Bottom Line Results: When you live and age well, you tend to be more successful in your chosen livelihood, more satisfied in your reporting of general life happiness, and those two attributes generally mean you also have built communities of support.
As we approach a holiday weekend in the United States, I wanted to share a simple tool that has enhanced for me many of these attributes endorsed within positive psychology. The tool is a little device call Up by Jawbone. It is a social-networking-community building-health-fitness-tracking system. I know that is a mouth full but stay with me on this — you may want to invest in an UP this weekend when you have a little more time to exercise (a very important aspect of living and aging well).
I am an avid walker. A friend told me about UP by Jawbone but since I had a Ipod Nike fitness app, I did not initially see why I needed an UP. However, within a week, I found I was purchasing Ups as gifts and telling everyone about them. I built a support team of clients, friends and family. We get to communicate daily and show support to each other (don’t worry, no member of my team can see any other members’ comments unless they have been accepted to be part of their team).
It is nice to have a small, trusting community of real friends to support my efforts. It is also nice to rib each other when someone is being a high achiever! I find it is enhancing my interest in goal achievement (okay, everyone knows I already have an abnormally high interest in goal achievement). Mostly, I am liking the social connection around a mutual shared interest. Using it takes no more time than I already invested in my fitness, yet I have the added value of now having my virtual friends support.
For my positive psychology research oriented friends, here are some links that support how community and fitness enhance your life success:
George Vaillant’s Harvard longitudinal research in book form: Triumphs of Experience
Have a wonderful weekend no matter what you do. Thank you, Andrea
P.S. I do not own stock in the company, nor do I get discounts other than from Amazon when I purchase Ups!
