The Daily Habits I'm Doing in Q1 to Feel Calm, Creative, Wealthy, and Declarative
These daily actions are small to help me reach my mighty goals.
A friend asked me last week whether I have a process for making sure I’m working toward my bigger goals on an everyday basis, like daily habits.
My hope is that I can answer that here without boring you to death! Let’s go…
🗺️ The Future Self Map Concept
Last spring, I did 3 months of coaching with Body Brain Alliance. (Shout out to Jimena Ramirez - she’s the coach who helped me reframe what outsourcing could look like, which I shared about here!)
A big component of the BBA coaching program is to design your “Future Self Map.” Essentially, you look at who you are now (e.g. Angie 1.0), then consider who you want to become (Angie 2.0), and identify the values and behaviors needed to become that version of you.
You pick four adjectives/qualities that describe Future You, then come up with your “Core 4” habits or behaviors that will help you become Future You.
BBA is all about self-compassionate behavior change, so the point isn’t to get down on yourself on the days you don’t do the behaviors. The point is to notice why you did or didn’t do them— what obstacles came up? How can you protect the behavior moving forward? How can you choose the simplest behaviors possible that will still help you in the becoming?
You stick to your Core 4 for at minimum 90 days, but often longer. This year, I want to try choosing a Core 4 for each quarter, so that by 2026, I might be Angie 6.0 who’s becoming Angie 7.0!
✨ Angie 3.0: Who I Want to Be by April 2025
At the end of December 2024, “Angie 2.0” was burnt out from work in a way that made everyday life inconveniences feel overwhelming.
I kept telling myself I “didn’t have the time” to work on the fun or growth-related projects that I desperately wanted to, since I was too in the weeds with client work that didn’t feel as impactful, but felt more urgent. (After all, many of those more “urgent” projects pay the bills.)
I wanted to create the space and time to rest regularly, reduce urgent work, make money intentionally instead of saying yes to everything, and get picky about what projects I take on (in work and in life).
When I imagine my Future Self, I think: “Angie 3.0 is full of creative and collaborative energy. She’s fueling and resting enough to be 100% “on” when she’s on, and calm enough to be 100% “off” when she’s off. She confidently filters opportunities and makes decisions that will serve her future career.”
^^And TBH, that seems like a realistic version of me to be by April!
✏️ Setting My Q1 Qualities and Behaviors
What qualities does Angie 3.0 embody? I chose these four adjectives (remember, this is what I want to become):
Calm | I feel like I have plenty of space and time to play with. I don’t rush often and know most things are not truly urgent.
Revolutionary | I embrace out-of-the-box thinking and experiment with ideas, processes, and messaging that go against the status quo that doesn’t work for me.
Wealthy | I have enough resources to maximize my impact, and I steward my finances so that I can meet my own needs while not giving into exploitation.
Declarative | I confidently state my thoughts, feelings, and needs, and I’m comfortable telling people who I am and what I do.
Then, I brainstormed daily behaviors that would help me feel those qualities on a regular basis. For Q1, I settled on:
Eat breakfast before I finish my first cup of coffee. ☕
For much of 2024, I found myself unintentionally delaying food because I’d get caught up in morning work. But I have big athletic goals, and fueling early is crucial to stay healthy. Since I always enjoy coffee, I decided to try stacking food with the first cup and not letting myself have more coffee until I eat first. This feels calm since I’m creating time and space to fuel.Get outdoors before 11am. 🌲
Similarly, in 2024 I found myself knee-deep in tasks in the morning in a way that I often put off outside time until afternoon, which is not when I enjoy it most. I want to protect my feel-best hours for my athletic goals. Getting out before 11am maximizes that energy for me. Of course, on days when I make later plans due to friends or the weather, I’ll get out later— it’s about flexibility, not being militant around 11! This feels revolutionary since most of the country would say to work during those hours.Complete a work check-out routine. 💻
Remember “on is on and off is off”? By creating a check-out routine at the end of my workday, I hope to turn that part of my brain off so I can not think about work until I decide to open my laptop the next day. With my simple workspace at the moment, this looks like closing my laptop, putting my planner on top of it to further signal that it’s closed, and completing my line-a-day journal. I expect the routine to shift as I upgrade my desk set-up (e.g. actually putting away the laptop on a future shelf). This feels wealthy because I’m protecting my resources and making sure my brain is in focus mode when it matters most.Record a 2-minute ramble. 🎙️
One of my 2024 words of the year was Declarative, and it was such a great practice for me that I wanted to carry it into the new year. I decided to practice sharing my thoughts confidently and coherently by giving myself a prompt to answer off-the-cuff into my transcription app. (This is like a self-led Table Topics in Toastmasters!) For 2 minutes, I talk into my phone on a topic (with the bonus that if I say something interesting, it’s saved for later in the app.) This feels declarative, obviously.
️🌈 How It’s Going 3 Weeks In
If you can’t tell, I’m kinda in love with this type of growth tool. It’s accessible (I’m tracking on a piece of paper in my journal), quick (a minute a day to record reflections), and self-compassionate (they aren’t pass/fail goals).
And just having these words in my mind helps me look for opportunities on auto-pilot. I keep finding myself start to get stressed, then asking, “What would calm Angie do?” Wild that it actually helps.
3 weeks in, I’m averaging 7-8 out of 10 when I rate myself on my four qualities at the end of the day. SOLID.
As for my Core 4 behaviors?
Eat before coffee: Going great, and feeling great doing so. I’ve only missed 2 days so far this month, and those were unforeseen circumstances.
Outdoors before 11: Ditto. I’ve missed 3 days, but feeling so grateful that I designed my calendar to allow me to get out when I feel best.
Check out routine: This one is a bit too vague as it stands right now, but with a new shelf being assembled as I write, I might have more structure to this one soon. Still, it feels relieving to say “work is done today” and I’m doing better at compartmentalizing it. I’ve done this behavior about 2/3 of days so far.
Daily ramble: This one is the trickiest so far. I think I might have to stack it onto an existing behavior in order to remember to do it. I’ve only followed through 5 days, but still, that’s 5 days of transcribed voice notes to myself that I might want to look back on someday!
🗨️ 3 Final Thoughts + Your Input Wanted
The Disclaimer: I am not a coach, and I only was a client of Body Brain Alliance for 3 months, so there’s a chance I explained their Future Self Mapping exercise in a way they wouldn’t have. I did not invent this process; it belongs to BBA. I’ve just found a lot of value in the style I explained above.
The Awkwardness: This is WEIRD AF to explain to the void of the internet! I hope that my vulnerability is thought-provoking to you, but I also have no idea what you think unless you tell me. Would you send me a message or leave a comment if this style of post resonates with you?!
The Future: I used January as an experiment to try sharing on Substack, and so far I like it a lot! The plan is for the last Tuesday of every month to be a month recap, sharing race training progress, money musings for the month, etc. I’m still figuring out how to best structure what I share on this platform, and I’d love your opinions on whether January’s experiments were fun to read for you.
Until next week!
xo A