Meet Lucy Griffith, Founder at Thrive At Work, wellbeing at work specialist who helps boost employees’ workday energy, stress-resilience, and productivity.
We are living in a world that has been promoting hustle culture now more than ever. As a result, many of us are struggling to prioritize our physical and mental health over work. This is why Lucy Griffith, well-being at work specialist, is working to empower professionals to take control of their workday health. Starting off her career as a professional modern dancer, Lucy realized the importance of nurturing her brain as well as her body, managing her energy levels, finding focus and concentration, and maintaining the discipline to build sustainable healthy habits.
She was fascinated by the positive effects her training had on physical and mental wellbeing and decided to share it with others and become a personal trainer/fitness instructor. A deep dive into anatomy & physiology theory and practice taught her a whole new range of techniques to help people build a healthy, strong, and well-functioning body. She also studied coaching techniques, investigating the psychology of learning and habit-forming to keep her clients motivated and the methods as sustainable as possible.
Griffith grew up in the UK and moved to the Netherlands in 2003 to join a global IT company as a Programme Manager for Health and Fitness. She worked with both individuals and groups, understanding what made employees thrive at work and what prevented them from it. Then, she started to Thrive at Work in 2014 to help employees overwhelmed by work to prioritize their health as well. Elaborating on the concept behind the work, she says, “I help busy people who are struggling to bridge the gap between their good intentions of staying healthy and the reality of not being able to do that due to the demands of their job and the long hours that they are working. I offer simple and real-world strategies to help them take back control of their workload, manage their stress, and give their health more priority in their lives.” Due to the pandemic, Griffith has transitioned to online sessions, which has really helped increase the client base as most of us are struggling with long working hours.
Initially, she missed out on many complex reasons why people prevent people from acting to improve their health. She thought it was all about the right information, and people will find the motivation and willpower to change. But with time, she has realized the complexities of change and the psychology behind the challenge of maintaining positive habits. Now, she is able to empathize with people and help them out better.
Lucy is happy with the feedback she has received from her clients. They now reflect on their experiences at work and focus on their own needs rather than that of others. Consequently, Thrive at Work has grown exponentially in the past few years. Two years ago, she started offering programs to companies and has won contracts to present workshops and programs for several large-scale international companies like ASICS, Henkel, Cisco, Booking.com, Nutanix, Equinix, etc.
We are often so busy at work that we forget to maintain a necessary balance. Lucy is applying all that she has learned over the years to help more and more people. Leaving an inspiring message for her readers, she says, “If you’re in a job that requires smart thinking and great decision making, you can’t measure productivity by counting the amount of hours you sit in the chair trying to tackle the problem. You need to step away in order to do your best thinking. Taking time to pause, rest, recover and breathe at regular points throughout a day, no matter how busy your schedule is, is the best way to ensure that you do your best work. Rest isn’t the enemy of productivity but its best friend.”