You know those rooms.

The ones you walk past thinking:

Someday we’ll sit in there more.

Someday we’ll have people over.

Someday we’ll actually put a dining room table in the dining room.

Yes, we had a dining room without a dining room table. Apparently we were going for minimalist. Or wildly unfinished. Depends on how generous you’re feeling.

But as we were getting ready to sell the house, something hit me.

I had lived there for years, and there were entire rooms I barely spent any time in.

The rooms were there.

I just kept walking past them, assuming I’d get to them someday.

And it made me wonder:

Have I been doing the same thing with my life?

Someday I’ll rest.

Someday I’ll have more fun.

Someday I’ll make new friends.

Someday I’ll take that trip, learn that thing, or finally do whatever has been sitting on my mental list for the last decade.

Maybe the problem isn’t that we need to completely change our lives.

Maybe we’ve just been spending too much time in one room.

When Health and Fitness Take Over the Whole House

For years, the biggest room in my life was health and fitness.

My workouts. My nutrition. What I was eating. When I was eating. Whether I trained. How long I trained. Whether I had done enough.

And I still care about those things.

I believe women should strength train. I care about protein, walking, sleep, and taking care of our bodies.

Nutrition is not being escorted from the building.

But there was a time when health and fitness weren’t simply one room in my life.

They took over the whole damn house.

I had built a very nice health and fitness room and then lived in it like it was a studio apartment.

If my workout wasn’t two hours, I could convince myself it didn’t count. If I missed a workout, I felt guilty.

I could have a great conversation, laugh with my husband, do work I cared about, spend time outside, and eat a delicious meal.

But if I missed the workout?

Somehow that one unchecked box could make the entire day feel less successful.

Eventually I had to ask myself:

Is this helping me live a healthier life, or is it just giving me another way to grade myself?

Because health should support your life.

Your entire life shouldn’t be built around proving how healthy, disciplined, or productive you are.

What Is All This Health Actually For?

Last summer, I was sitting at a bar talking to an older gentleman when he said he was in the back nine of his life.

That phrase stuck with me.

I’m not declaring myself in the back nine. I’ve got plenty of game left. I’m still looking for the beverage cart.

But it made me think:

How do I actually want to spend the rest of my life?

Do I want to spend it pissed because my workout wasn’t long enough?

Do I want to feel guilty because I missed one?

Do I want to keep measuring a good day by how closely I followed a bunch of rules?

Or do I want to pay more attention to how my life feels while I’m actually living it?

Am I rested?

Am I laughing?

Do I have people to call and places to go?

Am I curious about anything?

Am I doing any of those things I keep saying I’ll do someday?

I don’t want to reach some future age and realize I became excellent at maintaining myself but forgot to enjoy myself.

I want to be strong, healthy, and energetic enough to participate in my life.

That’s what the workout is for.

Maybe Your Routine Isn’t Broken. Maybe It Expired.

This is where so many women over 40 and 50 get stuck.

We keep trying to make what worked five, ten, or twenty years ago work now.

Same workout schedule.

Same food rules.

Same expectations.

Same definition of what “being good” looks like.

Meanwhile, our bodies have changed. Our responsibilities have changed. Our schedules, relationships, energy, and priorities may have changed.

The season changed.

Imagine standing outside during a Boston blizzard in January wearing a bathing suit because going to the beach worked great in July.

You can be furious about the weather.

As someone who lived in Boston for 30 years, I have personally been offended by the weather many times.

Still doesn’t change the forecast.

At some point, you have to dress for the season you’re actually in.

The same thing applies to your life.

Maybe you don’t need more discipline.

Maybe your routine isn’t broken.

Maybe it expired.

Build a Life Recipe Instead of Another Set of Rules

This is what I’m experimenting with now.

Instead of another rigid set of rules, I’m creating what I call my Life Recipe.

A recipe has ingredients, but there’s room to adjust.

My recipe still includes strength training, walking, protein, water, sleep, and taking care of my body.

But now it also includes:

• Rest
• Play
• Connection
• Wander

And the recipe has to work inside my actual life.

Not Fantasy Kim’s life where she has unlimited time, endless energy, and nobody ever asks her where something is.

I’ve shifted my weekends around because that works better for the life my husband and I have now.

I’m learning pickleball.

I’m learning mahjong.

I’m making room for things I’m not already good at.

And something interesting happens when you start opening up these other rooms.

They connect.

Play can lead to connection.

Rest can give you the energy to wander.

Connection can introduce you to something new.

And when health stops taking up the entire house, taking care of yourself may actually start feeling easier.

The Four Rooms You May Be Walking Past

Think about your life as a house.

There are four rooms many of us slowly stop using as we get busier being responsible adults.

The Rest Room

And no, not the bathroom.

Although depending on who lives in your house, that may be the only room where people leave you alone.

The rest room asks whether you can stop without earning it first.

Can you sit down because you’re tired?

Can you watch a movie without simultaneously folding laundry?

Can you have a day that isn’t productive, optimized, or useful and still call it a good day?

If rest only happens once you’re completely exhausted, you’re not really making room for rest.

You’re recovering so you can go be productive again.

The Play Room

This is where fun lives.

And for a lot of women, fun has quietly fallen to the bottom of a list that never ends.

We’ll do something fun after the work is done.

After the house is handled.

After everyone else is okay.

After we magically discover some extra time.

So basically… never.

Play doesn’t have to be a two-week vacation or an impressive new hobby.

Go play pickleball.

Take a mahjong class.

Meet someone for lunch.

Hit golf balls.

Dance in your kitchen.

Try something you might completely suck at.

You’re allowed to enjoy something without turning it into another performance review.

The Connection Room

You can know plenty of people and still feel disconnected.

You can like someone’s post, send her a meme, and type we need to get together! for six straight months without actually seeing each other.

Ask me how I know.

Connection isn’t about collecting more contacts.

It’s having people you can spend time with, laugh with, talk to, and call when real life gets real.

And sometimes rebuilding this room starts ridiculously small:

“Want to grab a drink Thursday?”

Not we should get together sometime.

An actual day.

The Wander Room

This is where curiosity and your someday list live.

Someday I’ll go there.

Someday I’ll learn that.

Someday I’ll try that.

Someday is incredibly patient. It’ll sit quietly while another year goes by.

Wandering doesn’t require quitting your job and flying solo to Bali.

Try the restaurant you keep driving past.

Explore the town 30 minutes away.

Take the class.

Walk into the weird little shop.

Do something differently simply because you’re curious about what might happen.

Wander is the part of you that is still interested in your own life.

You Don’t Need to Renovate Your Whole Life

Here’s the part I really want you to hear:

If one of these rooms has been neglected, your whole life isn’t broken.

You don’t need to bulldoze the house.

You don’t need a dramatic reinvention.

You definitely don’t need a new 12-step morning routine beginning at 4:30 a.m. Nobody needs that nonsense.

Maybe you’ve simply been spending too much time in one room.

And maybe another room has been sitting there waiting for you to open the door.

Houses change as the people living inside them change.

A nursery becomes an office.

A formal dining room becomes the mahjong room.

A room that once mattered enormously might not be the room you need most now.

You’re allowed to repurpose things.

Your life gets to work that way too.

You don’t have to tackle every room at once.

Pick one.

Rest before everything is finished.

Make one fun plan.

Text the friend and put an actual date on the calendar.

Choose one thing from your someday list and take the smallest possible step toward it.

Not because you need another assignment.

Because this is your life, and you get to live in more than one room of it.

Which Room in Your Life Needs Attention?

So take a look around your metaphorical house.

Which door have you been walking past?

Rest?

Play?

Connection?

Wander?

I created a free quiz, What Room in Your Life Needs Attention?, to help you figure out which room may need a little more attention in this season of your life and give you one small place to start.

TAKE THE QUIZ

This isn’t about finding another thing wrong with you.

It’s about noticing what this season of your life needs and being willing to adjust.

Because taking care of your health matters.

But so does having a life you actually want to be healthy enough to live.

The post Stop Waiting for Someday to Enjoy Your Life appeared first on Kim Barnes Jefferson.