The Story

My parents used to call me a "smart cookie" growing up and ever since getting my hands on some gel pens as a kid, I've been color-coding my school notes, professional work, and personal to-do's - hence, "The Color-Coded Cookie" brand name! (Plus, we love some alliteration, right?)

While keeping my life organized and prioritized has always been a strength, I faced some new challenges a few years ago when I moved across the country and was making a career shift. I had to be more intentional about building a new social circle, I was taking on new responsibilities at my job, and I was losing sight of the diet and gym habits I had been disciplined with in the past. I also found myself without any real "hobbies" anymore - I wasn't reading, playing piano, or enjoying long walks like I used to.

This was when I realized I needed to evolve how I had been "managing" my life and re-discovered the 8 categories of wellness. Until this point, I had been hyper-focused on my mental and physical wellness because those were the areas

Hi there! I'm Jess, the proud founder of The Color-Coded Cookie. A bit about me...

I was born and raised in Illinois, currently residing in Florida.

that I always felt I had the most room for improvement. Now I was facing new social and occupational circumstances that required unique attention and left no time or energy for creativity or recreation.

I had to be realistic: it's impossible to make mental, physical, social, occupational, and creative wellness categories a high priority all at once - no matter how much of an over-achiever you may be, you will burn out! Instead of trying to get to the gym 4-5x a week and always beating myself up when I fell short, I decided to just be consistent about going 3x a week. I found tangible ways to improve and balance my social and work lives and was more intentional about reserving space for reading and music.

Guess what? About 2 years later, I hadn't broken my streak of getting to the gym 3x+ a week, I actually started a new job that I've been a lot happier with, I established a couple of strong and fulfilling friendships in my new city, and I read two book series - even starting on my third! I also made it about halfway through teaching myself how to play "Clocks" by Coldplay - an endeavor that I've wanted to tackle any time I heard the song.

The Brand

I wanted to share my experience with anyone else who could benefit. Rather than dragging it into a long-winded biography (top review: "this could have been an email"), I decided to translate some of the more tangible ways I was able to re-prioritize my holistic wellness into a guided journal that I hope will help others achieve similar feelings of accomplishment and control.

In the spirit of goal-setting, The Color-Coded Cookie has its eyes on some milestones of our own:

Immediate term: make the first edition of this wellness planner available for purchase to help our customers shift their perspectives around wellness and life balance, while gathering early feedback as to how we can improve this resource further
Short-mid term: establish an online community of like-minded individuals that are able to use the framework in our journal to navigate unique life circumstances - the idea will be to share experiences, hold each other accountable, and (most importantly) celebrate even small wins together
Long term: we recognize that putting pen-to-paper isn't for everyone - we have every intention of evolving this holistic wellness approach into an app, too, for the customers that prefer to use digital tools for tracking their wellness journeys

If you've made it this far, we really appreciate your time and support for our new, growing brand!

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