A few weeks ago we sent out a simple survey with just two questions:

• The best thing going for me right now is:
• The thing I most want to improve is:

We also gave people the option of including their e-mail address if they wanted to be updated on the survey results. For both questions there were five choices: my job, my career, my family, my relationships, my sense of self. We wanted to get a snapshot of how people think about their lives, and to make sure that at Disqovery we place focus on the areas that people really care about. Click the link below if you want to play with the data; some of my high level conclusions follow.

[caption id="attachment_341" align="alignnone" width="496"] Click to open full results infographic.[/caption]

Holy Disqovery, Batman! Our loved ones are really important for us. I've talked before about the importance of having a good support network, and I think this data shows just how much of our ability to succeed comes from our family and our relationships.

As important as relationships are, we're still seeing them suffer. People clearly really want to improve their careers, but did you notice that relationships is the #2 priority? When we focus on career too much, it's tough to make sure we nurture our support network and keep it healthy.

People do see their job and career as very different things. I like this, because it indicates to me that people are looking beyond their current position. I don't like it, because it means people are heavily prioritizing career over their current job, and I don't know if they actually have a plan to end their unhappiness or are just slogging through it and hoping for relief one day.

Does this information change over time? I only have one snapshot so far, but I'm really curious about how this changes over time, both broadly and per individual. Maybe we should add these questions to Disqovery in some fashion. Do you have any thoughts on that?

We'll try and do things like this more in the future. I hope you found this experience as interesting as we did! If you're not on our closed beta yet, you can sign up from disqovery.com.