There’s a new lifestyle trend every month. Cold plunges. Moon journaling. ‘Hot girl walks.’ All promising transcendence through discipline. Translation: if I just walk four miles in matching athleisure while listening to podcasts on boundary-setting, I will become a higher being.
Spoiler: I remain very much myself.
Don’t get me wrong—walking is good. Boundaries are good. But at some point, every self-care trend starts sounding like a wellness version of homework. “Glow up or shut up” seems to be the subtext.
I used to think my resistance was laziness. Now I think it’s grief. Grief over a version of myself that’s always supposed to be upgrading. Never quite enough. One yoga retreat away from being “whole.”
What if I’m whole now, on my ordinary walk, in my old T-shirt, overthinking everything but still showing up?
The truth is, self-love doesn’t always look like curated routines. Sometimes it looks like choosing rest over rituals. Or rejecting trends that turn your life into a Pinterest board.
You don’t need to optimize your existence to be worthy of it.
And that, dear reader, is my hot girl thought of the day.
So if you’re tired of chasing the next big glow-up, here’s your permission to slow down. Real self-improvement doesn’t need to be dramatic. It doesn’t require a rebrand. It’s the quiet decision to speak kindly to yourself. To go for a walk not because it’s trending, but because your body asked you to move.
To eat well because you want to feel nourished—not because a stranger on the internet said it would make you look “effortless.” Growth doesn’t need to be loud to be real. Sometimes it’s just choosing to show up, as you are, and calling that enough—for today.
