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I think I’ve written and rewritten this post at least 10 times. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, and while the words are there, I’ve had trouble putting them together into a coherent post. I’m not sure I’ll be able to cover everything that I’d like to talk about, but it’s a start.

Friday night I got together with a close friend of mine. Zan and I have been friends since middle school. She is someone who I deeply admire and can always turn to for quality advice. We met up at a wine tasting event called Grand Cru where they were tasting over 200 wines. Thank you brother for being a wine agent/having the best job in the world and getting us in.

In the midst of our catching up I was snapping pictures of the wine, the food and the people (couldn’t find Goldie Hawn or Kiefer). I was smiling, I was laughing, I was eating and drinking what I wanted and I truly felt at ease. Unfortunately this version of me, the best version of me, hasn’t always been around.

I’ve always had an incessant, borderline compulsive need to plan. It’s a coping mechanism for me. When life gets crazy, as it inevitably does, I’ve turned to planning as a means of control. Planning meant consistency and predictability and I’d plan every second of my day to a T. The majority of my planning was focused on diet and exercise e.g. 5:00 AM runs, Sunday food preps, Tuesday yoga etc… While this helped me to get through some challenging times, it also left me incredibly stressed out. No matter how many people or how many times I was told to relax, I was not willing to listen. I would freak out if life deviated from “the plan”, even if that plan only existed in my head.

My stomach has always been the first to react when I’m feeling stressed out. Though I was eating a perfectly clean diet and exercising 6 days a week my stomach still continued to react badly to almost everything I ate. I tried eliminating every food under the sun, which ultimately stressed me out even more because I felt I needed to cook everything. I turned down social invitations. I refused alcohol. Meeting a friend for a wine tasting just wasn’t an option. I was following the plan. And I was unhappy.

It took me up until about few months ago to realize this was the source of my unhappiness. That I was leading a rigid and overly-planned life and I was missing out on all life’s beauty that happens in those unplanned moments. That all of these foods I’d eliminated and all of the exercise I was pushing myself through in an attempt to be “healthy” was stressing me out. And my body was trying every way to tell me this. I was preaching that healthy meant balance when deep down I knew my life was the furthest thing from balanced.

The reality is that I am young. So young. I basically have zero responsibilities and now is the time I should be having fun and letting the chips fall as they may. I can worry about planning once I have a family and other people’s lives to organize but for now I want to let go of the reigns. I want to workout when I want to and if I have the time, not because it’s scheduled. And I want to meal prep if I feel like cooking, not because it’s Sunday. I want to go out late and come home late. I want to make mistakes, and then I want to try to not make them again. I want to relax. I want to do all of these things, because I can. They say that “youth is wasted on the young”. I don’t want to look back in 20 years and wish I’d done things differently.

I got home Friday night after wine tasting with Zan and I truly felt comfortable with myself. I overdosed on cheese and drank too much wine and when I woke up Saturday morning surprisingly stomach ache-free and hangover-less I went to yoga, because I wanted to. It’s crazy how all the things that stress you out in life, the stomach aches, the injuries all seem to resolve when you just relax.

These past few months have been difficult and challenging, but for the first time in a long time I feel happy. My definition of healthy has changed and inevitably the blog will change. You won’t be hearing me blog about my weekly meal prep or workouts, my diet-du-jour or anything that starts with a p and ends in lan. What you can expect are some delicious and healthy recipes, the occasional indulgent one and perhaps a recap of nights I don’t actually remember. I’m trying this whole “fly by the seat of your pants” deal. I hope you’ll join me for the ride.

Have you ever found yourself overly planning your life? 

Meet the Maven

Hi! I'm Davida and welcome to my corner of the internet. I'm a wellness blogger, yoga teacher, certified herbalist, and green beauty lover.

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87 Comments

  1. I can totally relate to this! I used to TOTALLY overplan. (I’d track every calorie, planning ahead, putting in a days worth of meals before I ate anything, to get everything “perfect” and balanced.) It drove me bananas! Luckily, over the past year or two, I’ve been able to relax a LOT and I feel way better now!

  2. I love this post girl! I can seriously relate. I’m a total Type A personality so I’m usually all about planning. I’ve never planned my workouts, but I actually used to stress myself out about meal planning. How silly is that? Haha. Also I’m the kind of person who likes to plan my schedule way ahead of time when it comes to hanging out with friends, etc.

    It’s awesome that you’ve loosened up lately and it’s made an obvious improvement in your life. You’re so right that we’re still young and there’s no need to stress ourselves out. I’ve become a lot freer lately too, but I could probably become a bit less rigid about always needing to have my weekends planned out to a T. Sometimes being spontaneous is the most fun!

    1. I know, it’s so silly when you think it about it! Meal planning and exercise planning is supposed to make our lives easier, not more stressful! When I think about it this way, I realize how imperative it is that I make these changes now because if I’m feeling stressed now, I can only imagine how I’m going to feel 10 years from now!

  3. I hear you 100% on this. Stress is totally my nemesis when it comes to my digestive issues. I was feeling so great during the summer and then about a month back into school BAM- upset stomachs! I need to start incorporating more stress reduction techniques- I can’t go back to where I was last winter it was terible!

    Good for you for recognizing this- you are right. THIS is the time to enjoy life, be crazy, make mistakes and go against the grain. You have so much freedom and missing out on experiences now is hard to regain later in life. Life later on will be beautiful too, but in a different way. Enjoy the beauty of not knowing what each day brings and of being impulsive. We are young and we better make the most of it 🙂

  4. It is something I struggle with currently and it is so hard to break out of a planned out by the clock and day life. But I am aware and trying my best to break out of this and I can say I think I am slowly making some positive progress!

  5. I love this post because I can relate so much to your words. I used to be obsessive about planning, and when all my carefully made future plans fell apart completely, my mind went into panic mode and turned all its focus on something it could concretely control — my diet and fitness. This eventually lead to a 5-year struggle with an ED and other countless miseries… But if there’s one thing I’m thankful for, it’s that going through that really taught me how to ease up and go with the flow. I realized that the world doesn’t end when you don’t stick to the plan, and that you usually end up having a better time than if you try and be rigid. I’m glad to hear that you’re finding this out for yourself, and you better believe that I’m along for the ride 😀

    1. Love you lady! You are such an inspiration for me about what it means to leave a truly balanced life. <3

  6. What an awesome post!! It is wonderful that you have realized your need to plan was unhealthy for you. Hopefully, you will now be more able to just sit back and enjoy the ride!!

  7. Yes, yes and yes. I can totally relate and love this post. I’m learning to love intuitive eating, intuitive fitness, and intuitive living – and it’s the best!

    1. I love that! It’s not just about intuitive eating but intuitive everything! Now it’s just a matter of me trusting my intuition 🙂

  8. True words. Stress is always the worst for my health. Currently I am stressing out about getting my Master thesis done until the end of this year and I am sick all the time. Everything from a heavy cold to constant migraines. No fun. But when I losened up last weekend and enjoyed a party at my boyfriends house I felt perfectly fine the next day. We really tend to underestimate how important it is to take the time and relax.

    1. Exactly! The effect stress has on our health is immense and to think we are the only people responsible for it!

  9. Davida, your words were so therapeutic to me. I cannot even begin to express how greatly I needed to read this post. I’m horrible when it comes to scheduling my days out. Sure I can relax, but not like a 24 year should. I love that you mentioned your young, so young & now isn’t the time to worry about complete responsibilities.
    Such an eye opener. Thank you, darling <3

    1. Jessie! I’m so happy my words were able to resonate with you. I hope you too are enjoying the beautiful life you have in front of you!

  10. Beautiful post lovely, I know that feeling of it bouncing around in your brain, so I’m glad you were able to share it. More importantly, I’m so happy that you are happy! Self-reflection is hard enough, making changes based on those reflections are even harder. As I think you may know (or at least suspect), I too am something of a super planner. I wasn’t always like this, but I became very compulsive about it because it’s my key to time management, and time management is what allows me to take on so much. Luckily, planning itself hasn’t become a source of stress for me, because I rarely mind changing the plan as long as a plan still exists. For me, the issue has always been control, and it took me a long time to figure that out. Whenever negative things happen that are outside my control, I reach out desperately to control what I can. That’s what turns my healthy life not so healthy and leaves me not at all happy. You’re amazing and inspirational. Thanks so much for sharing! *hugs*

    1. Thank you for sharing Kim! I agree that planning is so necessary especially when you’ve taken on as much as you have. For me the planning got to a point where it was stressing me out and preventing me from enjoying my life, rather than helping to manage it. But so far so good on the changes. Lots of hugs in return!