You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again, when it comes to your health journey, don’t be afraid to start small! Even the tiniest of first steps towards a healthy lifestyle is a great first step to take.

But why is that the common trend when it comes to health and wellness?

We’ll give you a hint. Small steps aren’t recommended because you have short legs. It’s not because you can’t do big things. And it’s not because you can’t handle big challenges.

Every year, we perform a lot of biometric screenings at companies across the country. We work with all types of companies to screen employees in all walks of business. In 2015, we performed over 85,000 biometric screenings. That means we screened over 85,000 American employees!

If you’re at all familiar with our biometric screening process—or any biometric screening process—you know that after a screening event, the company receives an aggregate report. This report is a snapshot of the health status of their employees. It provides group data about the overall health of the workforce.

How early is too early to start your corporate conversation about flu shots? Well, it depends who you’re talking to. Honestly, there are people who talk about flu shots all year long.

Your role as the flu shot coordinator where you work is to figure out when it’s your turn to jump in on their conversations. You know you need to protect your workforce in the fall, but how early should your planning start.

As a wellness coordinator, your attitude can not only make or break employee participation, but can actually impact how well an employee does throughout the wellness program. Taking a positive, proactive approach to your wellness program can make it both more popular and more effective.

Being a proactive wellness coordinator means taking action when it comes to your wellness program. It means reaching out to your employees, encouraging them, and empowering them to make healthy changes in their lives.

One of the worst things you can do for your wellness program is to get stuck in a one-track-mind way of thinking. Many wellness coordinators do things one ways just because, “that’s how we’ve always done it.” That can be an easy way to get stuck in a wellness rut.

The best way to refresh your wellness program is to refresh your mindset—think outside the box a little bit. Even if you’re not super innovative when it comes to wellness activities, you can benefit from some outside-the-box thinking.

And it all starts with three big perspective shifts…

Corporate wellness can be hard—on multiple levels. Maybe you’ve planned a wellness event you thought was great. The details were in order, communication sent out, but it was a flop with very little participation and engagement.

That’s what we call a slipup. Something in your wellness program that just doesn’t go your way. Maybe mistakes were made, or challenges weren’t foreseen. Slipups happen.

The same type of slipups can happen in your employees’ health journeys. It can be easy to stray from even the best laid health plans. Maybe a night planned for the gym turned into happy hour with co-workers, or lunch plans fizzled into fast food or takeout.

Program-level and personal-level slipups incite the same feelings. And they’re not good feelings. Slipups can be frustrating! But if you have one flop wellness event, you shouldn’t scrap your entire program. Same goes for your employees. One unhealthy decision doesn’t mean the entire journey is a bust.

Positivity is the secret ingredient to a healthy lifestyle. Focusing on positivity in your wellness program helps you tap into your employees’ intrinsic motivation—the motivation inherently tied to their personal beliefs and desires. Utilizing intrinsic motivation for wellness leads to long-term change.

Many of the benefits of a positive outlook come from the fact that positive people are more resilient. They’re not only able to more readily bounce back in tough times, but they thrive through those tough times. When the going gets tough, positive, resilient people are the tough that get going.

One simple way to shift towards a positive culture of wellness in your company is to start with positive messaging. This type of messaging strategy involves a focus on the words and communication styles you’re using with your employees.

If you can infuse positivity into those words and communication styles, you’ll be able to foster positive emotions from your employees in regard to wellness. Positive messaging provides the groundwork for a positive outlook on any health journey.

With the global nature of the workplace today, you can’t get out of a little business-focused travel. Whether it’s you or your employees, odds are somebody is hitting the road every now and then.

Corporate wellness doesn’t just encompass wellness in your physical office space. It’s important to stretch your wellness program to include and apply to employees who aren’t always in the office.

That’s especially true for employees who travel frequently because traveling can wreak havoc on a person’s health. The sedentary transportation, high-calorie takeout and mental exhaustion can really damage employee health.

With a little bit of focus, though, you and your employees can stay healthy when you’re on the road for work. It’s all about eating right, staying active and preparing well.

Health is just easier when it’s nice out. Not only is it easier to get outside and get moving when the weather is gorgeous and inviting, but you’re also not tempted by the bad health habits of winter weather.

You won’t be tempted to curl up on the couch with your favorite comfort foods, or watch a movie instead of doing the yardwork. Now that the weather’s nice, it’s also natural to want to show off a hot bod with tank tops and shorts.

When it’s nice outside people are just more willing to take steps towards a healthy lifestyle. You have an excellent opportunity to use your wellness program to capitalize on your employees’ willingness to work on their health.

It’s true what we say—everyone is healthy. Every single person has some healthy habits in his or her life. Because even the smallest healthy choices count towards a healthy lifestyle.

It’s important to recognize the importance of not only starting small, but making small changes throughout the journey towards better health. Small healthy changes add up to a big healthy lifestyle. They’re also much easier for your brain to tackle because they don’t seem incredibly different than the choices you already make each day.

As you make small healthy changes, you’ll start to develop some really strong healthy habits. Those habits serve as the foundation for any healthy lifestyle.