Every Time You Flake on Yourself, Your Brain Takes Notes

You ever make a promise to yourself, and then break it over and over and over and over again?

There’s nothing worse, except maybe finding sun-dried tomatoes 🍅 in your grilled cheese (whyyyyyyyy! the name sounds so good! they are so bad!), and the most biggest, ugliest, ickiest, most vile part about it is, everytime you break a promise to yourself, you are also teaching yourself a lesson:

You cannot be trusted.

Now, I like trusting myself. I’ve found it to be an imperative part of living a life I give a shit about. If you can’t trust yourself, what do you have? A limp-spined, paralyzed, pathetic mockery of a life. It’d be like having to ask your husband what he thinks about everything, because you have no idea. Imagine, just sitting there like a sad, quiet, withdrawn, washed-up, deflated cartoon version of yourself, wishing you had something to care about.

The way to start caring about things is by caring about yourself.

And the way to start caring about yourself?

Is by respecting what you actually want.

How many times have you thought that you wished you could do X, wished you could try Y? But, don’t, because it’s easier to convince yourself that you are unreliable, than it is to convince yourself that you would be great.

It’s a sneaky lack of self-respect.

And so, over the years, I’ve found that the best way for me to wrangle that little a-hole—that sneaky lack of self-respect that wants to elbow its way in from time to time—is by relentlessly, mercilessly, against-all-oddslessly (new word) KEEPING MY PROMISES TO MYSELF. Because, when you keep your promises to yourself, you grow your confidence, and when you grow your confidence?

You keep doing big things.

On the other hand, when you break a million little promises to yourself, those cracks let the doubt in. They get wider and wider and wider, until they’ve busted a hole in your psyche. And then even small things feel like big things. And the next thing you know, your life has shrunk to the size of a piece of belly-button lint under a microscope.

Living small is the direct result of not trusting that you can live big.

So I wanted to share with you a few things that I’ve promised myself this year (hold me to it!!!):

• 🇫🇷 I want to start learning a 3rd language fluently (finally?!). I’ve got English and (really freakin’ awesome) Spanish, from a decade of living in Central & South America. What’s next? French, German, Italian?

• 🏡 I’m going to finish the cottage renovation in the countryside so I can host folks here - maybe even retreats - (and stop overthinking paint colors!).

• 🏋️‍♀️ I’m going to drop the 30 (300?) pounds I’ve gained since buying this property in the United States (I BLAME THIS ENTIRELY ON HOT WINGS.)

• 🎨 I’m going to lean more into my creative side than ever. I’m working on a top-secret new personal project creating irreverent products for the home (!!!)—like art prints / a wallpaper line—built around original creative writing and irreverent travel content. Think: “Anthropologie meets Anthony Bourdain.” Maximalist. Gutsy. Cultured. Slightly hungover. Every pattern comes with a story, a bite, and possibly a curse word. I CANNOT WAIT TO DEBUT THIS.

• AND—I’m going to be self-publishing a series of really fun books in the same vein. Because I don’t want to make books only when there’s a commercially viable deal. I want to make books all of the time. I’m a writer + maker at heart—always have been, always will be. And in line with the whole “Anthropologie meets Bourdain” vibe, I think you and I are going to have A LOT of fun this coming year.

• I also have a shiny brand-new Ash website dropping—gonna be re-introducing myself, baby!!!!!!!!! Sincerely overdue. But it’s going to be the home of my new creative studio, and wait until you see the kinds of things we can do together THERE. Hint: I will be writing a lot more travel & cultural commentary pieces like these (with a surprise twist I can’t tell you about yet!):

  • Dear World: I Do Weird Things in America

  • Dear World: I Don’t Know How to Pay This Bill

  • Dear World: I Am Trying to Mail This Letter

  • Dear World: I Don’t Want This Fucking Freezer

  • Dear World: I Think I Am Gardening

• 💥 ANDDDD - big news - (!!) Selfish School LIVE is happening soon!!!! 💥 Selfish School is THE business course to take if you’d rather be working from the French countryside than a cubicle. It’s my flagship program for unapologetic travelers, culture obsessives, and creative bon vivants who want to build a travel-friendly business without selling their soul—or their sanity. Inside, you’ll learn how to do meaningful creative work you actually care about while working 50% less, traveling 500% more, and gallivanting through a lifestyle of global design, architecture, interiors, gardens, gastronomy, art, anthropology, and other delicious passions. Because yes—you can build a beautiful business and a beautiful life. You just have to be a little selfish about it. 💅

  
  EVEN BETTER? This is a live cohort version with me, Ash—and I’ll be there to support you all the way!
  
  Sound delicious?! Enter your email here and I’ll send you the exciting details—early bird enrollment is opening soon!
  
  (If you already took Selfish School as a DIY course, I’ll be sending you a separate email invite to join the live experience at a discounted rate—and have me as your mentor for a few months! 🎉)

Perhaps the key to a rich, fulfilling life is to actually fill it with things you find…fulfilling?

I know, that sounds so simplistic! But it’s a good question worth pondering: when was the last time you felt fulfilled? When was the last time you did something that made you ridiculously proud of yourself? When was the last time you tried for something? When was the last time you put feelings ahead of logic, and said, “this is what I want, and because I want it, it is valid?”

I don’t have to learn another language.

I don’t have to renovate an 1800s farmhouse and cottage.

I don’t have to start my own irreverent-as-hell home goods product line.

I don’t have to publish my own series of books.

I don’t have to write about the wonderful things I observe about places in my newsletter.

I don’t have to make a new website.

I don’t have to continue on with Selfish School.

And, yet? For every minute I invest into these things, I get something much bigger in return:

Myself.

Like, an actual fucking sense of self. I know who I am. I’m excited to see who I’m becoming. I’m sure about the things I am good at, and the things I am not, and the things I want for myself, and the things I don’t.

Of course, a sense of certainty can waver from time to time. Everybody’s does. But the thing I have discovered most about this life is this: we don’t thrive without a mission.

We need something to pursue, something to build, something to become—
not because we’re incomplete, but because motion reminds us we’re not stuck. Motion gives us things to look forward to. Motion gives us depth, and richness, and feelings, and excitement, and interesting stories to tell.

It’s easy to look at something new and think, “Friggity fucklesticks, I’M OVERWHELMED ALREADY.” But the overwhelm goes away when you stop trying to eat the whole thing in one bite—and just take one small, defiant, imperfect step.
That’s how momentum begins. That’s how confidence returns. That’s how you become someone who finishes.

And the best part? You don’t need to have it all figured out.
You just need to begin.

Even if it’s messy.
Even if it’s imperfect.
Even if you’re secretly sweating through your shirt while whispering some weird shit like “friggity fucklesticks” under your breath.

Start anyway.
Choose yourself anyway.
Keep your micro promises to yourself anyway.
However you can.

Because let me tell you something I’ve learned:
You can recover from almost anything—failure, heartbreak, even sun-dried tomatoes in your grilled cheese.

But not a life you never really showed up for.