Have You Stoped Taking Care of Yourself?

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.

I’ve been on a month-long quest to feel pretty again.

I stopped taking care of myself a while ago.

But recently, it’s gotten bad.

My split ends are splitting.

My clothes are stained.

I have very old polish lingering on my nails.

I can continue to live like this.

It doesn’t really matter to the people around me.

Goofy (my dog) loves me even when I smell like stale pizza. Gemma (my baby) smiles at me the most when I look silly. Adam (my husband) is used to all of the above by now.

But the other day, I locked eyes with myself in the mirror and said:

Jen Glantz. You have become a slob.

I want to feel good about myself again and not some mess doused in perfume.

Because it rubs off on everything that I do and everyone that I’m with.

I’m tired of hiding behind cheap Eau de Parfum.

So step one is realizing this:

If you’re not taking care of yourself, who is?

*Crickets*

Nobody.

That’s because nobody else really can.

In this issue: The ways I’m working on taking care of myself again, the things that inspire me, and a lot of other good little things.

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

📚: I wanted to share my book with you this week. I hardly ever share it anymore and hope to be able to sit still and write another new book soon.

📄: A fun article about close friendships.

🎧: I really adore her - some people will agree and some will roll their eyes.

🎵: Adam got me hooked on this song. TikTok got me hooked on this song.

🛍️: Here’s what I upgraded in my life this week

• Shampoo. I’ve been using a random one Adam has in the shower but decided to get a shampoo that’s actually good for my hair. I picked this one because of it’s natural ingredients and I’m loving it so far.

• I wear sneakers every second of the day and my Hoka’s are really beat up. I splurged and got these because I like how half the show is black and half is white.

🛠️: I built a tool! It can write you a custom maid of honor speech in minutes. We just added a feature where you can test it out too in case you want a glimpse of how it all works.

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I Did it For Myself

Hi, It’s me.

My mom tells me that someone she knows got a face lift.

“She looks incredible.”

I ask her why this person did this. Why she gave herself such a drastic and expensive makeover.

“It’s simple. She did it for herself.”

I spend a few minutes every day secretly brainstorming how I can feel pretty again.

I don’t tell anybody about this mental mission because I don’t want their feedback.

I don’t want their help.

I want to help myself.

What they see isn’t what I see.

I see someone who is stuck in a spin cycle.

Who is working so hard to show up for so many people, places, and things.

If I can save 15-minutes a day by not brushing my hair or putting on an outfit that’s not wrinkled, I’ll do it.

But I’ve done this for way too long that now it’s starting to be a problem.

Because how we feel about ourselves is how we feel about everything.

When I feel pretty, strong, happy, confident, powerful I feel motivated, energized, capable of doing the impossible.

When I feel like a slob, I feel like I’m living inside someone else’s life.

Have you ever felt like you are hiding inside of your own life?

Like the monster in the closet is you?

Yeah, no more. I don’t want to live life like that.

So I started making little changes. I picked out outfits on Sunday to wear the rest of the week. That way, when I wake up in the morning, my entire outfit is ready for me to toss on. The rules are: nothing stained, nothing sad. Jen Glantz wears bright colors and sequined things.

I started getting ready for the day even if I’m not seeing anybody but my family. Doing my hair and makeup, and putting on accessories, makes me feel motivated in a way that lounging around in pajamas just doesn’t.

I thought about the other little things that make me feel good about myself and I started doing those things as many times as I could. I didn’t put pressure on myself to do them every day. I did them only when I wanted to. I called my friends. I love talking to my friends on the phone. I went back to the gym and lifted heavy weights. I really love feeling strong.

I put on a really good playlist and danced in my room.

Adam opened the door.

“What are you doing?” He asked, looking around to see if I was filming myself for TikTok or something. “Who are you putting on this dance show for?”

I smiled.

“I’m doing it for myself.” I said, closing the door.

It turns out feeling pretty again isn’t just about slapping on a full-face of makeup or a shiny new outfit or doing a bunch of things that you love to do again.

It’s doing all of these things for one reason and one reason only:

You’re doing them for yourself.

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Hi, It’s Me!

1. Apartment update: We toured the most amazing building I have ever seen. It’s right on the water in Brooklyn and has the most gorgeous views of Manhattan. Plus the building has wild amenities (a bowling alley, multiple pools, a cold plunge, etc.). The only apartment we can afford has a catch to it. It faces a construction site where over the next year a new 40-story building will be built. It’s very close to this site so I imagine the construction noise will be endless. This is the view from the window of the apartment.

   

2. Social Media: I’m still feeling so repulsed by posting on social media. I’ve spent years building up my social media platforms because I felt like I had to. When I was 23 a literary agent told me that publishers wouldn’t give me a book deal until I had 10k followers on Twitter (this was when Twitter was a big deal). He told me that if I wanted to be an author, I had to have a humongous following. So I spent so much time sharing my life as authentically as possible on every social media channel out there. There were days I loved it and days I felt like if I stopped doing it, I’d move further away from having a platform that would allow me to write books and speak to audiences. But I’m in this weird place right now where I can’t post because I really don’t want to post. Maybe that will change but until it does, I won’t force it.

3. Thank you for reading this. I don’t think you realize how much this newsletter means to me. It’s my most favorite thing. So thank you, my friend.