👋 The Goodbye Starts Now

It's Monday. I'm Here for You.

The Pick Me Up is a Monday morning newsletter filled with advice, personal stories, and tips to help you get out of bed and jumpstart your week.

Greetings friend.

It’s me — Jen Glantz.

In a few sweet days, when the costumes unzip and the masks are put away, we’ll find ourselves hugging November hello.

I always spend November 1st buying discounted candy and adding up how many days are left in this silly little year.

2023 has been a rough year for a lot of people that I love.

It’s been an off year, a sad year, a year of unwarranted and unwanted change.

And when years end, especially years that have broken us in brand new ways, we go through a mourning process.

We’re humans and humans need to say goodbye properly or else we can’t move on.

I like to spend the end of year recapping, reviewing, and rewiring how I want to live my life in the year ahead.

But it can feel so hard to look back when the holidays pull us forward so fast.

November is almost here, beware.

Everything around you is going to push you to open up your wallets, your weekends, your world.

Don’t give in so fast.

Take it slow. Find the way you want to say goodbye to 2023.

And do that first. Just do that — first.

In this issue: How I’m starting my year-end inventory process early, some pick of the year so far, and party hacks I tested out IRL this week.

Why you’re getting this: I'm Jen Glantz and this is The Pick-Me-Up newsletter. I've been sending it every Monday, for 8-years, to thousands of awesome humans, just like you. Thank you for letting this email live in your inbox. It truly makes my heart explode with joy.

Ps. I’m so grateful that you’re reading this because writing this newsletter every week is my favorite thing. If you know anyone who would adore getting this in their inbox, it would mean the world if you’d share it.

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⚡Instant Pick Me Ups

Ps. All of the picks from the past few months are all inside this list here!

📚: I spent the whole weekend listening to this audiobook. Wow, her story is sad and I just could not stop listening. Ps. I’m a big fan of audiobooks now so if you have any suggestions, hit reply and let me know.

📄: A long list of last-minute Halloween costumes you can DIY

🍰:I never have an urge to bake or cook but I do love making Halloween treats (for some odd reason). Here’s the list I’m using to make a few treats for Adam and I.

🎙️: I had to listen to this podcast about a wedding scammer. It’s good so far!

👗: Jackets! All of these are on sale right now:

• For guys: This sherpa one // this simple one

• I love this white fitted jacket // professional looking jacket with a scarf // a coat that pairs well with any outfit // my go-to blazer // a pick for people who don’t live in cold-weather spots

🛠️: I built a tool! It can write you a personalized maid of honor speech instantly. We also launched a best man version too — check it out!

📝: Sharing a writer friend’s newsletter with you! She shares round-ups of recipes, articles, tv shows, podcasts, and more!

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I spent most the year wearing a helmet filled with fog.

I was alive but in a daze.

The first few months of the year, I tried to act normal, but I was in the final months of my pregnancy, scared out of my mind. I canceled meetings, missed deadlines, ghosted my best friends, because I couldn’t wrap my head around how a baby was going to come out of my body and all of a sudden I was going to transform into a mom. It seemed so ludicrous and so — I took any time I could to obsess over every single detail of it.

Then in March, my baby came and even though I read a dozen books and asked each mom friend I know 75 extraordinary questions, I wasn’t prepared for the journey. Spoiler alert: you never really can be.

Every month as a new parent feels like you’re taking a road trip across the country without GPS. You’re always thinking about three things: sleep, food, and safety. I’d find myself staring at an email that just needed a yes or no response but I couldn’t figure out what to type because I hadn’t slept more than 3-hours in a month and my brain was counting how many ounces of milk I think the baby had so far that day.

Which is all to say — that’s me — that’s my year. I lived it. It happened. I’ll never get 2023 back. And I don’t want it back. I want to start again in 2024 already.

But I love a proper goodbye, especially to break-up with a year. So I’m starting early.

Every year, I do a year-end inventory. It’s a therapeutic and eye-opening process that helps me understand all that I lived through and how I want to plan for the new year ahead of me.

I decided to share my five-step process with you inside of this newsletter. Every week, from now until the start of December, I’ll share exactly what I’m doing to prepare for the end of the year and to set new goals for 2024.

So let’s start with part one.

Take Inventory on 2023. Here’s how:

Open up a word document and write down each month of the year. Then go through last year’s calendar, week-by-week, and jot down the important events, significant moments, lingering memories and anything else that stuck with you during that time frame. For each month, I like to write down (3) wins and (3) things that didn’t go as well as I hoped.

Use your phone’s calendar, search through photographs, look at your social media feed. All of those things can help you remember what happened month-by-month.

Remember, nothing you write down is too small.

Everything you write down matters. 

Fill in for November and December later on.

But looking at the other 10-months, start to assign a few metrics to them.

• On a scale of 1-5 (1 being ehh and 5 being yay) how would rate the month?

• What lesson did you learn from the month and the rating you gave it? Ex: June was a 2 because I wasn’t taking care of myself and I was working way too much. The lack of balance messed with me mentally and set me back in a lot of ways. January was a 5 because I followed a good routine with my workouts and I was able to focus during work hours so that I could have time at night and weekends to see friends and do fun things.

• After auditing each month, what are your (3) takeaways from how you spent 2023? Ex: I wasted too much time on projects, people, and procrastinating on things that don’t matter.

I’ll be back next week with part two of my year-end inventory game plan.

If you know anybody who would adore getting this inside their inbox, share this with them!

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👩 Real Life Pick-Me-Ups:

• I went to a party this week where I didn’t know anybody except the host. I used three techniques that were helpful for the awkward moments. First, when I was in a convo with someone for a long-time and it was starting to feel stale — I simply said — It’s been great chatting with you, I’m going to go refill my drink. Second, when I didn’t have anybody to talk to, I went up to small groups of people (2-3) and not big groups (5-9) people and said hello. It was easier to break into a smaller group’s conversation than a larger one. Finally, I didn’t ask for anything. I met some people there who were superstars. A Hollywood agent! An editor at a wedding magazine. I could have asked for their help but this wasn’t a networking event. Life is all about timing and so are connections. My goal wasn’t to become their friend so I could ask for a favor later. My goal was to simply get to know them and after the party, send them a message saying how great it was to meet them. Perhaps they’d offer a coffee chat or maybe in a few weeks from now I’ll reach back out. But the aggressive ask isn’t my style and so I was happy I didn’t go that route at the party. It almost never works out well in those settings.

• I know I need to start thinking about holiday gifts early this year so that I don’t overspend and I don’t over stress later on. My first step is writing down the names of everyone I want to give a gift to and then I write down my entire gift budget. I pick a number that makes sense for my finances and doesn’t feel like a stretch. Then I write down how much I can spend per person and that helps me brainstorm gifts for them. I used to like to give each person a ton of gifts to make them feel special but I instead want to think about one important gift per person this year instead.

• I’m thinking of taking December off from writing the newsletter. Is that okay with you (let me know in the comments below). I want to spend a chunk of time just really brainstorming how I can make special projects like this one better and more enjoyable (send me feedback, please).

Until next week — say hello!