The last thing I want to do is write!

The first thing I need to do?

Write.

Ok, then. Let’s do this thing…

::Cracking Knuckles::

“Once upon a time in a faraway land—”

Great line, but disgustingly overused.

To give my writing sessions some oomph, I need the right inspiration.

A fellow writer and dear friend of mine noticed my attempt at consistency in writing, so she asked where I draw my inspiration.

“Anywhere!” was a tempting answer. It feels accurate, but like the first line of my make-believe fairy tale above, it’s not the best.

For your education and enjoyment, here are some of my most revisited vehicles:

1️⃣ Inspirational Venue. Anything outdoors. A walk. A rainy day by the window.

2️⃣ Water. The shower. The sound itself counts. Something about water inspires me.

3️⃣ Killer Playlist. Lyrics kill my focus, but soundtracks? Fair game.

4️⃣ Writing Prompt. AI can help with this one (if trained properly).

5️⃣ Ask Someone. “What should I write about today?” or “What would you like to read about from me?”

6️⃣ Current Events. Scour the web to learn what people are searching/talking about these days and write your take on it. We’re experts on our own opinion!

7️⃣ Rewrites | Part 1. Don’t like how a story or TV series ended? Rewrite it!

8️⃣ Rewrites | Part 2. Repurpose something you wrote before. Practice saying the same thing differently.

I don't always have these on hand, especially at work, which is fine. Most days, having two of them is enough to get my fingers moving. The trick is knowing which ones are available to me in the moment.

I can't control the weather, but I have AirPods. Sneaking outside would be difficult (especially during a meeting!), but maybe I can run the water a little longer than necessary. The key is being creative with what's already within my reach.

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Healthy spending and saving habits are the antacid to our budget indigestion. When gas prices rise, so do our anxiety levels. Let’s grab some Pepcid and be on our way more comfortably, because even if it’s attitude reflux, the stuff to follow can still work.

While I’m no financial guru, I’ve had some pennies to play with (and pinch) occasionally and have learned a few things along the way. Spending, saving, and especially giving are the best ways to handle money. Time is finite, and cash is a close second. When the proverbial poo hits the fan, I’d like to think I’m inflation immune.

Budgeting is an ideal way, in my humble opinion, to categorize the most finite things we have: time and money. We set a schedule and settle into the almighty calendar crunch. Yet we don’t always feel the same about money. What makes it different? Perhaps we should budget our money like we do our time, or vice versa.

Managing time is a topic to tackle another day, so let’s dive into the world of wonder, also known as some small ways that have helped me feel inflation-resistant. These are the things I personally do or use and experience success with. While there are no guarantees, I hope you’ll experience some wins using them too!

Small Tasks: Some Reward

Small habits can create surprising returns. None of these will fund a private island or erase a Target run gone rogue, but they can soften the blow of everyday spending and stretch the budget a just little bit further.

Digitized Receipts.

Paper receipts lying around induce my anxiety, so unless they’re 100% necessary, I make them disappear. I’ve found that receipts containing a barcode are easily readable digitally, thanks to modern tech. I’ve been scanning receipts for at least a decade now.

CoinOut & Receipt Hog offer the best options for this process, in my opinion. I can scan my physical receipts into these apps, and this weekly task has earned me an extra $20 here and there.

The two-birds-one-stone approach is fabulous. Cash rewards (once I’ve reached applicable in-app milestones) are sent through PayPal, which—unlike some rewards systems I’ve used that “cash out” only in gift cards—translates to income. Payouts go back into the budget for groceries.

My weekly receipt-scanning ritual takes less than 15 minutes. With Receipt Hog, I linked my Amazon account, which auto-loads digital receipts for additional points. Cha-ching! With how much time and treasure I spend on Amazon, it’s a win-win.

Snail Mail Stamps.

My 9-year-old daughter loves getting mail. She doesn’t have email, but somehow she’s got pen pals. (It’s how I grew up, too, so I respect it.) We also mail over a hundred Christmas cards each year, which could get expensive at $0.78 a pop. I never buy stamps at full price; I buy Forever stamps at a discount.

The website looks questionable, and all email communications may land in spam, but I’ve purchased many times using this method with zero issues. The trick is to order ahead, be patient with shipping timelines, and check the spam folder. This is the place (USPS Stamps Outlet). Sure, it feels slightly sketchy. But yes, it’s legit.

Grocery Pick-Up & Delivery (availability may vary).

A year and a half ago, I uncovered a glorious trifecta: Kroger pickup, Boost program, Instacart delivery. When someone else picks grocery items for me through this process, I can return items for a refund with no questions asked and no returns needed. (These items can’t be returned to the store, likely due to standard policy…and health codes.) Huge win.

What I save through returned (free) products more than covers what I spend on Instacart tips. I don’t encourage excessive returns, but the policy is there for things that aren’t what I would choose. If something is substituted for a product I wouldn’t normally select, I consider it an experiment, an invitation to branch out a bit.

If I just plain don’t like the product I received, I can request a refund and keep the product. Someone in my household is bound to like it.

Cell Phone Bill.

I used to pay $150 per month for unlimited everything, which didn’t include monthly payments toward my husband’s and my brand-new iPhones. These phones were not-so-new by the time they were paid off. That reality always stung.

We’d sell our old iPhones to help pay for the next upgrade, which was impossible before they were fully paid for, and it was even harder when the phones were tethered to a specific cell phone carrier. This dilemma disappeared when we found US Mobile.

We currently pay $33 per month for unlimited calls/texts and the precise amount of monthly data we need for our household: 12 GB. When we travel (and thus, need more data), another $10-$20 “tops off” the plan with an additional 5-10 GB, which, if unused, transfers to the next month’s data allowance.

Time Trades

Not every reward comes from spending less. Sometimes the better deal comes from trading time, effort, creativity, or patience in exchange for opportunities, products, or long-term savings. A strange little modern barter system, if you will.

User Testing.

The UserTesting platform provides an option to exchange time for income through surveys, recorded tests, and live conversations. I’ve done each, and my favorite opportunities are the live conversations!

Amazon Vine (invite-only).

Once upon a time, I discovered Amazon…and never looked back. (Who’s with me? 🙋🏽‍♀️) When I review purchased products, I like to provide tons of details, complete with photos and videos whenever possible.

Apparently, someone noticed when I was invited to join the Amazon Vine program almost two years ago. Once I received enough “helpful” (heart) votes on my reviews, I hit Amazon’s radar, and they reached out with an invitation. Vine is an opportunity to trade my time for free products, which I can keep, discard, give away, or sell.

Most of what I receive gets donated, so it’s a cool way to flex my writing muscle and try out free products. Tell the world what I think about something? Yes, please! Blessing local ministries through donations of new items is a great byproduct as well.

Bigger Buys

The larger the purchase, the larger the margin for regret…or wisdom. These are the areas where patience, research, and resisting impulse can save hundreds or even thousands over time. Painful lessons from adulthood, generously passed down free of charge. You’re welcome.

Homeschooling Curriculum.

We started homeschooling our daughter when she first started school over five years ago. Her curriculum cost felt reasonable at that time, at a few hundred dollars a year. The younger the child and the lower the grade level, the less expensive it was.

Enter inflation, price increases, and grade advancements, and the cost is now in the thousands annually. When additional savings are available, we prefer to pay bigger bills in full. Her curriculum always goes on sale in the spring, too, which helps.

She typically starts school sometime between July and September, so I always purchase the upcoming grade’s curriculum between February and April to take advantage of the annual sale. To date, this process has saved me over $1,000!

Technology Purchases.

After graduating from high school, I used my graduation gifts of cash to buy my first computer, a Gateway laptop, for $500. (Gateway was acquired by Acer back in 2007, which is why we never hear about or see those cow-covered computers anymore.)

I know what you’re probably thinking… For a laptop 20+ years ago, that’s outrageously expensive! You are correct. And it wasn’t even new; it was a rebuild. The good ol’ Gateway chugged along for just shy of four years, almost my entire college career.

One delightful afternoon, while it sat on my lap, I experienced a sneeze—the kind you can’t hold back or you’ll self-implode. Out came the sneeze, and up went the laptop. When it landed back in my lap, it had turned off. And it never turned on again.

Perfect timing. I had the opportunity to start my multi-page, thousands-of-words, hours-of-research term paper over. Ouch.

That experience left me bitter toward anything rebuilt, refurbished, or repurposed. Even those words were a trigger for years to follow. Fortunately, repurposed technology has come a long way since then.

Earlier this year I decided to take the plunge again, this time in the form of an Amazon-renewed iPhone 15 Pro. After tons of research, I learned of the heightened requirements for redone and resellable tech products. That put my mind at ease.

If you’re curious, for my iPhone purchase specifically: the remaining battery life must meet or exceed 80%, there can only be minor (almost unnoticeable) wear on the body, and everything else has to be just as if I purchased it new.

So I did it. I purchased a renewed iPhone 15 Pro from Amazon just over six months ago, for over $1,000 less than the cost of a new iPhone 17 Pro.

Fun Fact: Most renewed Amazon purchases qualify for a 90-day return instead of their standard 30-day return window.

Once I was confident in the iPhone 15 Pro’s abilities, I sold my iPhone 13 for over half the cost of my “new-to-me” iPhone. That put my total out-of-pocket cost around $200.

Compared to the iPhone 13, the iPhone 15 feels like a massive upgrade in both hardware and software.

Spoiler Alert: I rinse and repeat this process with vehicle purchases too.

I won’t upgrade iPhones again for at least two years. If I follow this same formula, I’d buy an iPhone 17 at that time, giving me a couple of years to see how it functions for other folks and decide if I want that model.

Having an iPhone costs me ~$100/year compared to buying a new iPhone annually at 10x the cost! 🤯

Insurance.

Insurance is riveting, isn’t it? I’ll try to keep things fun in this area too. For purposes of this section, I’m only referring to auto, home, and umbrella insurance. They say the only guarantees in life are death and taxes. May we please add insurance to that list?

Had our family not had the right insurance coverage in place, we would have shelled out $15,000 for a new roof a couple of years ago, and another chunk of change for the cost of a newish vehicle when my sedan was totaled over a decade ago.

Insurance is an annoying expense, primarily because we don’t see the benefits if/until something goes wrong. But not having it (or the right amount of it) is the kicker. My insurance tricks to help soften the blow—once we reached that point in our budget—are as follows:

Tip 1: Have an Emergency Fund (i.e., a savings account filled with gobs of money) that could cover at least three months’ worth of expenses, including the cost of your auto and home deductibles (as applicable).

• If your auto deductible is $500 per incident, make sure you have that $500 in savings.

• If your home deductible is $1,000 per incident, have that amount set aside in savings.

• If you’re like us and have a separate hail/wind-damage deductible ($5,000 for us), have that amount in savings too.

• Add it all together, and you should have at least $6,500 in your savings account based on the numbers above.

• If we’re getting nitpicky, you could probably get away with $5,500 in your Emergency Fund since home deductibles don’t stack. (Translation: You’d either pay $1,000 or $5,000 for a home insurance claim.)

Tip 2: If you’re stocked up in the savings department above, and if it makes sense to do so, increase your insurance deductibles.

The standard deductibles for both auto and home are $500-$1,000. Could you increase your auto to $1,000 and home to $2,500 or $5,000? Yes, if it makes sense.

Tip 3: Pay annually and in full. Insurance carriers typically offer a discount for doing so.

Tip 4: Ask for discounts and additional savings opportunities.

• Are your policies bundled (as in, all your insurances are with the same carrier/company)?

• Are you a safe driver? (What is considered safe? 🤔)

• Does your vehicle have extra safety bells and whistles?

• Do you have a home security system?

• Reach out to your insurance agent to see if any of these features translate to savings.

Vehicles.

A decade ago, my husband got the “itch,” the one that says, “I’m a dude. I need a truck.” So we sold his sedan and went shopping. We settled on a small, green-colored GMC, a sorry excuse for a truck. But it had a bed, and it ran.

The seller—a dude—had a bad dye job and haircut, and we should have asked so many more questions. In that moment, we learned that it’s fair to judge the seller just as much as the vehicle. Had I gone with my gut, we would’ve avoided that rod-knock truck altogether.

The engine blew a few months later.

My husband and I have owned over two dozen vehicles thus far between the two of us. We’re well-versed in vehicle recalls. But never had we experienced the recall of an entire vehicle.

Another financial face-plant came in the form of the Volkswagen Jetta. I’ll spare you the saga, but VW got lazy and installed a “test” part into thousands of production vehicles, which included our TDI (Turbocharged Direct Injection) Jetta.

We also used a loan to purchase our Jetta, so the impact went multiple layers deep. VW bought the Jetta back from us, a nice gesture, but we lost significant money between the loan and the severely discounted buyback amount. We’ve never taken out a vehicle loan since.

A couple of years ago, we bought an SUV from an interesting couple. They were kind, but I could sense the sketchiness. I could feel the concerns piling up, even as I messaged the point of contact on Messenger from Facebook Marketplace.

Based on my spidey-senses, I knew there would be things wrong with the SUV. We were prepared to low-ball the price—and we did, and they accepted the offer. This scenario wasn’t as risky as the junky truck because we’d set aside extra funds and budgeted $3,000 to fix it.

The vehicle is still worth more than we paid all-in. As a rule, $1,000/year in vehicle purchase cost is what we like to spend.

The Payoff (or Payout)

After experimenting with weird systems, practical shortcuts, and anti-inflammatory spending habits, I’ve noticed a few patterns: they have less to do with math and more to do with behavior, patience, and learning how to live slightly outside default settings.

So what did we learn?

1. Convenience can cost more than we notice, so we have to calculate the trade-off (delivery fees and tips vs. an in-person grocery run).

2. Patience can be financially profitable (i.e., taking the time to digitize receipts).

3. Bulk and pay-in-full purchases can bring additional benefits.

4. Using time as a resource is next level.

5. Pride can make us overspend, so words like “used” or “preowned” or even the words “borrow” or “rent” can be a trigger. These aren’t things to be ashamed of.

Spend money and resources on the things that matter.

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If something didn’t change—and fast—I wasn’t going to make it to my forty-first birthday. I hadn’t taken a meaningful day off work in months. Going all-in, no brakes, was fun for a season: the feeling of adrenaline coursing through my veins as I made the final touches on a major project, moving miles a minute through obstacles that were no longer a problem. As a long-term strategy, this failed. Every time.

Sure, I’d taken plenty of personal and sick days along with holidays in the last year. But just because I wasn’t at the office didn’t mean I was resting. In the last three months alone, our family braved a dangerous ice storm; my husband had his last major surgery related to an unfortunate event from last year; we celebrated four years since Adoption Day for our daughter Gabby; my team survived Tax Day; I celebrated 13 years at my current company; and I launched my first book.

After the whirlwind was over, if I didn’t strategically step away, things would start to break down. The signs were already there. Allowing that to happen would be a costly and painful mistake. I was determined not to let it go there this time.

“Why don’t you take a day off?” my husband suggested. At first, the idea sounded too simple to work. A day away from the office wasn’t equivalent to a solution to burnout. But what could it look like to add intentionality behind some time off? Deciding to follow his advice was almost instant. What day would make sense? That’s when I nailed down the date: two days after Tax Day, I would step away.

But taking a day off wasn’t the hard part. Taking one intentionally was. I didn’t want a random Friday filled with errands, distractions, Netflix binging, or half-rest. I wanted to interrupt the rhythm I’d been living inside of long enough to remember what it felt like to be a person instead of a machine.

Expect things not to go as planned

Friday came, and all started according to plan… then my phone started blowing up.

All 35 members of my immediate family are taking a trip out East this summer to celebrate my parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary. That’s too many people to squeeze into one rental, so we all coordinated short-term rentals to stay nearby. There will be group events throughout the week, but having almost three dozen humans in the same spaces will take some planning.

My family decided it would happen that day. The first day off I’d had in months. Perfect timing. Disruption rarely asks permission before arriving.

I turned the text thread and notifications off, and to solidify the decision, I turned all my electronics to “Do Not Disturb” mode. (Whoever invented that feature, Thank You!)

This day won’t be perfect, so it isn’t fair to expect it to be. Remember: the goal isn’t perfection; it’s disruption. If your normal rhythm is stress, speed, obligation, and reaction, then even a slightly imperfect day can still be wildly restorative.

Pick a day to step away

The minute you lock in the day, just know: invites will start rolling in. There will be conflicts galore. Protect that day. Don’t give in. Interrupting your rhythm will be worth it. Choose a day with intention. Don’t wait until burnout forces the decision for you.

Your body is usually polite before it becomes dramatic.

Plan ahead

Anything you can do beforehand, do it. Removing potential interrupters in advance will only help. The only person who knew how and where to find me that Friday was my husband. Accessibility is one of the biggest threats to rest. Constant availability trains your brain to stay alert, even when your body is technically off the clock. If everyone can reach you instantly, your brain never fully clocks out. Creating boundaries ahead of time isn’t selfish; it’s practical.

I get to work at 6:00 a.m., sometimes even arriving before the sun! I knew I wanted to stay up late the night before my day off, sleep in, yet still get up at a decent hour before the day slipped away entirely. I need 7-8 hours of sleep each night. If I stayed up till 1:00 a.m., I could get up at 8:00 a.m. and have squeezed in the bare minimum of sleep. That would give me just enough time to get ready for the day and head to my first venue by 8:30 a.m.

Note on the venue(s)… do your research. I lost some momentum during the two-hour writing retreat portion of my day while waiting in line for coffee (apparently, Friday mornings are when everyone has the same idea), trying to find the WiFi password (and utterly failing), and being distracted by the new venue. Don’t be like me. Choosing a familiar yet offsite enough venue can help.

Environment matters more than we admit. A change in scenery can shift your mindset, but unfamiliar places also come with friction. Strike a balance between “different enough to feel fresh” and “familiar enough to avoid wasting mental energy.”

The goal of this step is to clear your schedule and prime it for your Top Three.

This was the most important part of the entire day. Without intention, free time tends to disappear into scrolling, errands, chores, or vague productivity disguised as rest.

Ask yourself, “What do I want to feel like when this day is over?”

This question alone inspired the entirety of my day. I wanted to feel accomplished yet grateful and relaxed at the end of the day.

Establish your Top Three

If you can’t do anything else on the day you’ve chosen, what are the three things you want to have done that day? Think less about achievement and more about alignment. What would make the day feel worthwhile when it was over?

Naps in excess of an hour count! Notice the order of events: therapy/relaxation was last. I’m glad I planned this for the end of the day. I arrived home relaxed, ready to tackle tasks, but still refused to do them… until the next day.

Part of breaking your rhythm means refusing to follow your usual script. My weekdays typically begin before sunrise, which meant sleeping in felt almost rebellious. That alone made the day feel different.

Nothing dramatic happened that Friday. No breakthrough. No life-changing revelation. Just a quiet interruption to a pattern that had been running unchecked for too long.

How did I actually feel when Friday was over?

Accomplished. Meaningful. Relaxed. In that order.

Sometimes the healthiest thing you can do is disrupt the rhythm that’s slowly wearing you down. Not everything in life needs to be maintained. Some patterns deserve to be broken.

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Because once you lose it, you spend the next hour pretending to work while actually just rearranging sentences and questioning your life choices.

Then I saw my husband’s name pop up with a play button. It was a video of my daughter enjoying her new bounce house, complete with an inflated slide, basketball hoop, and water spraying in all directions.

Chaos. Joy. Zero calendar invites.

I lived in the north for almost three decades. Experiencing snow as a kid was pure bliss. Snow days were a rare and delicious treat. As an adult, needing to make it to the office in a full-on white-out was…dread.

Somewhere along the way, wonder got rescheduled.

That day, my daughter was fully in the moment.

Time didn’t exist. The only metric was: keep going.

No outcome. No agenda. Just…more.

I was on a schedule.

Every hour accounted for, every task justified.

Every minute explained, as if existing required permission.

Kids experience life to the fullest.

Adults? We manage things.

We get better at life and worse at living it.

• Fluorescent paradise for eight hours: controlled productivity.
  The kind that looks impressive on paper and feels like nothing in your body.

• Bounce house for six hours: complete freedom.
  The kind you can’t measure, which is probably why we stop choosing it.

And there it was, the tension no one warns you about: the life you’re building versus the life happening without you.

One looks responsible. The other feels real.

I chose the latter. And did just the same as my daughter: spent the remainder of daylight outside, watching her exemplify joy.

No optimization. No productivity hack. Just showing up.

When given the choice, I hope we all choose the second option.

Even when it feels inconvenient. Even when it makes no sense on paper.

We learned to manage it. We forgot to be in it.

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Growing up, I never felt normal.

Not that I even knew what “normal” was supposed to feel like. Does anyone? I doubt it. But what I did feel—deeply—was that I didn’t belong. I stood out in ways I couldn’t explain, and not always in ways I liked.

The moment I got my first whiff of success, imposter syndrome hit like a freight train. “Should I even be here?” “Am I just faking it better than most?”

Spoiler Alert: I wasn’t. But the questions stuck.

Then came adulthood, and with it, a strange and surprising realization:
Maybe being normal is a curse.
Perhaps oddness is the goal! 🎯

What’s the truth?

If you’re asking this question, you might already be weird.

Welcome. You’re in good company. Let’s embrace it on purpose.

1. Don’t Go to College

Right away… or maybe ever.

To be clear, I’m not anti-education; I’m anti-doing-things-just-because-that’s-what-you’re-supposed-to-do. And college? That’s a big-ticket item in the supposed-to-do starter pack.

If you don’t know what you want to do with your life (and who really does at 16, 17, or 18 years old?), why drop tens of thousands of dollars to figure it out in the confines of a lecture hall?

Take a gap year. Or five. Or skip it entirely and build your syllabus from podcasts, books, apprenticeships, YouTube rabbit holes, and real-world experience, and good ol’ trial and error.

Plot Twist: Some of the most resourceful, brilliant people I know never went to college. 😱 Now they’re busy running businesses, raising families, inventing stuff, and doing work they love. (And no one asked them about their GPA.)

I went to college, and I’m grateful for the discipline learned and connections made. But my degree mentally boxed me in. It told me, “You studied this. You must do only this.” The rebel inside screamed, Says who?!

If you love learning, keep learning. But don’t let the pressure to be “normal” sign you up for years of debt, stress, and existential dread if your heart's not in it.

Being weird means choosing your path, not defaulting to one that’s pre-paved.

2. Budget Your Money

Budgeting is severely underrated. I know this because of what it truly is: guilt-free permission to spend. To tell your money where to go instead of wondering where it went. To fund your dreams on purpose, not just survive.

Some folks hear “budget” and receive a side of indigestion as they begin picturing spreadsheets, ramen noodles, and soul-crushing denial. Done right, a budget provides freedom, not restriction.

It's not about saying “no” to everything fun; it's about saying “yes” to the right things: travel, side hustles, or finally starting that weird Etsy shop selling miniature diving gear for birds. (No judgment. I'm there for it!) 🤿

I use EveryDollar.com for several reasons: it’s simple, it’s my favorite price (free!), and it doesn’t judge me when I overspend on books or office supplies. Managing your money well is rare enough to be rebellious.

Being weird means being intentional.

3. Budget Your Time

Just like budgeting, tell your time where to go, or you’ll wonder where it went.

That feeling of money slipping through your fingers when you don’t track it? Time’s even sneakier. At least with money, there’s a paper trail.

Time just vanishes. Poof. Gone! 💨

Somehow, you’re four episodes into a show you don’t even like, wondering what happened to Thursday. (Guilty as charged! 🙋🏽‍♀️)

Budgeting your time doesn’t mean plotting out each second; it means being aware of how you spend those moments. You don’t get them back. Think of your calendar like a bank account with limited deposits. Spend accordingly.

And yes, “fun” belongs in the budget. Netflix? Hulu? Binge away—as long as you know it’s a choice, not an accident. The advantage of streaming platforms is, they tell you exactly how much time you’ll spend, like a calorie count for your attention span.

Being weird means managing time like it matters, because it does.

4. Get Acquainted with God

It’s not religion; it’s relationship.

For a long time, I thought God lived in a church building. My family dressed up, showed up, and sang the songs. “Normal” said God was a Sunday occurrence—a ritual, a checklist item, something we did out of duty, not desire.

I didn’t need a ritual—I needed a rescuer.

I didn’t need performance—I needed presence.

Getting acquainted with God isn’t about earning His love or impressing Him with expected behavior. It’s about trusting that He created you, He already knows you, He loves you dearly, and He wants to walk with you in the mess and the beauty.

It’s rarely tidy. Sometimes it’s quiet. Sometimes it’s obnoxious, complete with an ugly cry. But it’s real.

Weird people invite God into the everyday. They ask questions. They wrestle. They pray with imperfect words. In this raw and honest space, they find the kind of peace the world can’t manufacture.

Being weird means making room for God each day, not just on Sunday.

5. Talk to Yourself

Tell yourself the right things.

Whether you know it or not, you’re already talking to yourself. The only question is, what’s the message?

We would never vocalize the things we tell ourselves. Negative self-talk has a strong magnetic pull. The key to being weird (and successful) is learning to redirect the internal conversation.

Don’t focus on what you can’t do or what went wrong; tell yourself what you can do. Focus on your strengths, your possibilities, your “what ifs.”

Choose to believe you’re worthy of success, peace, and happiness, even though the world may disagree with you. Your internal dialogue is the soundtrack of your life, so make it one you want to listen to. 🎧

Being weird means speaking to yourself with love and encouragement.

The “normal” world is full of checkboxes, restrictions, and “shoulds.” But the weird world? It’s full of possibilities. Taking the road less traveled, even if it feels a little bumpy, will pay off. Your weirdness is your superpower.

Be weird: it’s where the good stuff happens! 🤪

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