A few times a year, I think about my vacuum.
It’s been broken for five years. I know there’s a repair shop in town, but it’s on the other side of the city and I have no idea how the process works. Will I need an appointment? How long will they keep it? Is it even worth fixing, or should I just buy a new one? Every time I think about it the whole thing feels like an errand that will swallow up half a day, so I push it off to some undefined later.
Then there are my old VHS tapes—tucked behind a row of books in my office, gathering dust. For a decade, I’ve been meaning to digitize them. I imagine watching them on my laptop, reliving moments I haven’t seen in years. But every time I consider it, the same thought pops up: It’s not urgent. I’ll get to it later. I promise.
Later—the most overused, noncommittal word we tell ourselves.
I started noticing how often later was creeping into my life. How many small things I was leaving unresolved, cluttering my thoughts and energy like mental cobwebs. These weren’t big, life-altering tasks—just the kind of loose ends that quietly hum in the background, taking up unnecessary space in my mind.
And then it hit me: Every time I put off something I want, I’m sending myself a message that my wants don’t matter.
I was training myself to believe that unless my want was urgent—unless it was a crisis or a deadline—it was fine to shove it to the back burner indefinitely. Worse, my actions were reinforcing the idea that my word to myself meant nothing.
So, I decided to flip the script.
Once a month, I now schedule a day where I am my own personal assistant. A day solely dedicated to handling the lingering tasks that don’t scream for attention but still take up space.
That vacuum? It’s getting fixed. The VHS tapes? Finally getting digitized. The pile of clothes I’ve been meaning to donate? Gone. The return that’s been sitting in my car for three weeks? Handled.
It’s not about the vacuum or the tapes. It’s about proving to myself that I follow through. That I don’t treat my own desires as disposable, unimportant, or forever put-off-able.
Because here’s the thing: How we treat ourselves shapes how we feel about ourselves.
If you don’t treat the things you want as a priority, you’ll start to feel like you don’t deserve what you want. If you consistently deprioritize your own needs, you reinforce the idea that they don’t matter. And if you don’t value your own time and energy, how can you expect the world to?
So here’s my invitation: Pick a day. Block off the time. Be your own assistant.
Handle the things you’ve been carrying around in your mental to-do list for far too long. Show yourself that you follow through. That your word to yourself means something.
But don’t do it begrudgingly—wishing you were doing something, anything, else.
Do it like you want to win the assistant MVP award.
Do it like it’s a privilege to carve out space to meet your wants, your needs, and to make life easier and less cluttered for yourself.
Do it like the version of you who knows they matter.
Because when you start treating your wants as valuable—you start to feel more valuable. And that shift? That changes everything.And if you need help breaking the habit of pushing yourself to later, let’s talk. You can schedule a coaching session with me here.
