As the busy holiday travel season is solidly in our rear-view mirror, I am reminded about how wellness is not so much a destination, but a journey – filled with unexpected rewards.
Often, the stress, pressures and diet that accompany the holidays leave many of us feeling like we need to press the wellness re-start button come January. For employees, embracing wellness can often be hastened through a well-designed employee benefits package that provides motivation in a variety of forms.
I admit that, in my younger years, I did not entirely embrace wellness, despite rowing on my school's crew team, running about three miles a day and being the daughter of a registered dietitian.
It was not until shortly after I turned 30, got married and lost my grandmother (and realized that my three-mile loop was now by car to the grocery store or shopping mall) that I began to think about wellness at all. It was at that point that I started my wellness journey.
It began innocently enough – a friend was training for a marathon, which set off my long-dormant competitive juices. I headed out the following day for a run, but made it less than a mile. The next day, I marked off 1.5 miles from my door on my odometer. I still made it less than a mile at a jog, but completed the three-mile loop. Subsequent days saw improvements and soon I was doing the full three miles at a jog. I entered a 5K run with a friend and felt great pride completing it.
A few weeks later, I got more ambitious and entered a local 10K. I struggled mightily, but another runner stuck with me with lots of encouragement and let me finish before her so I would not finish the race dead last. That act struck me powerfully.
As I have continued my wellness journey, I have taken the time to help motivate others. I was hooked at that point and proceeded to run a half marathon and, about a year later, my first marathon. I also started to focus on my lifestyle more broadly and making healthier choices.
So, what does this story have to do with voluntary benefits?
