In this episode of Stay at the Top, I unpack why relying on motivation, feelings, or willpower is one of the biggest traps high performers fall into and why creating your personal operating system is the real unlock for sustainable energy and performance.
Whether you’re leading a team, running a business, pushing your athletic limits, or simply trying to get more out of your days, having a framework that supports you is non-negotiable. This isn’t about being rigid or robotic. It’s about intentionally designing the structure, rhythm, and habits that allow you to perform at your best, across seasons of life
In this episode I share:
- What a personal operating system is and why every high performer needs one
- Why relying on how you “feel” leads to inconsistency and burnout
- The five key pillars your system should address: nutrition, sleep, movement, stress, and recovery
- Four common reactive habits that keep people stuck (and how to replace them with proactive frameworks)
- How to build your own system through a simple life audit and focus on the “big rocks”
- Real client examples of how a few anchor habits created massive shifts in energy, performance, and recovery
- How to zoom out, plan for different seasons, and bring periodisation into your life the way elite performers do
Key Quotes
“If you’re relying on how you feel to decide when to eat, sleep or move, you’re already behind.”
“This isn’t about being a robot. It’s about having a structure that supports your life, not rules that restrict it.”
“You don’t rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” – James Clear
Episode Resources
Jessica Spendlove Website – www.jessicaspendlove.com
Jessica Spendlove Keynotes – JessicaspendloveKeynotes – Jessica Spendlove
The High-Performance Profile Quiz https://jessicaspendlove.com/quiz/
Jess Spendlove Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jess_spendlove_dietitian/
Jess Spendlove LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-spendlove-64173bb8/
About Your Host
Jessica Spendlove | Wellbeing Speaker & High Performance Strategist
Jess Spendlove is an international wellbeing and high performance speaker, coach, and advisor. With over 15 years of experience across corporate leadership, elite sport and the military she is known for helping ambitious leaders and teams optimise energy, build resilience, and sustain peak performance.
As one of Australia’s leading performance dietitians and a trusted voice in executive wellbeing, Jess delivers science-backed strategies that empower individuals, teams and organisations to thrive under pressure and achieve long-term success.
Episode Transcript
The following transcript has been automatically generated and not checked for accuracy
Jess Spendlove (00:11.352)
Hello and welcome to another episode of Stay At The Top. Today we are talking about why it’s so important to reframe your health and your high performance habits and to think about them as a personal operating system. So you’re relying on a structure and your non-negotiables and a support system that helps you achieve all of the things and do everything that you want to do. This switch from thinking about
what do I need to do to support myself rather than relying on feelings of motivation or when you might feel hungry or when you might have space in the day is
a significant shift on how you’re going to go from operating feeling okay most of the time, know, maybe feeling pretty tired on the weekend to honestly having it all. And when I talk about having it all, it means having the energy, having the capacity to perform.
in your job or in your sport or whatever area of your life you’re trying to excel in. But even more importantly, having energy and time and capacity for the things and the people that you love the most.
Jess Spendlove (01:35.98)
Now I wanted to talk about why everyone needs an operating system today because I found myself talking about this a lot more with clients, even though this is what…
I do and I often reference. found that it’s come up a lot more recently and I’m also doing a fireside chat in just over a week when this episode goes live about building a high performance operating system. I’m on a panel with a leadership coach and an Olympian, Bronte Campbell, and that’s exactly what we’re talking about. And so I thought, you know what? I need to record a dedicated episode entirely to this. So that’s what we’re covering today. And on that note,
Let’s get into today’s episode.
Jess Spendlove (02:27.022)
Team, I’m going to be honest with you. If you are relying on how you feel to decide what to eat, when to move or when to sleep, you’re already behind. Now I know that might sound harsh and I say that with love, tough love maybe, but it is true. If you’re just sitting back in a reactive position waiting until, well I’m not that hungry in the morning so I’m just gonna push my breakfast or first meal back or you know, I…
Don’t have time in my diary today for lunch, so I’m just gonna eat at my desk or push it back to two o’clock. Or, gosh, I’m really loving this Netflix series. I’m just gonna let myself get sucked into watching another episode, even though I know this is crossing over from my ideal go to bedtime and I’m going to pay the consequences. Sound familiar? Well, you are not alone. This.
is so many people. But I also know that if you’re listening to this podcast, it’s because you want the tips, tools and tactics to elevate yourself. And that’s exactly what I’m here to deliver. Now, while everyone listening might have slightly different goals, just depending on where you are in your life, what your background is, if you’ve got more aspirations to climb the ladder or to stay at the top of the ladder, or to grow your business, to scale your company,
or maybe it’s sporting aspirations as a mixture of people who listen. But if we put all of those specifics to the side, every single person listening would want more energy to stay well, know, getting sick or getting injured is an inconvenience. No one wants that. If they do get sick or injured, they want to be able to bounce back quickly. And they also want to be able to do all the things in work, in life, in all of it.
and not burnout. And this is a pretty universal thing for a lot of the people that come into my orbit.
Jess Spendlove (04:31.244)
And the truth is, the way that you do all of that, the way that you have it all, it takes being very intentional. And it also takes you having a framework. And this is your own framework. This is your own operating system on what helps you be your best. This isn’t about being a robot.
This isn’t about eating the exact same thing every day at the exact same time. This isn’t about training the same way every day, but it is about having a structure. It is about understanding a rhythm of what helps you feel your best. And what I’m talking about there is in particular in some really key areas around what you eat, when you sleep, and when you move. And we can definitely add in there how you manage your stress and recover as well.
So it’s ultimately looking at these five big buckets and saying, when and how do I feel my best? What do I need to do in these areas? How do I execute that? How do I protect that? How do I create that?
Jess Spendlove (05:50.05)
And so ultimately this idea of an operating system is a personal structure that supports your goals and life, even when motivation and appetite might be low, but it’s about relying on the structure that you’ve created to support you. Now throughout this, I’m going to use some different examples. I’m going to use a recent client that I’ve worked with, but I wanted to start with some areas that I think
Some areas that I see a lot of people relying on how they feel to govern what they do, as opposed to thinking about it how I’m talking about it. What is my framework? What is my operating system? What are my non-negotiables? What do I need to do?
And so here are four of the most common ones. So the first one I’ve briefly mentioned earlier in the introduction or at the start of this episode, which was breakfast. I see a lot of people, I’m not really great at breakfast, I’m not that hungry, I’m very inconsistent here. And this is really based on feeling, this is based on conditioning, this is based on habits, this is based on what you’ve currently done.
But like anything that you want to get better at, whether that’s in the gym or running or learning a language or learning an instrument, all of those things require training and practice and nutrition is exactly the same. You can train your stomach and your brain to understand what it needs to practice taking it and then to…
kick into gear after say a few weeks or so where this actually just becomes what you do. So that’s the mindset we need to take here. And so if that’s speaking to you, if you struggle with breakfast, if you’re inconsistent, if you fast because that’s an excuse for you not to have breakfast, I want you to think about, I need to, at the start of my day, I need a springboard or I need a foundation that’s coming from the same starting place. This is something that I’m going to try.
Jess Spendlove (07:51.138)
The second one might be around training. So really common for people to struggle to eat before and or after training. And often the feedback is, I don’t want to eat too close to training because I don’t want to get a stitch or I’m worried I’m going to feel unwell. And so then they won’t. Or post-training, they might struggle to get a recovery meal or snacking close because they’ve trained really hard and the appetite’s not there. They might feel quite nauseous. Now, the interesting thing is the brain and the body are basically telling you the
opposite of what you need. So to elevate your performance in the session, we require some sort of fuel prior to the session. Now, depending on the intensity and the duration, that’s conversation for another day, listen to the nutrition episodes that I’ve covered specifically around performance and I go further into that. But just for the sake of keeping this high level, the principle is, you know, 30 minutes to an hour before we want some carbohydrates.
And then if we wanna optimize our recovery, 30 to 60 minutes after training, we want to eat. Now, if we’re just relying on how we feel, we’re not going to do that. And then the overflow of that is one, you haven’t optimized your training, two, you haven’t optimized your recovery, and three, when you actually then decide to eat, you’re gonna be starving and you’re gonna end up overeating. And so this is why it’s just having this, okay, these are some frameworks, these are some touch points.
What am I going to slot in there to try to start to create this operating system for myself? The third one is in a regular bedtime. Honestly, with sleep, one of the biggest things that you need to understand and one of the biggest execution points is having a more consistent bedtime. And what we’re talking about there is ideally within 30 minutes of going to sleep and waking up. Now, one of the best tips which I’m finding a lot of people are really resonating with
is a go to bed alarm. So what a lot of people will do is they’ll have an alarm in the morning, they’ll probably snooze it quite a few times and they’re struggling to get up. They’re also lying, they’re thinking I really need to get up. So it’s this cycle of one, you’re staying in bed, two, you’re snoozing and three, you’re already starting the day from a place that’s not
Jess Spendlove (10:13.297)
setting you up for success. And so rather than having that alarm in the morning which you’re constantly snoozing, well first thing if you’re doing that, my suggestion is to set your alarm at the time that you’re actually getting up so you’re not starting in this head space of I really need to get up but I’m not. But what I found is helping with lot of people is to have a go to bed alarm. So set that alarm.
When it goes off, you know, that’s it, turn the TV off, no new episodes, don’t get sucked into the show, whatever it might be that’s derailing you at night and start your wind down routine. Because what we don’t wanna be doing, which is point four, is then just going straight from whatever it is we’re doing, watching TV or sending emails or having a call or whatever that is generally on technology and then thinking we’re gonna go to sleep.
So point four is having that I’m tired but I’m wired feeling and even though they’re tired, they’ve stayed up for longer than what they should have and then when they get into bed, they can’t sleep. Absolutely nothing worse. And so what we’re wanting to do here is really to have this trigger, this anchor point, this domino at the end of the day, which starts that wind down process. I talk about it as a sleep landing protocol.
Highly recommend you go and listen to some of the sleep specific episodes where I dive into this in a lot more detail. But just as a touch point to start to create this idea of how you might be able to create an operating system for yourself and some of the areas that you might want to focus on, I wanted to call those four out. So just to recap, one is breakfast and not eating because we’re not hungry or being inconsistent.
Two is what we’re doing pre and post training and not having a set framework around that to optimize our training and our recovery. Three, the irregular bedtime. And four, then feeling tired and wired and not having a trigger to start our reflection or our relaxation. And so all of this is really about relying on how you feel and living in a very reactive state.
Jess Spendlove (12:25.856)
Whereas what we want to do is switch, establish a framework, establish an operating system and start to be proactive so we can leverage this feeling and momentum because one thing when it comes to your health, when it comes to your performance, when it comes to your energy, all of those things thrive and love consistency. And so that is what we’re covering off here today.
Jess Spendlove (13:15.146)
Now this is not about being rigid. Having an operating system is not about being a robot or having one strategy or one size fits all, but it is about having anchors and it is about having frameworks that help you through your days and through your different seasons. Because realistically a system, this is all about building consistency. It’s about reducing decision fatigue and the cognitive bandwidth that’s used up with that.
And it’s also about helping to keep your energy stable. And when I say energy stable, what I’m really talking about is creating energy, optimizing energy, and sustaining energy across the day.
And that’s why when I reference these subjective metrics and tuning into them, they really do give you a sign of how you’re operating and whether you are locked in and you’ve got a formula that works for you and your operating system is supporting you or.
if you’re living in the reactive state and you’re flying by the seat of the pants and you really don’t have a strategy, you’re not clear on your anchor points, you’re not clear on your non-negotiables, and as a consequence, this is how it’s showing up, at least initially. And then if we continue to push through and push through, that’s when we tend to get sick, injured, run down, or burnt out.
Jess Spendlove (14:46.026)
And so I wanted to take you through my process with my clients. So maybe you could start to think, okay, how can I maybe
have, how can I examine what I’m currently doing? What is my operating system? How am I currently existing? Because a lot of people are just, like I said, flying by the seat of the pants, living very reactively, living on autopilot, living with the habits that they’ve got into place, rather than consciously thinking about what are my non-negotiable? What are my frameworks? How do I feel my best? And so the first place that I start is ground zero.
Let’s assess what is currently happening. And so I do this with the life audit now There’s a episode I think back in season one where I take you through that process But it’s basically in a few sentences
Seven days of exactly everything that you do from what you eat when you sleep when you move the timing when you’re at work when you’re at home It’s really just capturing everything you do for a week So you can start to see the patterns or the gaps or the inconsistencies and this really is that first step because a lot of the time It’s really just going where are the gaps? How do we feel them? What do we stabilize? What do what can we bring in that is going to be supportive? That’s going to create a rhythm that’s going to create consistency
but is tailored to my life and all of the scenarios. And so step one, life audit, seven days, all of that information in these areas that we’re talking about, nutrition, sleep, movement, stress, recovery, and anything else significant in there. And we really want to make sure it’s seven days because often,
Jess Spendlove (16:32.575)
For a lot of people, there’s quite a few different scenarios in there, weekdays versus weekends, et cetera. Step two is really looking at where do we start. And we start with the big rocks. Now the big rocks are nutrition, sleep, and movement. And to be honest, for most people, it is nutrition and sleep to start because depending on who they are, they may want to either exercise more or optimize that or move more, but…
they might not be, that might not be something that’s happening for them or in the capacity that they want. But nutrition and sleep, two things every single person is doing every single day. And so when we start with things that are already happening but we optimize them, one, they’re easier, two, they then ripple into the other areas. And often one of the comments that I get more with my corporate clients, if they’re not,
exercising as much as they want is it’s time, it’s energy, it’s capacity. But when we optimize nutrition and sleep, we get all of those three things. We get more energy, we get more stable energy. When that happens, we have more capacity. And all of a sudden it feels like we’ve got more time. Now, this is also a really great time of year to be having this conversation because winter for some people can be challenging. The days are short, the mornings are dark, it’s cold, et cetera.
even though I think there’s still value in moving through that, finding a rhythm so next winter you’re not, you know, derailed as much or you’re still able to have this operating system that works for you in that season. But my point is this is a great time of year if that is a block to start to do this.
Jess Spendlove (18:22.825)
And so I guess when we look at these areas, what we’re essentially wanting to do is establish a rhythm that matches the individual’s lifestyle. But we really wanna be looking at the composition of the meals and making sure that they’re similar. This doesn’t mean we eat the same thing, but if we have a few different breakfasts, we just wanna make sure that breakfast A, you know, the smoothie is giving us the same as what the eggs on toast has.
And so what a lot of people do is they don’t get into that detail. They just substitute one in and out. And then one of those options might be lacking in protein and fiber. And then the consequence of that is on the day that they have that lacking, that lower option, they’re getting hungrier earlier in the day, or they’re getting tired or they’re having more cravings. And so that’s why we really wanna not only stabilize the time, but the composition. The next point is,
about creating a rhythm and a predictable intake. Now, I’m happy to have my opinion on this and it might not be what everybody agrees with, but I guess the world I live in is what I call high performance wellbeing. It’s the sweet spot between wellbeing and being high performing. And for these types of people, what I’m about to say is 100 % accurate. And I can say that because I’ve lived this space professionally for the last 15 years.
and then I’ve had my own personal experience 10, 15 years before that in high performing environments. We cannot sit back and rely on what we feel like. We cannot sit there and go, we’re hungry, we’re going to eat. Now, I’m not saying you don’t wanna be hungry, but if you’re currently waiting until you’re ravenous, until you’re tired, until you’re craving, what do I feel like is a very different conversation to what do I have, what do I need?
and having an operating system that just allows that to happen. And so with that, the things I would encourage you to think about are the times across the day that ideally that you eat. And again, let’s have it within a 30 minute window like our sleep doesn’t have to be exactly 7 a.m., 10 a.m., 1 p.m. But we wanna have an idea on when that can work. The next thing is what we have at each of those. And we wanna make sure that they’re
Jess Spendlove (20:40.841)
comparable. Like I said, the example of the smoothie and the eggs, I actually see this example play out a lot and to be honest, they’re my two breakfasts. And if I only have a smoothie and I don’t have a piece of sourdough with nut butter or something to go with it, I’m definitely hungry. I see this in my own life. And that’s why when I’m working with clients and I’m seeing this happen, I’m…
living in the real world, it’s not in some idealistic world. It’s like, okay, no, I get this, you know, this is something that I’m not immune to, but now I use those hunger cues as a little indicator of, hey, you’ve missed something or it’s not a comparison for another day. What do we need to optimize? And so the types of things, like I said, timing, size, the composition, like the amount of protein, the amount of fiber, et cetera, these are all things we wanna have nice and consistent across the day.
regardless of what we’re having, where we are, what we’re doing. The next one is sleep, and this one is absolutely key, and it’s about thinking about what time, you know, what time feels good for me to go to bed, and how can I create that? Do I need that go to bed alarm? With this specific client that is very front of mind with this example here today.
She was wanting to get up earlier in the morning and she was really struggling. She was snoozing her alarm and this was the conversation we had, okay, like let’s push the alarm in the morning to when you’re actually getting up, but let’s focus on the evening. And let’s do that by setting that go to bed alarm so that you can start to go to bed earlier. And then we also looked at what is your sleep landing protocol? And it was a little bit inconsistent. So what we did was we set two to three steps.
Quite straightforward, go to bed alarm, shower. Now that shower had a multitude of benefits and actually ended up becoming one of her key dominoes because not only was it a trigger to her sleep landing protocol, but it was also an opportunity for her to reflect and relax. And that really started to help her being able to get to sleep. And also having a lot less occasions.
Jess Spendlove (22:55.146)
of the ruminating and thinking about all of the thoughts because the shower actually allowed for that to happen before getting into bed. Really simple little habit, it doesn’t sound like much and that doesn’t mean the shower is gonna be the thing for you. You need to experiment and find out or get some coaching so someone can help work you through that. But it is these habits that serve as these anchor points.
Jess Spendlove (23:25.406)
And then the third one is movement. And like I said, depending on the person, like if I’m working with someone more of an athlete, then that’s kind of sorted. If I’m working with a corporate client who is wanting to optimize this, often then this comes in once the nutrition and the sleep, we’ve started to leverage the gains that can be made there because all of a sudden we have more energy and we have more capacity.
and this seems to just flow more off the back of that. And I’ve seen this happen quite a lot with a couple of clients recently, but of course it’s always tailored to the person. I’m not saying that’s in every instance, it’s just, I’d say the majority of people that I’m currently working with.
Jess Spendlove (24:08.072)
I guess the next piece of this puzzle is how do we optimize this for real life? And it’s looking at the seven days and what does a typical week look like, but then it’s looking at the differences like the weekends, like the travel, like school holidays, all of this. And it’s not necessarily going, okay, I’m plugging and I’m playing my standard operating system into that, but I’m upgrading it or I’ve got a version which supports my few key non-negotiables.
you need to figure out what they are for you. With this client I’m thinking of at the moment, the two things for her were high protein breakfast and consistently in the morning. So making sure her two or three options all gave her what she needed there from a fibre and a protein point of view. One, and the second one was the go to bed alarm and the shower in the evening. And those two things, regardless of the season she’s in, regardless of she’s travelling, camping with her family,
domestically or internationally traveling for work, she is able to execute them and that really supports her operating system and it allows her to…
Jess Spendlove (25:20.318)
and allows her to support her operating system.
Jess Spendlove (25:33.373)
One of the other pieces to the puzzle, which also is really important to look at is how are we prioritizing recovery? And look, sleep is one of the biggest forms of recovery. So that kind of gets its own mention, but the rest of it is like, what is my recovery plan? What is in my recovery toolbox? And what I’m talking about there are what are the things that I’m doing daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly to help me recover? Because rest,
is very strategic, it’s actually a performance accelerator. And if you’re currently reviewing it as only something you do reactively when you need it, well, I can tell you that you are on the back foot, that you were not coming from a place of how good you can feel, that you are not operating at your maximum because recovery is actually a performance accelerator. And this is what they know in elite sport and the military because it’s baked in.
It’s as important as the training and the stimulus. And this is what we need to start thinking about in the corporate world. How can we prioritize recovery? How can we shift our mindset and think, yes, we do need the sauna. Yes, we do need the massage. Yes, we do need our brain breaks. Yes, I actually need to book in that intentional long weekend away so I can decompress after a really busy season. Maybe I might even think about a yearly health retreat if that’s something available to you.
What am I doing so I’m proactively recovering as opposed to reactively burning out and then catching up. And so looking at those different tools, looking at the cadence of them and like I said, thinking about daily brain breaks, talk about them a lot in other episodes, know, every 90 minutes to two hours, what am I doing intentionally to be stimulant free to then allow for that cognitive recovery in the moment?
We’ve talked about optimizing sleep, huge piece of the recovery puzzle. But then also think about, well, what am I doing weekly? Have I got something in here that helps me to recover to set my wake up? Is that a sauna? Is that a massage? Is that a tech-free day or tech-free window of time? What is it that’s gonna work for you and how can I put that in? And then also thinking bigger picture. So with this client we were talking about, well, let’s get visibility of the year.
Jess Spendlove (28:01.288)
the busy seasons and let’s think about when we can put in some extra leave or downtime or even just be mindful about what we say yes to in other areas of our life in these really busy seasons. And so she was talking about mapping out her year and look at being strategic with family holidays and downtime and that type of thing. This is incredibly powerful. This is what an operating system is. Understanding
what you need to support you across the day to day, the micro, but then zooming out and looking at the macro. And when we can start to bring levels of periodization into our lives, it is incredibly powerful.
And at the end of the day, if I think about like this client, which I’ve referenced a few times in this episode, know, her why was she wanted to have more energy, not just for work, but for her family and things that she loves. She wanted to be thinking about what she could do on the weekend rather than just recovering on the couch. She also has young children. So there was a lot of sickness going through the household and she was being, it was taking her quite a lot to recover. So these were her why and you know,
as we started to work through and put things in place, coming back to that, checking in on that, checking in on her energy as a reference point to all of that, and just slowly over time adjusting different aspects of what she’s currently doing, move the needle significantly. And you know, the other thing which I really respected was she was going, the way I’m operating at the moment isn’t optimal.
And look, I could probably keep pushing like this for the next three to five years, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to get to three to four, five more years down the track of growing my business and my team and running myself and my health into the ground. Very impactful, very powerful. And this is how we need more people to be thinking. You deserve to put your own oxygen mask on first. You deserve to be your priority and creating your own operating system.
Jess Spendlove (30:14.468)
looking at all of this, having these as non-negotiables, coming back to them at times where things are really busy. And one of the last conversations we had was thinking about when you’re in a busy season, when you’ve got a lot of travel or things on, often progress is pausing. Progress is being able to sustain these habits. Progress is being able to have the non-negotiables. Progress is retaining a level of your…
rating system so that can support you through that busy season. And so I guess to wrap up
Jess Spendlove (30:51.494)
Ultimately, this is really about relying on structure and habits and systems rather than thinking about goals or motivation. And as James Clear says, you don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. And that is exactly why every single person benefits from their own operating system, particularly thinking about those five key areas that I’ve covered off here today.
And so if you’re interested, I would recommend going back to that life audit episode, listening to that and then thinking about how you might want to start to work through that for yourself. Of course, if that’s something that you’re wanting support with, that’s something that we can discuss to see if I’m a good fit for you. I do have a few different ways of working with people with coaching programs and intensity, but that is definitely something that I can support you with.
Otherwise, look, I hope this episode has given you a lot to think about. I hope it’s been a reframe. I hope it’s given you some insights into some areas that you might be able to optimize that are gonna help you elevate how you feel, how you perform, give you more energy, give you more consistent energy, and ultimately help you not only reach the top, but sustainably stay there.
Thank you for joining me for another episode. If you’ve liked this episode, I’d absolutely love for you to share it with a friend, share it on social media. Don’t forget to tag me. If you haven’t already subscribed, make sure you do that, then you won’t miss any new episode. And if you would so generously leave a rating or a review, all of this really means so much and it helps more of the right people find the podcast.
On that note, I’ll be back again next week with a guest episode. I can’t wait for you to hear this one. And otherwise, I hope you all keep staying at the top.