Start Where You Are
It’s Sunday, and we’ve got a fresh week in front of us.
Which makes it a good time to ask a simple question:
How did last week go?
For me?
It was a really good one.
Went out to dinner. Participated in one of those “visit a bunch of places and get entered into a drawing” games (don’t think I won… shocking). Hit opening night for the local baseball team and checked out the new stadium. Met some cool people. And yesterday, I got invited out to the lake for a day of boating.
Great fun.
A well-lived week.
One small issue, though…
Yesterday, when I put on my swimsuit, looked in the mirror, I thought:
Huh… not exactly the direction we’re going for here, is it?
So naturally, I did what any rational person would do in that moment.
Exactly.
I proceeded to over-eat and drink my way through the rest of the day at the lake.
No worries… deal with it later.
Ah, yes.
I suppose later has arrived…
When I look back at the week, it was filled with “good stuff.”
But health and fitness?
Eh, well…you see… yeah… we’re going to circle back on that one.
And that’s okay.
At least I’m aware of it.
Look, this blog is about getting out on—and staying on—the Highway to Yeah.
And while I’ll keep exploring deeper topics like personal myths, transformational psychology, values, lifestyle design, FIRE, encore careers, and all of that…
Today is about coming back to basics.
Zeroscaping your life.
Creating the freedom to actually live your truth.
One simple practice that helps with this?
A weekly review.
(Not a perfect one. Just an honest one.)
Now, yes—you also need to know what you’re trying to build into your life.
But we’ll set that aside for today.
Let’s just start with where you are.
I’ll use myself as the example.
One framework I like comes from the book The One Thing:
What’s the one thing you could do such that, by doing it, everything else becomes easier or unnecessary?
You can apply that question to any area of your life.
Here’s what mine looks like right now across my top three Zeroscaping focus areas:
Health & Fitness
The one thing? Reduce calorie intake.
Right now, I’m trending about 400 calories per day over my (already generous) daily target.
Not complicated. Just… not currently happening.
Finances
Overall, solid.
But I’ve got a couple of large bills staring at me this week—property taxes (oh joy), for example.
Those need to get handled. Immediately.
(No amount of mindset work makes those disappear.)
Simplifying (Zeroscaping)
It’s time to bring back a daily declutter habit, for a time.
I’m currently living what I call a “dorm simple” lifestyle in an apartment. Before moving in, I set a goal to own 250 items or fewer.
After moving in and getting settled, I did a full inventory.
242 items.
Nailed it.
Since then?
Ignored it.
I pulled up that inventory again.
Here’s what stood out:
At the time, I only reported “loving” 74% of those items.
Interesting. My ideal is loving 90% or more.
And now? I’ve definitely added more.
Time to give this spinning plate a little attention.
Translation:
It’s time to get back on top of it.
So that’s where I’m starting this week.
Not from where I wish I was.
Not from some ideal version of myself.
Just… from here.
How about you?
How did your past week go?
A couple things to think about:
What were your top 3 favorite moments from the past week?
What were your top 3 biggest concerns?
And what’s the one thing you could do this coming week—consistently—that would improve your experience or reduce those concerns?
Start there.
That’s enough.
Good luck… and I’ll see you out on the H2Y.