Oh, hey there! It’s been a minute, hasn’t it?!
That is the beauty of of embracing the FI life–having the freedom to lean into where we feel pulled and what feels good. If you look at my blog history, it’s clear I haven’t felt inspired to write over the past year.
Instead, I spent a lot of time planning another incredible RV trip, this time to the Pacific Northwest. Then, the best part–executing the plan–very successfully I might add. We spent 4.5 months on the road, our longest RV trip yet!
We actually just returned about a month ago. Somehow it feels like we’ve been home for-e-ver. Time can be a weird concept.
What else have I felt pulled to do over the past year?
Since leaving my career three years ago (!!) I’ve focused on my physical health. While that sounds straight forward, it was anything but. I encountered some significant set backs, like plantar fasciitis leading to a stress fracture, and then ankle impingement on my other leg. Earlier this year, after 2+ years of on-and-off limitations, my doctor cleared me to start a strength program and cardio routine. As the year progressed, I’ve finally hit my stride.
Through the journey I learned a hard lesson–physical health and fitness is not a straight line, even with unlimited time. Oh, and I finally got really serious about my nutrition, like tracking macros and hitting a daily protein goal.
Our 4.5 month RV trip also underscored the importance of my overall health and physical fitness. Most of our activities while traveling center around hiking and exploring. While I had some smaller setbacks during our travels (knee pain, poorly fitting boots), the fitness foundation I built before leaving in June served me well to do some amazing hikes as our trip progressed (can’t wait to share more!). I have fully internalized the concept of if I cannot do something physical today (like a strenuous hike), it is much less likely I’ll be able to do it in 2, 5, 10, etc. years. Understanding this concept helps motivate me to get in physical activity and movement even when I’m not particularly in the mood. Because let me tell you, I have some serious hikes I want to do!
Amidst the intense trip planning and commitment to physical fitness, I also wanted to see what would happen if I put myself out there more to facilitate FI (financial independence) related and adjacent content earlier this year. Would I enjoy it? Would I feel pulled to do it more? Would it lead to other unexpected opportunities?
Ironically I’ve never been the person who enjoyed giving presentations. In fact, throughout my HR career I begged for medication from my doctor to help manage the intense anxiety and I felt when I had a big presentation coming up.
But it is interesting once you write a goal down how things can start coming together. Before I knew it I (regrettably?) committed to three separate events–presenting “How to Live Your Best Life Now” to a women’s FI group, facilitating a “One More Year Syndrome” breakout at EconoMe (Mike co-facilitated with me), and also presenting “Things We’ve Learned One-Year Post FI” at Camp Mustache Midwest (also with Mike).
All three sessions went well. I/we approached the planning and content with an absolute ridiculous level of seriousness, lol. Session feedback was positive and we had good one-on-one conversations after each (our favorite part!). And honestly it felt genuinely good to share the things we’ve learned in hopes of making life easier, better, smoother, or offering a different perspective for those in the community.
Following these three separate events I realized facilitating isn’t a path I’m going down. I’m not saying I won’t if opportunities come up; I’m just not actively seeking it out like I did this year.
We notice the further out we get from reaching financial independence (essentially March 2024), the less life seems to be about FI. Sure, we still keep an eye on our net worth and track our expenses. But we (especially Mike–I was never the numbers girl) are not bogged down in the details. For us I think that’s probably a healthy place to be. And yet, I still feel I have a lot of FI-related thoughts and experience that could be helpful to others, especially those earlier in their journeys or those about to make the leap.
So I feel like that’s where the blog comes back into view. The blog helps me share information and perspective, be it travel-related (guys I have SO MUCH to share from our 4.5 month RV trip!), financial independence-related, career-related, or just thoughts on living life.
I’d like to tell you with certainty the blog is back with some semblance of regularity. So, let’s see how it goes!
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