You Don't Need a Ten-Year Plan. You Just Need Tuesday!

Yesterday, I was listening to an episode of Good Hang with Amy Poehler featuring the always-wonderful Ina Garten, and she said something that resonated strongly with me and that mirrors some of what I’ve been trying to be more intentional about and wanting to share in my work and community: she talked about how, years ago, she made a deliberate decision to be happy. Not to find happiness eventually, once everything was lined up perfectly, but to intend toward it. Every day. As a choice. I often talk to my community about how, for me, starting each day judgment-free has changed how I feel about my body and approach life. And hearing Ina mention her approach sounded very similar.

It's not complicated. It's not a program or a protocol, and you can’t buy it, but you do have to practice it, which is where the challenge, but also the magic, is.

Here are three things that help me on this path:

Finding joy in simplicity. I’ve talked about this a lot, and I often refer to it as the “boring” stuff, especially when it comes down to movement. Not because I think it’s boring, but because it’s not clickbaity or will go viral.

Focusing on connection. Community, community, community. Nothing is more magical than community. Enough said. Find people who see you and support you, and make time to spend with them.

Finding the inner smile. I often find myself walking around with a quiet smile on my face. Not because I read something funny, or heard a good joke — just because I feel this... light. A spark of joy that lives somewhere inside me that I can't quite put into words. It’s the same feeling you feel when a song comes on that makes you move, no matter what mood you’re in at the moment. It takes over, and that’s the feeling I want you to find. 

Those of you who know me know that fire is always there — that passionate, driven energy that's just part of who I am. But this is different. This is softer than that. Quieter. It comes from choosing light over darkness, and I want to be clear: that is not always easy. I don't walk around smiling to myself every day. Some days, the doom thoughts are loud and they take up a lot of space. I don't ignore them — I acknowledge them. But I try not to live there.

The inner smile isn't a permanent state. It's a practice. A choice, made as often as I can manage it. And on the days it shows up? I let myself feel it fully.

For so many of us in midlife, this kind of simplicity feels almost radical. Because somewhere between the longevity content, the biohacking advice, and the "50 is the new 30!" pressure, we've been handed a very different message about what thriving is supposed to look like. I see smart, capable, and wildly interesting women paralyzed. Not by laziness or a lack of ambition, but by the sheer, daunting weight of how many ‘choices’ and ‘musts’ there suddenly are.

The longevity paradox nobody warned us about

We are living in a genuinely remarkable moment. Women in perimenopause and beyond are looking at potentially 40, even 50, more years of life. That is extraordinary. That is also a lot of pressure when someone hands you a vision board and says, "Okay, plan it."

The wellness world, the longevity space, the "best years are ahead of you!" corner of the internet gives us the sense that if you don't have a crystal-clear, optimized, color-coded five-year plan for your menopause era, you're somehow already behind.

As women navigating perimenopause, we know one thing for sure: our bodies are constantly changing. Our energy, our sleep, our mood, our capacity—they shift from week to week, sometimes day to day. Making a rigid long-term plan right now can feel less like empowerment and more like setting yourself up to feel like a failure when Tuesday doesn't match the vision board.

The headlights principle

There's another idea I heard recently and keep coming back to, one that aligns with my start-every-day judgment-free approach. Plan only as far as you can see. And once you get to the end of where you can see? You'll see more.

Think about driving at night. Your headlights illuminate only a certain distance ahead. You can't see the whole road, the whole journey, the destination in the dark. But you don't need to. You just need to see what's right in front of you, and keep moving. The road reveals itself as you go.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a long-term plan, but if you're staring so hard at a point five years out, you will absolutely miss the turning right in front of you. You'll miss the opportunity, the conversation, the unexpected pivot that ends up being the best thing that ever happened to you. And more importantly, you'll miss enjoying where you actually are.

What's really missing: the beautiful boring bit

Here's what nobody posts about on Instagram: the baby steps. The quiet, unsexy, foundational habits that don't make good content but make everything else possible. The ten-minute walk you took on Wednesday,  the glass of water before coffee, the one thing you decided to do consistently this week, maybe not perfectly, but consistently.

These small actions aren't a compromise. They're not the plan you fall back on when you can't manage the "real" plan. They are the strategy. They build the neurological pathways, the physical momentum, the self-trust that says: I do what I say I'll do. And from that foundation, clarity comes. Next steps reveal themselves. You start to see further down the road.

But none of that happens if you've abandoned the whole thing by week two because the ambitious version wasn't working.

Permission to start stupidly small

So here's your permission slip, lovingly issued: you do not need to figure out the rest of your life right now. You need to figure out this week. Maybe just today.

What is one small, doable, kind-to-yourself thing that you could do today that your future self would quietly high-five you for?

I’d love to hear what that small thing is for you. Email me at [email protected]

Three things you can do this week

Write down your "headlights" goal. Where do you want to be in the next two weeks? One specific, small, achievable thing. It could be walking three times. It could be getting to bed before midnight. It could be making one phone call you've been putting off. Write it down somewhere you'll actually see it. That's your road for now.

Set a daily joy intention. Each morning this week, before you check your phone, ask yourself: what is one thing today that I'm going to choose to enjoy? It doesn't have to be big. A good cup of tea counts. The point is to deliberately notice it and train your brain to look for it, rather than waiting for it to arrive.

Audit your self-talk around "progress." This week, notice what you say to yourself when you don't hit a goal or miss a day. Would you say that to a friend? Probably not. The shift from punishing language ("I failed again") to curious language ("interesting, what got in the way?") is small, but it makes all the difference.

You don't need the whole map yet. You just need the next step, a good pair of headlights, and the decision — made fresh each morning — to enjoy the ride. 🤍