When It Comes to Wellbeing, How Do You Measure Up?

In this series, professionals predict the ideas and trends that will shape 2016. Read the posts here, then write your own (use #BigIdeas2016 in your piece).

by Deepak Chopra, MD and Danielle Posa

If you ask someone if they're feeling good, the answer you receive is surprisingly unreliable. Until very recently, "I'm good" or "I could be better" reflected a subjective of how the person feels. Now that it's no longer common to get a routine six-month checkup at the doctor's, many of us have no realistic evidence of how we're actually faring. 

But the situation is rapidly changing, and now that Fitbit, the Apple Watch, and other portables are becoming established, people are discovering that a moment-by-moment readout of a few select bodily functions is possible. This trend will explode in the near future in two ways: First, the portable devices will encompass more variables, and second, the readouts will become simpler. The ideal is a single number that informs you of your total state of wellbeing, evaluating not just the body's vital signs but the mind-body connection as well.

In short, wellness is about to become much more transparent as technology quantifies all the factors that contribute to wellbeing.

While technology helps provide us with micro-data and biofeedback, it is equally as important to measure global states of mind. Pioneering work in this field has been done by Gallup, whose research is far ahead of anyone else's in monitoring the core components of wellbeing (quality of life) and monitoring it on a global scale country by country through face to face interviews, phone calls and online surveys. 

Here are the key elements to living a thriving life as discovered by Gallup and Healthways researchers that will directly impact your personal wellbeing and everyone's around you. To begin with, wellbeing isn't one thing but five.

1. Purpose (or Career): Liking what you do each day and being motivated to achieve your goals.
2. Social: Having supportive relationships and love in your life.
3. Financial: Managing your economic life to reduce stress and increase security.
4. Physical: Having good health and enough energy to get things done every day.
5. Community: Liking where you live, feeling safe, and having pride in your community.

Some of these factors can be quantified while others depend on subjective evaluation. As we await emergent technologies that are still in development, the research from Gallup has helped us reach some conclusions that exemplify the significance of measuring and elevating wellbeing.

• Leading vs. lagging indicators: Lagging indicators tell us what already happened and is mostly transactional (things like crime, deaths, birth rates, graduation rates etc.) But measuring wellbeing gives us a sense of what people are actually thinking and feeling in the present, things that even the best technologies can’t tell us. This is the function of a leading indicator (Do they have a sense of hope? Were they treated with respect? Did they learn something new?) When we understand how people are thinking and feeling, we can get a sense for how they will behave. This helps us predict things like civil unrest, and domestic violence, or where there might be economic growth (e.g., in places where the Gallup world poll measures hope and optimism). This has major implications for public and private sector leaders.
• Transparency is here to stay: In a world where information is creating a digital global democracy, you have to care about lives connected to yours. On the dark side, someone can ruin your personal or organizational reputation in a heartbeat on social media. How you live your life or run your organization is no longer a secret.
• Wellbeing is contagious: Social research has proven that when we take care of our own wellbeing, it goes viral: we affect those around us. Happiness extends out to 3 degrees of separation. How you feel impacts family, friends, and even friends of friends. 
• Women: In the workplace and elsewhere women report that they need their respective organizations to care about their wellbeing and overall quality of life. There needs to be greater understanding of motherhood and the needs of being a mom. Women also want to be able to spend time with their children without worrying that their finances will suffer. 
• Millennials: Millennials are leading the charge in terms of wanting more purpose in their lives (the main driver of wellbeing). They want to be involved in projects and organizations where they feel they are contributing to the greater good, giving us another reason to focus on all aspects of wellbeing, especially in the workplace.

These are more than snapshots. The trend toward greater aspiration is worldwide, yet at the same time in many societies, including the U.S., the number of people who describe themselves as "thriving" — Gallup's highest category of wellbeing — is either shockingly low or harder than ever to achieve. Therefore, wellbeing is going to become a hotter and hotter issue, especially in the workplace, and finding the means to quantify it is going to be a critical part of the picture. 

Deepak Chopra MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation and co-founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation, and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and a member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. Chopra is the author of more than 80 books translated into over 43 languages, including numerous New York Times best sellers. His latest book is Super Genes co-authored with Rudi Tanzi, PhD www.deepakchopra.com

Danielle Posa advises public and private sector decision makers, and their organizations, on the value of maximizing the quality of life (wellbeing) of the people they influence. In addition, she develops and leads courses, and provides strategic consulting for clients who have a commitment to wellbeing, sustainability, and/or social advancement. Danielle is also cancer survivor, speaks publically about her personal story, writes for the Huffington Post, and is a volunteer for the Make-A-Wish Foundation and Covenant House.

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To help organizations adopt wellbeing practices within their organizations, Deepak and Danielle have developed a new course called “Corporate Wellbeing and Soul of Leadership” which will take place on Feb. 6 in New York City. This course will be powered by JIYO technology to help make wellbeing practices readily available to people all over the world.