A Health Coach's Case for a Less Impressive Summer
The best parts of summer can't be posted or optimised
Every year, summer arrives with the same weird pressure.
Relax, but make it meaningful.
Have fun, but don’t lose your routine.
Be present, but also document everything.
Rest, but come back glowing.
Eat the ice cream, but somehow also maintain the body, the habits, the steps, the sleep, the inbox and the version of yourself who had a very sensible plan in June.
Honestly, it’s exhausting.
And the best parts of summer are usually the ones you can’t post, track, or sell as a $100 protocol.
The late dinners. The long walks. The slightly feral travel days.
The cold gasp when you get in the sea. The lunch that runs into the afternoon because nobody checked the time. The dance floor where, for once, nobody is filming.
That’s the whole point of The Bare Minimum Summer Series, which runs here on Substack through July and August.
Not optimising summer, but not abandoning yourself either.
Just finding the few tiny anchors that help you still feel like you when life gets louder, hotter, later, messier or more social than usual.
Because the choice isn’t between becoming a wellness robot and letting the whole thing go to hell until September.
There’s a middle.
You can enjoy the summer meal and keep a tiny sleep anchor. You can travel and still move your body in a way that feels good. You can miss your routine without turning it into a personality crisis. You can have days that look nothing like your usual life and still feel connected to yourself.
That’s what we’re doing here. This isn’t a reset or a challenge or a laminated plan for becoming your best self by September. It’s just the bare minimum, built for real life.
So before you decide what you’re “sticking to” this summer, ask a better question:
What are the 3 things that help me feel like myself?
Not impressive things or Instagrammable things or things a health coach on the internet would approve of. Your ACTUAL things.
Maybe it’s one proper breakfast. Maybe it’s a swim. Maybe it’s walking after dinner. Maybe it’s sleeping enough twice a week. Maybe it’s one phone-free meal with someone whose face you like. Maybe it’s doing the bare-minimum version of your workout and calling that a win, because it is.
Pick 3.
Those are your summer anchors, and they’re allowed to be deeply unimpressive. Everything else, the streak, the challenge, the 5am club, the colour-coded meal prep, you get to shrink, pause, or quietly let it die.
☀️ Free this Friday: The Bare Minimum Habit Plan
A 45-minute workshop where you build exactly this: your anchors, sized to survive heat, travel and a 10pm dinner, and written down on 1 page. It drops Friday morning. Register now and it lands in your inbox the second it’s live.
Register free → unwritten.coach/summerplan
I don’t know about you, but I’m craving more analogue experiences. Phone-free, real, the kind that aren’t immediately turned into content, proof or evidence that I’m living correctly.
And I don’t think I’m the only one. People are tired. Tired of feeds, prompts, dashboards, optimisation, everything becoming content, everything becoming data.
One of my favourite things about being in CDMX during the World Cup, with the Mexican team doing so well so far, has been watching the games in packed pubs, phones face-down or in pockets, everyone losing their minds at each goal, strangers hugging, nobody trying to optimise the moment because we were too busy being inside it.
I’ve done less this June than I have in years, on purpose, and I’ve rarely felt more like myself.
A summer the internet would file under “lazy” might turn out to be the one you actually remember.
Fewer screens, more sand, and a version of you who gets to September rested instead of needing to be scraped off the floor.
So if there’s water nearby, go and jump in.
And if there isn’t, find the thing that brings you back into your actual life. That counts too.
The Unwritten Check-In
This week’s bare minimum: pick your 3 summer anchors. Choose the small things that keep you feeling like yourself, write them down, and let everything else be optional.
Ask yourself: what are the 3 things that help me feel like me, even when the routine’s gone?
With love,
Noemie x
P.S. If your routine has fully left the building and you’d like the bare-minimum version that survives heat, travel and a 10pm dinner, this is your week. My Summer-Proof workshop, The Bare Minimum Habit Plan, drops Friday morning: free, 45 minutes, and basically this idea with an actual plan attached. Register now and it lands in your inbox the second it’s live. Register here → unwritten.coach/summerplan
Noemie Mooney is an ACE Certified Health Coach, ICF-trained Behaviour Change Specialist, certified yoga instructor, and creator of the MAKE SPACE Method™. Trained in design thinking at the Stanford d.school, she writes Unwritten Potential, a newsletter about evidence-based wellbeing, sustainable habits, mental wellbeing, and health behaviour change for smart, health-curious people who want to feel their best without making it a full-time job.