, and negotiate in meetings with the executives of multinational corporations.

I know what it’s like to lose the people you most care about in the world, and I know what it’s like to find love when you started to think it was impossible.

These varied experiences mean I can find common ground with most people I meet.

Many psychologists use Abraham Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs as a framework to determine what makes a fulfilling life.

As Maslow identified, the need for belonging and love is one of the most fundamental of all human needs, and it’s very difficult to live a fulfilling life without it.

Plus, having an eclectic group of friends opens you up to new experiences, which keep life interesting.

4) You are resilient when facing challenges

An interesting life is not at all the same as an easy one.

In fact, if you want to live interestingly, it’s inevitable that you’re going to face challenges.

And what determines the quality of your life when that happens is your resilience and adaptability in facing them.

Consider psychologist Barbara Frederickson’s broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions.

This states that positive emotions don’t necessarily lead us to immediate actions the way negative emotions do.

Instead, positive experiences can create cognitive changes that allow us to see life in a new light.

To use Frederickson’s term, positive emotions broaden our thought-action repertoires, allowing us to come up with novel solutions in hard times.

The truth is, people who are resilient often got there the hard way, by enduring suffering.

And many times, these are the most interesting people you are ever likely to meet.

5) You’re always learning

If you want to be interesting, be interested.

Lifelong learning is a great way to maintain your brain health, but it also indicates a person who has stayed interested in the world around them.

Psychologists call this cognitive flexibility.

Having cognitive flexibility means being willing and able to learn new things and adapt to a changing environment.

An interesting life always has something to teach you, and if you’re willing to be a permanent student, there’s a good chance you live a more interesting life than most.

6) You are creative

Let’s take another look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

We all need food, water, safety, security, and human companionship. And right at the top of the pyramid, you’ll find self-actualization.

This means achieving your full potential, and is often recognized as including creative pursuits.

You don’t need to be Rembrandt or Beethoven.

But leading an interesting life means understanding yourself at a deep level and using that understanding to create something new in the world.

It could be something as simple as a well-crafted email to a friend, or an artistic hobby you pursue purely for your own satisfaction.

Or being creative could be your full-time career, like it is for me.

Either way, if you find ways to be creative, chances are good you lead an interesting life.

7) You have taken risks

Many times, an interesting life comes from a willingness to take risks.

After all, if you never risk anything, you’re more likely to stay in one place doing the same thing over and over again, and that doesn’t make for many interesting tales.

Psychologist Erik Erikson identified eight different stages of personal development that shape the personality.

Each stage comes with what Erikson called a “psychosocial crisis” that could either positively or negatively affect personal development.

You see, everything you do in life and every choice you make comes with some risk attached.

But often, the biggest risk of all is trying to avoid risk itself.

A life well lived

Ultimately, what qualifies as interesting is very subjective.

I’m interested in things that would probably bore you to tears, just like some of the things that interest you would leave me cold.

But the way to live an interesting life is to live one that you yourself are passionately interested in.

When you do that, it’s inevitable that your life will also be interesting to others.

Take a look over these psychological signs of an interesting life and ask yourself how they fit with the way you live.

Because if you recognize these traits in yourself, it’s almost certain that your life is very interesting.