15 Habits that Rebuilt Me After I Lost Everything [Summer Read-Aloud]

  Sam Vander Wielen: Hey there, and welcome back to On Your Terms®. So for the next couple of weeks, I’m gonna be doing something a little bit differently as part of a little summer series of sorts. For the next few weeks, I’ll be reading you a few of my essays that I’ve written on my Substack. My Substack is just called Sam Vander Wielen, because as you can probably tell by now, I’m really, really good with coming up with creative names for things.

But I have a Substack called Sam Vander Wielen, where I share personal essays and behind the scenes, a lot about grief and loss, coming back from that grief and loss, and learning to, I don’t know, uncouple myself from overconsumption and overworking, and really learning how to be more present in my life.

So all you have to do for the next couple of weeks until I come back with your full-force regular episodes of On Your Terms® on September 14th, is just kick back, put in your headphones, maybe even go for a walk, and listen to my reading of this week’s essay from Substack. If you’d like to subscribe to my Substack so that you can also read these on Substack or on the app, go ahead and just click the link down below. It’s completely free.

Healthy habits that rebuilt me after burnout and loss. Some I learned the hard way, some I’d skip again. All of them helped me feel better inside and out. One of the huge benefits to your life completely burning to the ground is the fertile soil it provides for you to begin again. It wasn’t like I was exactly thriving before my parents died.

I spent the year before my dad was diagnosed with AML leukemia recovering from brain surgery for a Chiari malformation in my cerebellum. And as a new entrepreneur in the girl boss era, I was busting my tush to maximize every opportunity, leaving me omnipresent online and on my phone. My phone had become an appendage.

I ordered lattes just for the photo op. I treated every Instagram comment like a ticking time bomb that would explode if I didn’t reply in under five minutes. And everyone’s questions, DMs, or replies became my next crisis to fixate on. I was addicted to the dopamine. I was addicted to the feedback. But when my parents died in the same year, grief changed what felt important.

Things that once felt mandatory or like second nature, like maximizing every opportunity for social media gains, now felt silly and completely unnecessary. In other words, my losses and the intense grief that followed changed what felt worth it. And while I love the business I built online, the years since my parents’ deaths have been about trying to build a life offline that I love more.

While I have so much to share with you about building community in person, finding hobbies I love, and facing why we want to spend so much time online in the first place, today, I wanted to chat about the healthy habits that have helped me rebuild after so much loss and the grief that followed. I learned the hard way what things I needed to do and which I could skip based on what actually moved the needle in my business, life, and health. Today, I want to share them with you.

First up, my health habits. Number one, protein first thing. I know, I know, protein maxing, it’s all the rage, but this is one of the biggest dominoes for me. Instead of going straight to coffee or just having a piece of sourdough and calling it breakfast, I started eating an actual meal.

And yes, the closer to 30 grams of protein I get for it, the better I feel all day and sleep all the way through the night. My go-to breakfast is typically eggs, chicken sausage, and greens over labneh.

Number two, switching to half-caff coffee. Someone would have to pry coffee out of my cold, dead hands before I’d give it up.

I love the ritual of waking up in the morning to the smell of coffee and holding something warm. I don’t use it to wake myself up or give myself energy. The protein helps with that. But switching to half-caff coffee instead of the full throttle stuff has made a big difference in my anxiety and overall sleep. I use Cometeer, which I link to in the article.

Third, daily movement. As an anxious person, I can tell a big difference in my mood and overall anxiety level on the days I move versus those I don’t. It doesn’t have to be anything intense or big, but even a daily walk on top of my 45-minute walk with Hudson, my mini Bernedoodle, every afternoon does the trick.

I lift pretty heavy at least twice a week with my trainer friend, Karina, and I ride my Peloton a few times a week, too. One of the things that’s helped me the most in this category has been loosening any rules or restrictions I have around what it means to move. A 10-minute jog around the block, quote, unquote, “counts.” I’ve even given up on wearing official workout clothes and sometimes just head out the door in sweats and a big tee and start running. It’s so much easier to be consistent when you take the rules away. By the way, is anybody else sick of wearing compression leggings? I’ve, like, basically given them up.

Four, mini movement breaks. Before, I was someone who would work out really hard for one hour per day and then sit for eight straight. Now, I keep my yoga mat on the floor of my office and regularly unfurl myself throughout the day. I do cat-cows, downward dogs, hip openers, child’s pose, or even pushups and squats when I need a little boost.

Five, kitchen’s closed at 7:30 PM. When I started working with my nutritionist, Erin, one of the first things she talked to me about was her kitchen closed rule. “But I’m so hungry before I go to bed,” I would tell her, and she would be like, “Yeah, because you’re not fueling properly throughout the day.” Dang it, she was totally right because once I started eating a real breakfast, cooled it a little bit with the caffeine intake, and then ate more balanced and, yes, protein-fueled meals throughout the day, I wasn’t hungry for a snack at night anyway.

I can’t stop eating this combo for dinner lately. This has been my go-to thing, is making my own burgers, which lately I’ve been making Greek turkey burgers with, like, feta and dill and chopped peppers and onion and everything in it, plus a sweet potato, some broccoli, and then sauerkraut and pickles.

Next up, my digital wellness habits. Number one, I brick my phone from 8:00 PM to 8:00 AM. After I got the brick, which I link to in the article, I fell in love with the scheduling feature. Automatically at 8:00 PM each night, my phone bricks itself and disables all the apps and websites that have the potential to suck me down a rabbit hole.

Basically, it makes my phone super boring and reinstates it to what it was meant to be, a phone.

Two, no notifications. This one’s pretty obvious, but I’m always shocked when I sit behind someone on an airplane and watch or hear their notifications roll in like a stock ticker. It’s exhausting for me to watch, let alone to see every day.

I’m savage and even turned off notifications for my text messages. I just check the apps I need a few times throughout the day.

Three, out of reach. When I’m working or doing something meaningful to me, like spending time with a friend, hanging out with Ryan, watching a movie, reading a book, et cetera, my phone is somewhere I can’t reach. Better yet, it’s somewhere I can’t see. The more out of sight, the more out of mind, in my experience.

Four, I delete the apps. I’m a big fan of deleting apps and forcing yourself to install them if and when you need them. For me, that’s what I do with my drug of choice, Instagram.

Five, just brick it. When I go on artist dates or take myself out for coffee and to read, I reach for my phone in moments of silence or boredom. I love spending time alone, but old habits die hard. I use the brick to block out all the apps I don’t wanna use while out of the house, like Instagram, email, and Slack, to ensure I have a phone-free experience while I’m out.

Last but not least, my business habits.

Number one, I let stuff pass me by. Instead of jumping into every trend or app du jour, I start skipping things that I only wanted to jump in on because everybody else was doing them.

If it was truly something I wanted to do or felt I needed to for my business, I would consider it, but I got more comfortable with JOMO and let FOMO slip away.

Two, staying in my lane. A challenging aspect to being an online business in particular is the fact that we can see what everyone else is doing in their businesses and on the internet.

I guess this relates back to letting stuff pass me by from number one, but I can’t tell you how often I have to remind myself of my goals, my values, and what I want my life to look like so I don’t accidentally try to live someone else’s.

Three, my creative thing first. On the more practical side, I don’t know why somebody didn’t tell me this tip sooner, but every day I start out with whatever task requires the most creative energy and fuel from me. Whether that’s writing my business newsletter, Sam’s Sidebar, which I link to in the post, writing this Substack, or brainstorming, I’m not digging into admin tasks until I’ve done that first.

Last but not least, my tip is half you, half them. Although I’m the first one to preach about how your content needs to be primarily them-driven, like written for and about your customer, these days I’d also tell you to throw in some you content in there, not only because your audience actually likes to get to know you and see behind the scenes, but also because of how important it is to stay true to yourself as a creative. If you only make them content, you will eventually feel resentful, burnt out, or bored.

Thanks so much for listening to today’s essay. I hope that you liked it. I would love to hear from you over on Substack, so make sure you come and subscribe to my Substack below, and go and comment on the essay that you just heard me read. I’d love to see you there. With that, I’ll talk to you next week.

Thanks so much for listening to the On Your Terms® podcast. Make sure to follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. You can also check out all of our podcast episodes, show notes, links, and more at samvanderwielen.com/podcast. You can learn more about legally protecting your business and take my free legal workshop, Five Steps To Legally Protect and Grow Your Online Business at Samvanderwielen.com and to stay connected and follow along, follow me on Instagram at samvanderwielen and send me a DM to say hi.