Dr. Lucy Johnson is an assistant professor of digital literacies in the English department at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and the faculty adviser to the E3 student organization. In this episode of the Encourage Mindset Podcast, Dr. Johnson joins host Ethan Van De Hey to talk about why small wins matter more than most people realize, how students and professionals alike can avoid getting consumed by day-to-day tasks, and why a book by Glennon Doyle changed how she thinks about reaching your fullest potential.
Watch the Full Episode with Dr. Lucy Johnson
From Digital Literacies Professor to Mindset Advocate
Dr. Lucy Johnson teaches digital literacies at UW-Eau Claire, a field that sits at the intersection of technology, communication, and education. But her interest in mindset goes well beyond the classroom. She serves as the faculty adviser to the E3 student organization, which focuses on helping students professionalize themselves, build networks, and recruit speakers who can help them grow. She tells Ethan that watching these students recruit members and develop as professionals during the organization’s first year has been one of the most rewarding parts of her role on campus.
What becomes clear quickly in the conversation is that Dr. Johnson is not the kind of professor who stays behind a lectern. She is deeply invested in the whole-person development of her students — their confidence, their habits, and their ability to see the bigger picture when the semester gets overwhelming.
Why Small Wins Matter More Than You Think
The core of the episode centers on an idea that sounds simple but is deceptively powerful: small wins compound into big results. Dr. Johnson explains that many students — and professionals, for that matter — get so caught up in the immediate pressure of the next exam or the next major project that they lose sight of the larger goals those tasks are building toward. The graduation date. The career milestone. The life they are trying to construct.
Her advice is to build mindful moments into your day where you consciously connect each smaller task to the bigger outcome it serves. That paper you are writing is not just a paper — it is a stepping stone toward your degree. That meeting you are preparing for is not just another obligation — it is a building block in a career you are actively constructing. When you start seeing your daily tasks as stepping stones rather than isolated burdens, Dr. Johnson says, you stop feeling consumed by them and start feeling empowered by them.
The Procrastination Trap and the Power of Ten Minutes a Day
Ethan brings up a habit that most students know all too well: procrastinating until the last possible day before a deadline. Dr. Johnson laughs at this because she has seen it countless times, and she pushes back with a straightforward alternative. Instead of cramming everything into the final night, why not spend ten or fifteen minutes a day chipping away at the project? Those small daily sessions add up quickly, and more importantly, they keep the material fresh in your mind so you are not starting from scratch when the deadline looms.
She connects this back to the larger theme of the episode — small wins build big results. The student who does fifteen minutes of work today and fifteen minutes tomorrow is not just closer to finishing the assignment. They are training their brain to approach work in a sustainable way, which is a habit that will serve them long after they leave campus. Ethan adds that he has experienced this himself — when he breaks something into small daily actions, the quality of the work is better and the stress is dramatically lower.
Glennon Doyle, Untamed, and Reaching Your Fullest Potential
When Ethan asks Dr. Johnson for a book recommendation — something that can help people find their motivation or improve their mindset — she does not hesitate. She recommends Untamed by Glennon Doyle, the bestselling author who is married to retired U.S. women’s soccer star Abby Wambach. Dr. Johnson acknowledges that the book’s primary audience might be women, but she believes the takeaways transfer to anyone regardless of gender or stage of life.
The central idea she pulls from the book is about not taming yourself. So many people spend their lives conforming to external measures of success or shrinking themselves to fit expectations that were never theirs to begin with. Dr. Johnson says the book’s message about reaching your fullest potential in whatever setting you find yourself in resonated deeply with her and is something she now carries into her teaching and advising.
Morning Routines, Snooze Buttons, and Building Real Habits
Toward the end of the conversation, Ethan and Dr. Johnson talk about the gap between intention and execution — specifically when it comes to morning routines. Ethan makes the point that anyone can say they are going to get up at five in the morning, but the real question is whether they actually get up when the alarm goes off or hit the snooze button. Dr. Johnson agrees and ties it back to the broader conversation: developing a routine is about making small, consistent choices that compound over time.
She also acknowledges the context of the conversation — this episode was recorded during the pandemic, when many students were attending classes online instead of in person and feeling depleted and exhausted by the end of the semester. Even in that environment, she says, small check-ins with yourself to retrain your brain can make the difference between feeling overwhelmed and feeling like you are making progress. It is not about overhauling your entire life overnight. It is about those small, mindful moments that remind you the work you are doing right now is connected to something bigger.
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Related Episodes You Might Enjoy
If you enjoyed this conversation, check out these related episodes from the Encourage Mindset Podcast:
- Tim Tonella: Stop Wasting Time: How Winners Build Real Success
- Merrick Calmer: You Pay Now In Sweat Or Later In Regret
- Chris Whited: Win The Future One Step At A Time
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