Lately I’ve been thinking about how to make life more exciting without actually changing my life. Not quitting my job. Not booking a flight tomorrow. Not reinventing myself, moving to another city, or becoming the kind of woman who wakes up at 5 a.m. and runs six miles before breakfast.
I mean something much smaller: having something in your life that you’re genuinely excited to experience.
Something you catch yourself thinking about in the middle of the workday. Something that makes a random Wednesday feel a little less like all the other Wednesdays.
I don’t think we talk about that enough.
When Did Life Become Mostly About What We Have to Do?
There is always something to do. Emails to answer, appointments to schedule, groceries to buy, laundry that has now been in the dryer long enough to require a second tumble, bills, rooms to clean, people to call, and something on the calendar you completely forgot about until your phone reminded you.
Then we go to work, come home, try to take care of ourselves, scroll for a while, go to sleep, and wake up to some version of the same thing.
There’s nothing wrong with that. A lot of adulthood is simply taking care of your life.
But sometimes I think we get so good at managing our responsibilities that we stop asking a different question: what am I actually excited about right now?
Not what you’re working toward. Not what needs to get done. Not your five-year plan. What’s something you’re excited to experience?
And if nothing comes to mind immediately, I don’t think that means your life is bad. I think it might mean nobody’s given you anything to anticipate lately — including you.
For about three months, I have been buried in studying for my C-ONQS certification exam. Buried in the “color-coded notes and flashcards on the treadmill” kind of way. I was so locked in on passing that I somehow ended up four days from my own birthday without a single plan — not dinner, not a friend group text, nothing. I turn 30-something exactly once, and my calendar looked like it belonged to someone who forgot she was a person outside of a test.
You Don’t Need a Vacation to Have Something to Look Forward To
When we think about exciting things, our minds go straight to the big stuff. A vacation. A promotion. A new relationship. Buying a house.
Those things are exciting. But if excitement only shows up when something major happens, we’re going to spend a lot of our lives waiting. There are only so many vacations in a year, and most Tuesdays aren’t going to contain life-changing news.
Which is why I think the small things carry more weight than we give them credit for.
Maybe you’re waiting on a book you’ve been dying to read. Maybe you’re trying a new restaurant Saturday. Maybe you signed up for a pottery class, or you’re redoing your bedroom, or you’re learning to make pasta from scratch. Maybe you bought concert tickets for three months from now. Maybe you’re planning your fall wardrobe, starting a garden, or genuinely cannot wait for the next episode of a show.
It doesn’t have to impress anyone. It just has to make you excited.
Women Need Things That Belong to Us
There’s another piece of this that feels important.
Women spend an enormous amount of time doing things for other people. We remember the birthdays. We make the appointments. We plan the things. We keep track of what the house needs and who’s running low on what. We show up at work, we check in, we help — and a lot of it is work nobody else can even see.
Somewhere in all of that, it becomes very easy for our own interests to become whatever’s left over. Which, most weeks, is nothing.
That’s why I think every woman should have something that belongs to her simply because she likes it. Not because it’s productive. Not because someone needs her to do it. Not because it’ll look good on a résumé or could be turned into a business someday.
Just because she finds it interesting.
There’s something genuinely valuable about being interested in your own life.
Buy Yourself the Book
One of the easiest ways I’ve found to bring some excitement back into an ordinary week is just having something I’m curious about. Sometimes that’s a topic I want to learn about, sometimes it’s a book, sometimes it’s a completely random rabbit hole I fall into at 10 p.m.
We’ve underestimated how fun curiosity can be.
You don’t have to read only books that improve you. You don’t need another book teaching you how to wake up earlier, get richer, organize your refrigerator, optimize your hormones, or transform yourself in 30 days.
You are allowed to read something purely because you cannot wait to find out what happens next.
I’ve been trying to make reading the thing I reach for instead of automatically reaching for my phone, and honestly the biggest help has been removing the tiny friction points. A little book light like this one means I can read in bed without turning the whole room into daylight. Anything that makes me pick up the book instead of scrolling is a win.
Make Plans With Yourself, Too
I also think we wait on other people more than we need to.
We want someone to go to the restaurant with. Someone to see the movie with. Someone to wander the bookstore with. Someone to take the trip with.
Doing things with people you love absolutely makes them better. But I don’t want my ability to enjoy my own life to hinge entirely on whether somebody else is free that day.
So go get the coffee. Walk around the bookstore. Take yourself to lunch. Visit the museum. Spend an unreasonable amount of time in Target if that’s what makes you happy.
It doesn’t have to be some grand declaration of independence, either. Sometimes you’re just a woman who wanted pancakes, so you went and got pancakes. That’s enough.
Give Yourself Something to Anticipate
I’ve become convinced that the anticipation is part of the enjoyment.
Think about how differently a week feels when you know something good is coming. Dinner plans Friday. A package arriving Wednesday. Hair appointment Saturday. A new episode Thursday. A trip next month.
Suddenly there’s a little marker sitting out there in the future that says ooh, I can’t wait. I love that feeling, and I think we can create more of it on purpose.
One thing I’d recommend: keep a running list of things you want to do. Not a to-do list — a “things I’m excited to do” list. Restaurants, movies, books, day trips, recipes, classes, seasonal things, places in your own city you’ve somehow never been.
Then when you finally get a free Saturday and think what should I even do today?, you’re not starting from zero.
I’m a big believer in writing things down, because otherwise an idea lives in my head for roughly four minutes before disappearing forever. A simple notebook like this one is perfect for keeping track of places you want to go, things you want to try, and small things you’re looking forward to.
Your Hobby Does Not Need to Become a Side Hustle
Can we please bring back hobbies that make absolutely no money?
The internet has done this strange thing where the second you’re halfway decent at something, someone says “you should sell these!” You bake nice cakes? Start taking orders. You crochet? Open an Etsy shop. You like photography? Become a photographer.
I’m obviously not against building something of your own — I’m doing it. But I also think we’re allowed to be bad at something and enjoy it anyway.
Paint an ugly painting. Take a dance class. Learn pottery. Grow flowers. Make jewelry. Learn another language. Bake something unnecessarily complicated. Take piano lessons at 37.
You don’t need to become impressive at everything you enjoy. Some things should exist purely because doing them makes Tuesday night more interesting.
Sometimes You Have to Try Something Before You Know You Like It
This is the hardest part: what if you don’t know what excites you?
I think a lot of us are waiting to discover our thing. The perfect hobby, the perfect passion, the thing that instantly makes us think this is who I am.
But that might be backwards. Interest usually comes from trying, not from knowing.
You don’t know whether you like pottery until you’re sitting there making a bowl that looks suspiciously like an ashtray. You don’t know if you love gardening until you’ve kept something alive for a season. You don’t know if you’re a runner, a reader, a baker, a Pilates girl, a concert girl, an antique-store girl, or a person who knows an uncomfortable amount about birds until you try.
And you can quit. That part matters just as much.
You can take one class and hate it. You can buy the supplies and discover that knitting makes you irrationally angry. You can stop a book on page 47. Trying something doesn’t mean marrying it — you’re just gathering information about yourself.
Make Home Somewhere You Want to Be
Excitement doesn’t always require leaving the house, either. Some nights I just want being home to feel good.
Fresh sheets. A shower. Something good to drink. A candle. A book. A ridiculously comfortable blanket. A movie I’ve been saving. Maybe dinner from somewhere I love.
And suddenly staying in doesn’t feel like I didn’t do anything tonight. It feels like the plan.
There’s something about lighting a candle at the end of the day that makes being home feel more intentional, even when nothing about the day was. This one is the kind of small luxury I like because you don’t need an occasion to use it.
Stop Waiting for Your Life to Get More Interesting
This is really what I’ve been trying to say.
We treat excitement like something that happens to us. We wait to be invited somewhere. We wait for something big. We wait until we have more money, until work settles down, until we lose the weight, until we’re in a relationship, until summer, until our lives look a little more like the version we pictured.
And meanwhile, our actual lives are happening.
I don’t want to spend this one waiting for the next one to show up before I decide it’s worth enjoying.
That doesn’t mean we stop wanting things. I love having goals. I love imagining what’s next. Wanting more for yourself can be a beautiful thing. But there has to be room between where you are and where you’re going for you to actually live.
So — What Are You Excited About?
I genuinely want you to think about it. And don’t judge your answer.
Maybe it’s the coffee you’re getting tomorrow morning. Maybe you ordered new pajamas. Maybe you’re seeing someone you haven’t seen in months. Maybe you’re changing careers. Maybe you found a book you can’t put down. Maybe you’re planning something enormous, or planning absolutely nothing and looking forward to spending Saturday in bed.
It counts.
And if you can’t think of anything — maybe that’s your sign to go find something. Buy the book. Make the reservation. Sign up for the class. Start the project. Put something on the calendar that has nothing to do with what you should be doing and everything to do with something you’d like to experience.
Because every woman needs something she’s excited about. Not because every day has to be amazing. Not because we need to romanticize every second. And definitely not because we need one more thing to be good at.
But because our lives shouldn’t consist entirely of responsibilities, routines, and waiting for someday. We deserve things that make us think I can’t wait.
So tell me yours — what’s something you’re genuinely excited about right now? Leave me a comment, even if it’s tiny. And if you’re new here and want to know more about me and what you’ll find on this blog, you can read my About page here. I hope you’ll stick around.
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