Week two of the Stay at the Top Summer Reset series is about lifting your head up and looking forward.
In this episode, I share why holidays and downtime are often overlooked as one of the most powerful opportunities to build new habits. Not because life is perfectly structured, but because there is finally space. Less pressure. More capacity to think, reflect and experiment.
This conversation is especially relevant if the year has felt reactive, fast paced or like you have been running just to keep up. When you are constantly firefighting, meaningful change feels almost impossible. This episode is designed to help you step out of survival mode and into a more proactive way of operating for the season ahead.
Rather than overhauling your life or adding more to your plate, I introduce three simple questions that help you recalibrate and get clear on how you want to show up in 2026.
In this episode I share:
- Why holidays can be a powerful runway rather than a pause
- The cost of living in reactive mode for too long
- Why overhauling everything at once rarely works
- The role of identity in sustainable behaviour change
- How to use reflection to get ahead before January begins
- The importance of progress over perfection
- Why capacity and context matter when changing habits
- How to start embedding habits now rather than waiting for the new year
Key Quotes
“You do not need a new version of yourself. You need to recalibrate.”
“Clarity beats complexity.”
“Reflection is how you move from reactive to intentional.”
“The goal is not perfection. It is alignment.”
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/?hl=en
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 (00:04.6)
Welcome back to the Reset Summer Series. A quick personal share before we dive into week two. Today when this episode goes live, it is my little daughter Millie’s first birthday. Crazy to think that this year has just already passed us by. I will be in Thailand with her celebrating her birthday, which will be extra special.
And obviously in two days time, it’s also Christmas. So if you were celebrating Christmas, I wish you a Merry Christmas and I hope you’re having a great time with friends and family. Now onto today’s episode. Last week with the one day method, it was really a tool to help contain the chaos that can easily happen at this time of the year. Whereas this week,
A great continuation of that is how do we lift our heads up and how do we look forward? I really see holidays and this downtime as something that so many high performing people overlook as an opportunity to take advantage of and embed new habits and get ahead of where they would have been previously without having that outlook. I really do believe holidays are one of the
best times to build new habits and this is because we’ve got more time, we’ve got more capacity and that is a really great time to start thinking about well who do I want to become, how do I want to show up, how do I want to feel and what are the actions I need to take to do that and when we’ve got more time on our hands that actually presents a really perfect time to start putting these things into practice. Now
It’s not because life is perfectly structured right now, if anything it isn’t, but it’s because you finally got the space, you’ve got less pressure, and you’ve got more capacity to think, reflect, and experiment.
Jess Spendlove (02:13.502)
And I’m sure for a lot of people listening to this, that’s exactly what’s been missing all year. You feel like you’ve been running flat out, you’ve been running fast, you’ve been reacting, you’ve been firefighting and putting out the spot fires and doing what you can to stay afloat for probably more of the year than you would like to admit. And the truth is when you’re in that mode, it’s almost impossible to change anything.
And I understand because this has been a whole new year for me. Being a mom, running a business, I wasn’t exactly sure when I was coming back to work. And the way that it happened, I had some really incredible speaking gigs very early on after having Millie. And it was something I just needed to say yes to. So, you know, as I sit here reflecting myself on the year that’s been, and I don’t say this from a place of…
you know, expectation or judgment, I say it out of like kindness and compassion and understanding that, you know, there was a level of survival and figuring things out as I went. But now that I’ve got some space to reflect, I do see how I have the capacity to put some things into place so that I am living more proactively and operating in a way that is aligned to my values and how I want to feel, but for this current season of life.
And if this is resonating with you.
What we don’t wanna be doing is sitting here thinking we’re gonna overhaul our life. We’ve got two weeks off, we’re overhauling our life, new year, new me, let’s go. That’s not what I’m saying. So instead of pushing yourself to overhaul your life overnight, which I know can be tempting, but when you’re being honest with yourself, how has that worked out for you before? I’m sure it hasn’t, and that’s no fault of yourself. It’s just a default to the approach.
Jess Spendlove (04:13.614)
You know, we can only change a handful of things, maximum of three at a time. And that is even like the capacity to change three really depends on the complexity. And is this a new habit? Is this something a new behavior we’re trying to embed or we upgrading? And also what else is going on in our life? And so before we, you know, spend the first one or two weeks of the year overhauling everything, let’s use this time for something far more powerful.
Jess Spendlove (04:45.356)
And what I’m proposing that is, is three questions. Three simple grounding questions that are exactly what you need to reflect on and know so that you can get ahead before January even begins. This is to set you up and your year up for how you want. Now, the first question I want you to reflect on is, how do I want to feel? Now, this is not how you think you should feel, not what others expect.
How do you want to feel showing up at work, at life, with your family, with your friends next year? Reflect on that, write that down, meditate on it, whatever that might be, reflect on it while you’re away on holidays. How do you want to feel? The second question is, who do I need to be to feel that way?
This is about identity. Behavior science tells us that the fastest way to change habits is to align with them, with the identity that you’re stepping into, not with the one you’re leaving behind. So question one, how do I wanna feel? Question two, who do I need to be to feel that way? And then the third question, what habits support that version of me?
Now this is where things become actionable. So forget the perfection, that’s BS, we don’t believe in that here, progress over perfection always. Forget about doing everything at once. Choose the one or the two habits that support how you want to feel. And start rehearsing them now while you have the pace and the space in life to implement them, experiment and start to embed them. Because I really
believe holidays aren’t a pause, they’re a runway. And what you do now makes January, it makes the rest of the year feel different. We don’t need to start until the first of January. You can start to embed these small micro habits and shifts, start to reflect on those three questions and start to think about who you wanna be next year. How do you wanna show up? How do you wanna feel? And how do you need to move to become that version of yourself?
Jess Spendlove (07:09.762)
That’s all I’ve got for you this week on this short episode in the Summer Reset mini-series. I’ll be back again next week for another episode.