SLCo Employee Wellness Wellcast
The SLCo Employee Wellness Wellcast is a fun, entertaining, and enlightening look at health and wellness. It breaks down complex health topics and interviews experts in the wellness field to help participants live healthier lives.
SLCo Employee Wellness Wellcast
Small Health Habits That Add Up All Season
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September feels like a clean slate, and I’m using football season to make a point that applies to every health goal you’ve ever had: the wins come from the unglamorous work. After seeing Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni talk about “Chop Wood Carry Water” by Joshua Metcalf, I couldn’t stop thinking about how the same mindset that builds great teams also builds sustainable wellness habits. Not a crash plan. Not a new obsession. A repeatable process you can actually live with.
I break down three ideas that change everything: fall in love with the process, build your character through small daily actions, and choose discipline over motivation. From there, we get practical with an employee wellness lens, focusing on the basics that drive real results: better sleep hygiene through a nightly routine, gentle nutrition with simple meal planning and prep, and daily movement that fits real schedules (yes, short walks count).
We also dig into tools that make healthy behavior change easier, like using a fixed checklist to reduce decision fatigue and tracking consistency instead of intensity. The goal is to stop measuring your life by a timeline and start finding satisfaction in daily effort, small wins, and the 1% better mindset, while keeping your focus on what you can control.
If you’re ready for sustainable health habits that hold up in busy seasons, press play, then subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a quick review. What is one small habit you’re willing to repeat every day this month?
Fall Sports And Being Present
SPEAKER_00What is up everybody? It's Jane from the Salt Lake County Employee Wellness Team, and I'm so happy to say that September is finally here. Not only does that mean cooler temperatures, but it also means fall sports, baby. My absolute favorite season. For me, there really is nothing better than a night at the stadium under the lights with a diet coke in one hand and a soft pretzel in the other. And if I'm lucky, the team that I'm cheering for is winning. But either way, I love nothing more than watching, cheering, and just being fully present in the moment. My favorite sport to watch is football. Every weekend, my family is watching the games, cheering on our teams, eating great food, and just enjoying the sport that we love. It brings us together, and there's nothing better than being with the people that you love most. I know what you're thinking. What does this have to do with anything, Jane? Well, let me tell you.
A Football Coach’s Book Lesson
SPEAKER_00Recently I saw a video on the Philadelphia Eagles social media page that had their head coach, Nick Siriani, talking about a book called Chop Wood Carry Water, written by Joshua Metcalf. The book is all about focusing on small, unglamorous details and falling in love with the process of things. You can insert the thing that you want to fall in love with here. Now, Coach Siriani was talking about football, falling in love with the unglamorous things that make you a great player, showing up to practice early, fueling your body properly, honing in on your position of the field, being able to see the field, these little things that actually make a really big impact on the success of the football season. I loved this concept of focusing on the small, unglamorous details of our health and learning to fall in love with the process of taking care of ourselves rather than chasing a body type or weight loss or a number on the scale or the outside appearance. Focusing on small things helps us fall in love with the process and in turn helps us adopt long-lasting sustainable change. And that really is the goal, right?
Three Rules For Lasting Change
SPEAKER_00In the book, Josh Metcalf focuses on three core lessons, and I loved these lessons, so I wanted to share them with you. The first one is falling in love with the process. True greatness comes from doing those small, boring, unglamorous tasks well every single day. Building your character. Trophies fade, but the person you become through hard work that lasts forever. And then the last one is choosing to be discipline. Motivation comes and goes, but daily discipline creates lasting success. So what are these small things that we should be focusing on? Well, they're different for everyone because they should reflect our goals. And because we're all different, we'll have different goals. I think it's time for us to take a minute to be introspective on what is specific for our needs. And once we do that, we can focus on those tiny tasks that are boring and unglamorous and most of the time not very fun, but they make all the difference.
Build A Sleep Routine That Sticks
SPEAKER_00Here are a few ideas. The first one is sleep. Now I'm a young mom and I know how hard it is to get good sleep. You're constantly being wake woken up by kids, or just you can't seem to shut that brain off because it's been going a million miles all day long. Um, if you're anything like me, we need a good nightly routine. Yeah, we do. Falling in love with a good nighttime routine is gonna help us sleep better. So how do we do this? Well, here are some things that I want to do to help me prioritize my sleep. And it could be different for you because we're different. But if you like any of these, feel free to use them. I'm thinking the best way I can improve the quality of my sleep is by powering down from electronics at least 30 minutes before bed. I'm gonna wash my face, I'm gonna read a book, or I'm gonna decompress by just having a really wonderful conversation with my husband. I want to lay out my clothes for the next day, and I want to lay out my kids' clothes for the next day and gather some snacks or prepare a lunch for the next day. Um, I'm gonna pack my gym bag or set my uh exercise clothes out with my tennis shoes and some socks, and this will just help me be successful for tomorrow. Leaning into this routine will set me up for success for the next day. And I think it will help get rid of those early morning zoomies that I get when I'm frantically running through my house trying to get everything prepared and make sure that everyone has everything that they need and that I can be to where I'm going on time. And if that sounds like you, maybe this could help you too. But leaning into this routine will only set us up for success and it's gonna help us feel better, not only physically, but mentally.
Gentle Nutrition Through Simple Planning
SPEAKER_00The next small thing that we can focus on, but it actually is like a really big one, is gentle nutrition. Eating foods that help us feel our best plays such a big role in our physical, mental, and our emotional health. We know this, but when we fuel our bodies, we have the energy to move, think, do, and feel all the things we need to. So, how do we fall in love with this process that often feels like way overwhelming and not very much fun on those busy days of work and school and zipping around to extracurriculars? Well, this is really unglamorous, but we got a plan ahead. Make a menu of meals and snacks that you can make for the week. Utilize slow cookers, one-pan meals, and prep meals and snacks that can be eaten on the go. We have so many resources for cooking and meal planning on our website. Look there or shoot us an email and we can help you. If you want to feel your best, you need to fuel your best. And that means prioritizing protein, limiting processed foods, focus on fiber, and of course, have a little fun.
Make Daily Movement Non Negotiable
SPEAKER_00Another small thing that we can prioritize is movement. And honestly, we should be making this a non-negotiable. I'm not talking about hitting the gym for one to two hours a day. If you have time for that, great. If you don't, that's great too. Find time in your day for shorter bursts of movement. A 15-minute walk two times a day is 30 minutes of movement. That is absolutely doable. If you make that commitment to yourself, you need to hold yourself accountable. Even on days that movement is low, excuse me, even on days that motivation is low, dig deep and reach for that discipline. You will feel better after movement. I know every single time I do this, I feel so much better mentally, emotionally. I can regulate my reactions and my emotions better when I've taken time for myself to do something hard and uh push myself to its limits physically and mentally. And it's so good for you. It's good for bone density and energy throughout the day, and you feel your best.
Checklists That Reduce Decision Fatigue
SPEAKER_00The author goes into creating a fixed checklist. I loved this idea of doing these tasks at the same time every day to remove decision fatigue. That is one of the biggest problems of adulthood is making decisions. I swear I'm always making decisions, and sometimes it feels incredibly overwhelming. So when we do tasks at the same time every day, it takes out the decision, and that just seems so freeing to me. So for instance, in your nightly routine, setting out your clothes for the next day, um, making sure you have all the paperwork you need for school or for work or for um meetings, whatever it might be, focusing on that checklist and the same time every day, you're gonna feel better and you're gonna be able to improve that process of those small things adding up to a really great outcome.
Track Consistency Not Intensity
SPEAKER_00Another thing that the author goes into is tracking consistency, not intensity. And I liked this because when we focus on showing up every single day rather than doing a massive amount of work all at once, like you can't eat a ton of fruits and vegetables all in one day and not eat any for the rest of the week. It's all about those small, consistent wins, having fruit and vegetable daily that adds up to great things and you feel better.
The 1% Better Mindset
SPEAKER_00One last highlight I love from the book is shifting your mindset from obsessing over the final outcome to finding satisfaction in just our daily effort. This really is where lasting change happens. And for me, I live by the motto a little bit better every day. That 1% better from yesterday makes all the difference because pretty soon you're gonna be 10% better than where you were, and you're gonna be 20% better than when you were, and then you're gonna be 50% better than where you started. It's all about becoming better every single day, and that's when you find joy in the process is when you put in that daily effort. This can look like I packed my own food and I didn't eat out to save money, or I lifted heavier weights at the gym, or I drank 40 ounces of water before I had any other beverage. Finding satisfaction in daily effort makes all the difference in staying consistent long term.
Ditch Timelines And Focus Control
SPEAKER_00A few other things that the author discussed in the book that I really enjoyed was letting go of a specific timeline. This means stop checking your progress every single day. Trust that results will just naturally follow your daily efforts. Sometimes when we don't see the success or the progress that we want immediately, we quit. And that's not doing us any favors. So we need to trust the results will naturally follow our daily efforts. And we need to celebrate those small wins. Even if they're tiny, you need to give yourself credit for finishing your daily routine, regardless of how much external success you see. This is not something that you are new to hearing from employee wellness. We love celebrating small wins and giving yourself credit for those little things you do that make all the difference in the long run. And the last one that I really liked was focusing on what you can control. This is life. I mean, focusing on what you can't control is only going to make you anxious and full of worry and frustration. But when you focus on what you can control, which is your daily effort and your attitude, you will be satisfied with the results because you are focusing on what you can do.
September Reset And Closing
SPEAKER_00So this September, let's just fall in love with the process of making our health better. That 1% better every day will add up. It's not about the outcome, it's about that daily consistent effort that we put in that makes us feel well. Thanks for joining me for today's episode. I loved reading this book, and I hope that it sparks something within you to focus on a small thing that is unique to your goals and fall in love with the unglamorous, tedious parts of showing up for yourself because that's that's when you see satisfaction and you fall in love with the process. All righty. Thanks for tuning in, and I hope you all can enjoy the football season this fall. Bye.