Newsletter Sample -- November 11, 2025
Hi Steve!
I lost my annual yard game this year.
Every fall, I give myself a deadline: finish the outdoor work between Halloween and Election Day weekend—before Minnesota decides it's time for real cold and I'm stuck puttering around in the dark at 4:30 pm wearing five or six layers like the Michelin man. It's not a serious thing, just a little challenge I play with myself. And most years, I win. I have years of memories of being done, of that satisfying moment when I swap the garden tools for snow shovels and call it.
This year, the calendar turned past my deadline while I was still working through the list. And my first thought was: "Bummer. I lost."
But then something made me pause. Mid-task, probably while I was hauling another armload of buckthorn to the brush pile, I had a realization. "Hold on, Michelle. Since September, you've been working on areas of this property you've never even touched before." That work included this very weekend, when I'd cleared out a section that had become, well... a buckthorn nursery and leaf-dumping ground for years. I'd opened up sightlines I couldn't see through before. I'd reclaimed space for wildflowers instead of invasives.
And then the real kicker hit me: those original deadlines? I created them when I lived on maybe a tenth of an acre in Minneapolis. Now I'm working with seven acres—much of it wild, but a growing amount being carefully tended back from the invasives so the good things can grow.
Of course I didn't meet that old timeline. I was playing an entirely different game.
When the Old Measuring Stick No Longer Fits
Here's what struck me about that moment: I was so focused on meeting the old standard that I almost missed recognizing the actual work I'd accomplished.
That measuring stick I created? It actually worked when we first moved here. The property was different then - more overwhelming, less understood. Meeting those basic deadlines felt like success because it was success for where things were at. But over time, as I did more work, as my understanding deepened, as I saw what was actually possible here, my lens expanded. I wasn't just maintaining anymore - I was reclaiming, preparing, imagining what could grow. The metric stayed the same while the work evolved into something much bigger.
It made me wonder: how often do we do this to ourselves?
We carry these internal metrics (deadlines, standards, definitions of "done") that might have served us well at one point. And then we beat ourselves up when we don't meet them, even when the game we're actually playing has fundamentally changed.
Maybe your metric was built for when you had fewer responsibilities, more energy, or different priorities. Maybe it worked perfectly until your understanding deepened and you started seeing possibilities you couldn't see before. Maybe it came from someone else's expectations that you internalized so long ago you forgot they weren't originally yours. Or maybe, and this is the hard one, your circumstances or capacity have shifted, and the old standard simply asks more than you can reasonably give now.
The tension so many of us feel right now—that sense of never doing enough, never being enough—might partly be because we're measuring ourselves against standards that no longer fit the reality we're actually living. But here's the thing: recognizing that mismatch isn't failure. It's actually the beginning of something better.
When I stood in my yard that weekend, frustrated about my unmet deadline, I could have stayed in that story. Instead, I looked around and really saw what I'd accomplished. Not what the old measuring stick captured, but what was actually true: I'd expanded my care into areas I'd long neglected. I'd done work that my past self—the one who created that deadline—couldn't even imagine needing to be done.
What struck me in that moment is that every year, the prior year's work allowed me to go a little further. As I continued to tend the areas I'd worked through in years past, they became easier to maintain, giving me more space to expand rather than just meeting the deadline with the same project list and calling it done. Each season's effort compounded. Rather than making the work harder, it actually created capacity for deeper, broader care. If I'd stopped where I was ten years ago when I first moved here, I'd have been done well before Halloween. We so rarely look back to see that real truth—that we're standing on the shoulders of our own past work.
The wildflowers I'm hoping will grow in those cleared spaces? Preparing this ground gives me the chance to spread the seeds I've been collecting from other parts of the property—to give back to the environment in good ways while also feeding myself with more visual beauty and the satisfaction of work well done. The measuring stick that said "finish by Halloween" could never account for this kind of reciprocal care, this layering of benefit.
This is where we get to make a choice. We can keep beating ourselves up for not meeting metrics that no longer fit, or we can pause and ask: What am I actually doing? What kind of work matters now? What would a more honest measuring stick look like for this version of my life?
Maybe instead of counting tasks completed, you need to recognize the depth of attention you're bringing. Maybe instead of measuring output, you need to notice the care you're extending to areas that were previously neglected. Maybe the metric isn't about doing more. It's about doing differently, more intentionally, with greater alignment to what actually matters now, and recognizing that your capacity to do this work at all is built on everything that came before.
The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
This quote captures something I'm still learning: that the small, consistent work we do creates far more than we can see in the moment. Every bucket of leaves raked, every conversation where you showed up authentically, every boundary you held, every morning you chose to care for yourself—they're all acorns. We're always standing in forests we started creating years ago, often without realizing it. And the work we're doing now? It's preparing ground for forests we can't yet imagine.
Living Better: Thank You Past Self
This week, try this simple daily practice: Each morning, pause for just a moment and ask yourself: What can I do today because of work I did in the past?
Maybe it's a skill you can use because you practiced it years ago. A relationship you can lean on because you nurtured it. A cleared space (literal or metaphorical) that's easier to maintain because you did the hard initial work. A capacity you have now that your younger self was building without even realizing it.
Just notice it. Acknowledge it. Maybe even whisper a quick "thanks, past me" if that feels natural.
That's it. No writing required, no tracking, no analysis. Just a daily moment of recognizing that you're standing on foundations you built—even when those foundations don't show up on any measuring stick.
If you want to take it one step further: At the end of the week, consider what your current self is doing that your future self will thank you for. But even that's optional. The practice is simply noticing the gift your past self gave you.
What's Nurturing Me Now
A Simple Pleasure: Those afternoon hours when the sun still holds warmth and I can get outside—whether it's walking the neighborhood or working through my buckthorn clearing projects. There's something about moving in that crisp air under November sunshine that reminds my body it's alive, capable, still doing the work.
A Shift in Rhythm: The shorter days have given me permission to slow down in a way summer never does. Instead of running until 10pm trying to finish everything while the sun's still up, I'm sitting down to dinner by 8, actually relaxing afterward, getting to bed earlier and less frazzled. It's not a dramatic ritual change—just a gentler, less frenetic pace that the season invites.
What's Making Me Smile: Watching a squirrel from my kitchen window the other day, cheeks stuffed comically full with leaves and twigs as he made his way back up into the towering maple to work on his nest. There was something about his focused effort—even with his face overextended!—that just delighted me. He was doing his work, I was doing mine, and somehow that felt like exactly what this season asks of all of us.
Final Thoughts
As I write this, there's still work left on my yard list. The wood needs moving, tools need swapping, and there's that new composting area to finish preparing. But I'm looking at it differently now. Not as evidence of falling short, but as signs of a life that's expanding, deepening, doing work that my old measuring sticks were never designed to capture.
Maybe you're in a similar place. Maybe you're looking at what you haven't finished and feeling that familiar disappointment. But what if you paused and really looked at what you have been doing—the care you've extended, the capacity you've built, the foundations you've laid that your past self couldn't have imagined? What if the real story isn't about the deadline you missed, but about the work you're doing that no measuring stick can fully account for?
The squirrels are busy preparing their nests. The days are getting shorter. We're all doing our work, standing on everything that came before, building something our future selves will thank us for—even when we can't quite see it yet.
I'd love to hear what you're noticing: Where might you be using an outdated measuring stick? What work are you doing that doesn't show up on your usual checklist? Hit reply and let me know—I always love hearing from you.
Until next time, may you recognize the forests you're creating,
