Happy November Reader!

How are you recovering after Daylight Savings Time ended over the weekend? Are you impatient to get over this adjustment and move on to the easier part?

Impatience is one of my worst faults, so I get it if you’re ready to put a struggle in the rearview mirror. I have a really hard time appreciating the moment. I know intellectually I have a lot to be grateful for, and a lot of privilege. Yet I am still impatient to get to an imagined future.

But the truth? Is that there is only now. I can’t go back to the past, and I can’t jump to the future.

"This is the best part."

The future I am anxiously awaiting and impatiently working towards is financial independence. In a previous life (aka a decade ago) I was pretty involved in an online personal finance community, and that’s where I first encountered the idea of FIRE—Financial Independence, Retire Early. Also known simply as early retirement due to having enough income to live off without working.

Some lucky or successful people get to retire as early as 25 or 30. I tell myself I’d be happy to retire when my teacher husband can, around 55…but it’s a lie. I’d love to have enough money to retire right now, before 40! And some days I can’t stop wishing to be at retirement already.

But even as I wrote that I realized, since it’s definitely not happening next week, or even next year…that wish implies I want to skip large parts of my life. To jump over years or even decades of my life.

And that’s not actually the case! What I really want, what FIRE represents to me, is time.

I know how precious and limited my time is. How easily and unexpectedly it can be taken away. I am fully aware of how many things I want to experience, and I worry I won’t have the time to fit them all in. Like traveling the world, and reading all the books, and playing all the video games, and watching all the movies. Even with 2 lifetimes I probably couldn’t get everything done that’s on my wish list!

So, if I don’t really want to skip ahead to this mythical “good part,” I need to teach myself to appreciate the moment I’m already in. To find ways to acknowledge that this day, this hour, this minute is the best part. To not let my impatience cause me to go through life like an ungrateful zombie.

I’m going to work on that this week with our affirmation. But I also know that I’ll get busy and impatient again, and forget to enjoy this part again. I know I will because I’ve done it before. Because I was doing it now.

But that’s ok. I’m not perfect at it—I probably never will be—but each time I can remember to enjoy the moment I’m in is a moment I won’t regret later.

Let's remind ourselves to enjoy this week, every day and every hour, by repeating 21x/day:

"This is the best part."

Free Mini Masterclass: Make Mental Space

Feeling short tempered or irritable lately? Sleeping poorly despite being exhausted? Struggling with concentrating on work?

If so, you may be experiencing mental fatigue!

Join me on Nov. 8 at 11am Central for a 20 minute mini masterclass on one technique to help combat your exhausting mental load.

(Obviously, I am not a doctor, so please speak with your healthcare professionals about these signs too!)

As always, affirmations work best when you truly believe them. They need to resonate with you and feel achievable. So feel free to modify any I suggest, or develop entirely new ones!

Say them as long as you want. I'm sharing a new affirmation each week, but that doesn't mean you have to switch it up each week unless it feels right. You can add new ones as often as you want and have as many as you want. You can say a different affirmation every day, or at different times of the day. You choose!

I'd love to hear the impact it has! (But if you decide affirmations are not for you, click here to be removed from this weekly email.)

I hope this affirmation sets you up for a kick ass week and I'll see you next Monday for a new one to try!

I always have time for you. ❤️

-- Jen