💌 What’s happening this week:

• Lessons from my staycation

• Journaling prompt: On a scale of 1-10…

• My 5-step process to self-confidence

• Let’s do a mid-year reset

This past week, my partner and I have been on our ‘staycation’ in Toledo, and let me just tell you… It has been one of my FAVORITE vacations to date!

Since we’re on a tight budget this year - with…

• Saving for a down payment for our first home

• Me returning to work after my ‘adult gap year’

• And other financial priorities and obligations

We decided… well, we’ll plan a staycation and take it easy.

Surprisingly, I have loved every minute of it!

In the past, my partner and I have always prioritized travel and adventure in our relationship and with our finances…

Which has given us the opportunity to:

• Road trip to the south of Portugal

• Travel to Frankfurt, Berlin, Lisbon, London, etc., to visit friends and family

• Take weeks off work to camp in the north of Spain

• Spend multiple weeks on the Mediterranean Coast

• Have a digital nomad year, traveling around Spain and meeting other digital nomads in colivings

All of these have been amazing experiences, and we love spending time with friends and family around the world, but we realized… as other people in our age range are making down payments on their first homes (or buying their 2nd homes!), having weddings, or are family planning…

We spent our 20s and up to our mid-30s gallivanting around the world, investing money into business ideas, and just… “living life” 😅 Nothing wrong with that because it’s taught us a lot and there’s a bit of tension around the reality of the current state of the world, the housing market, and yes… the revolution that AI has caused in many different sectors.

But this newsletter isn’t really about all of that! What I wanted to share with you are some of the lessons I learned from my staycation and living a more intentional life:

✏️ SET SIMPLE GOALS AND SCHEDULES

Before starting our staycation, my partner and I talked about what we wanted the week to look like, what our expectations were, and what we both really wanted to do.

We set simple goals and left lots of room in our plans to make them happen. I am usually a ‘Type-A’, must need everything planned down to the moment, and if it changes… my entire day can be thrown off, type of person 😅

Surprisingly, though, during this past week I let things flow a little more and realized that plans (and goals) don’t need to be done at THIS specific time (aka we need to visit XYZ at 1pm sharp), I am in control and can adapt my schedule depending on what’s happening and how I feel!

Honestly, a big reminder of free will and that I have the power to change things.

☀️ FOCUS ON ONE THING WITH A ‘NICE TO HAVE’

Each day of the week, my partner and I planned one main activity and then a ‘nice to have’ if there was time and we were feeling up to it. It allowed us to focus our energy on doing the ONE THING, and we weren’t distracted by other plans.

I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced this, but sometimes on vacation, the possibilities of plans and activities to do sometimes overwhelm me, and then I try to do them all, which makes the day chaotic, leaving me feeling rushed and overwhelmed.

Funnily enough, that sometimes happens when I’m thinking about goals and what to focus on for the next month or quarter.

Sometimes our ‘focus’ for the day would just be “head to the old town to try a specialty coffee place and have breakfast in the plaza” or it’d be “stay home and each of us does our own thing”. And then if we found we had more time, we visited a castle we’ve been wanting to see, or went shopping for clothes.

This reminded me that when I set ONE focus for my goals or even the day, it helps me make decisions faster and keeps me feeling well-resourced and not all over the place.

🌈 BUILD IN ‘SPACE’ TO DO NOTHING & BE BORED

Have you ever gone on a vacation and then, upon returning, felt like you needed ANOTHER vacation to just rest and recover from that one?

Those are the typical vacations my partner and I take 😅 The vacations where you’re exploring a new city, traveling, or doing lots of sightseeing, and then when you get home, you need at least 1-2 additional days of vacation just to recover, rest, and do your house chores!

While we planned different activities for each day, we also had lots of time and space in between to honestly… do nothing and be bored. IT WAS GREAT.

Sometimes we filled that time with scrolling on our phones for a little bit, then I had random inspiration to make a new recipe, journal for a long time, read, clean the house, or just lie on the couch staring into space, doing nothing except actually twiddling my thumbs.

IT WAS AWESOME. I LOVED EVERY MOMENT. These ‘bored’ moments gave me lots of time to play and find random activities that I just felt like doing, just because. Definitely going to need to build more of this time into my regular schedule.

This week reminded me that setting intentions ahead of time - for ANYTHING - can help make our time more productive. And not in that… toxic productivity type of way, but in a “I did something that felt good to me and nourished me” type of way.

I’m not really a ‘staycation’ type of person (hello, I love traveling and being out and about), but this past week nourished and fueled me creatively! 💖

✍️ THIS WEEK’S JOURNALING PROMPT

“On a scale of 1-10 (1 = terrible, 10 = awesome), how would you rate how excited and confident you feel about the next 5 months of 2025?”

I did this journaling prompt earlier this week while doing my mid-year review, and surprisingly, I am feeling a solid 8/10!

What about you? How do you feel about the next 5 months of 2025? What comes up for you?

💻 THINGS THAT STUCK OUT TO ME

• 5-STEP PROCESS TO SELF-CONFIDENCE: I shared this carousel post a few weeks ago on Instagram on how I’ve cultivated self-confidence (as someone who’s struggled a lot with self-doubt and self-worth all my life)! A lot of folks resonated with it, so it seems we are very similar.

• WHAT WOULD YOU PICK FOR ETERNITY?: I watched this trailer for the new A24 movie, “Eternity”, and it looks SO good! Starring Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller, and Callum Turner, the movie is about the afterlife where souls have one week to decide where and WHO to spend eternity with. Joan (Olsen) is faced with the impossible choice between the man she spent her life with and her first love, who died young and has waited for her to arrive. Idk y’all - is this a rom-com or an emotional horror film LOL

• 4 YEARS RECOVERING FROM BURN-OUT: I LOVED this Reel from @maiteuralde (it’s in Spanish!) who shares her experience of recovering from intense burnout and realizing it has taken her 4 YEARS to feel like herself again… which then made me think, omg… it’s also taken me 4 years to feel creatively myself again, too 😫

🗓 PREPARING FOR THE WEEK AHEAD

🌻 GOODIES YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED

How I’m Resetting My Life (Mid-Year Refresh)

Let’s have a mid-year reset together! I’m resetting my life and planning for June and beyond in this plan with me video. We’re reflecting on the first half of the year, setting goals for the 2nd half, and diving into a creative activity to bring my goals and action steps to life (and to gamify my productivity) 😉

🤝 HOW TO WORK TOGETHER

Want to work together to create time and space for intentional connections? Here are a few ways to do that through marketing support, journaling, and education.

• 📓PLANS TO PROGRESS MEMBERSHIP: A quarterly membership for big dreamers to intentionally plan each month with the accountability to transform your ideas into actionable steps and projects. Join us inside the Lounge here!

• ⭐ SIGNATURE BRAND & WEBSITE DESIGN + COPYWRITING PACKAGE: Get 2 brand strategists on your team to elevate your brand visuals, website, and messaging. We have 2 spots to start this summer. Learn more and apply here.

• 🇪🇸 JOIN ME IN SPAIN!! IN-PERSON PLANNING RETREAT: September 2026. Granada, Spain. 6 days, 5 nights. 10 spots available. Join us for an intentional week of cultural immersion, good food, and intentional time for planning and sharing with a group of like-minded people. Learn more and reserve your spot here.

Anyway, I’m back to work starting tomorrow and feel VERY excited about diving into my renewed priorities and plans…

I am still feeling a solid 8/10 about the next 5 months of the year and have a bit of a fire under my butt 🔥 (thanks to that conversation with my parents) to actually put in the work and make my goals a reality.

Let’s talk about that next week, though, the idea of actually ‘applying myself’ to do something and managing the fear of burning myself out again because I’m a recovering workaholic 😬

Until then…

💖 #stayfierce,
Cassandra