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I took a week away from Wellish and realized I’d been trying so hard to get the podcast “right” that it stopped feeling like a place to hang out. In this episode, I’m talking about what changes in Season 5: more honest, less edited conversations about self improvement, without turning every conversation into another list of things you should be doing. I also get into being called “aggressive,” the moment I caught myself wanting to change how I show up so people would like me, and how that fear has kept me at arm’s length from people. Catching the pattern didn’t instantly make me fearless. But it gave me a chance to stop following it. That’s the kind of conversation I want Wellish to make room for.

Five years ago, I started Wellish because I believed the right advice could help us become better versions of ourselves. Hundreds of conversations and several identity crises later, I’ve realized that many of us aren’t using self-improvement because we believe in ourselves—we’re using it to finally feel good enough. In this anniversary episode, I’m sharing the real story behind Wellish: the wound that started it, how my relationship with personal growth changed, and why the podcast became a rebellion against self-rejection disguised as self-improvement. We’re talking about the pressure to become your “best self,” the knowledge-to-skill gap, learning to trust yourself without having everything figured out, and what I want the next five years of Wellish to stand for. You can want to grow without making your current self the enemy. Happy five years, Wellish besties. 🤍

What if your “healthy” routine is actually spending more energy than it gives you? In this episode of Wellish, Sarah sits down with naturopathic doctor and The Cortisol Cure author Dr. Erin Kinney to rethink what we’ve been taught about cortisol, chronic stress, and burnout. Dr. Kinney introduces her Cortisol Bank Account framework: every demand on your body—from work and emotional stress to exercise, caffeine, and even certain wellness practices—requires energy. If you continually spend more than you restore, you may find yourself exhausted, wired at night, dependent on caffeine, struggling with your hormones, or unable to relax without feeling guilty. Sarah and Dr. Kinney discuss why wellness can become another form of hustle culture, how to tell when you’re running on empty, and how ambitious people can protect their energy without giving up their goals. In this conversation: Why cortisol isn’t simply a “bad” hormone you need to lowerHow healthy habits like intense workouts, cold plunges, and elaborate routines can become additional stressorsWhy relaxing may initially feel uncomfortable or unproductiveThe connection between chronic stress, energy, hormones, and relationshipsHow “relax reps” can help your body practice slowing downWhy eating before caffeine may support steadier energyHow to make small energy deposits throughout your dayWhat sustainable wellness looks like when you’re an imperfect humanBecause sometimes taking better care of yourself doesn’t require another supplement, routine, or self-improvement project. Sometimes it means giving your body enough energy to support the life you’re already living. Learn more about Dr. Erin Kinney and The Cortisol Cure: The Cortisol Cure⁠ DrErinKinney.com⁠ Instagram: @drkinney This conversation is educational and is not a substitute for individualized medical advice.

Do you genuinely want the goal or do you want what achieving it would prove about you? In this episode of Wellish, Sarah breaks down how approval-seeking can quietly shape your goals, especially when you’re a naturally Type B person holding yourself to Type A standards. You’ll learn how to recognize when a goal has become proof that you’re disciplined, desirable, successful, healed, or finally good enough and how to separate what you truly want from how you want other people to see you. You don’t have to abandon your ambitions. You can pursue meaningful goals without making your achievement responsible for your self-worth.

What happens when self-awareness stops helping you understand yourself and starts giving you more reasons to think you should be doing better? In this confession episode, I’m talking about the period of my life when I knew so much about self-improvement, attachment styles, boundaries, nervous system regulation, confidence, habits, and emotional intelligence that I couldn’t have a normal human reaction without analyzing what it meant about me. I wasn’t just anxious—I thought I should be more secure. I wasn’t just tired—I thought I lacked discipline. I couldn’t make a mistake without wondering what I still needed to heal. Eventually, I realized I wasn’t only trying to become healthier. I was trying to become so self-aware, healed, disciplined, and emotionally intelligent that no one could have a reason to disapprove of me. If you love self-improvement but constantly feel like you should know better, be further along, or have yourself more together by now, this episode is for you. Because sometimes growth looks less like fixing your reaction and more like letting yourself be a person without turning every imperfect moment into another self-improvement project.

If you love self-improvement but somehow every new piece of advice becomes another thing you feel like you should already be doing, this episode is for you. Wake up earlier. Journal. Meditate. Exercise. Read more. Meal prep. Regulate your nervous system. Set better boundaries. Be more confident. Keep every promise you make to yourself. None of that advice is necessarily bad. But when every good idea becomes another standard your “better self” would be meeting, self-improvement can start to feel like an impossible checklist. In this episode of Wellish, we’re talking about how to stop turning useful advice into evidence that you’re falling behind. You’ll learn the beginning of the Wellish filter for deciding which advice actually belongs in your life, how to recognize when growth has turned into self-rejection, and why “this might improve my life” is very different from “I should already be doing this.” Because self-improvement should give you more options for living well—not more reasons to believe you’re not good enough yet.

What if self-improvement isn’t actually making you feel better about yourself? In this confession episode, I’m talking about the years I spent reading the books, learning the habits, becoming more self-aware, trying to be more disciplined, and chasing the “best version” of myself because I thought eventually I’d feel good enough. But the more I learned, the more I found new ways to judge myself. We’re talking about the gap between knowing what to do and actually being able to live it, why self-awareness can turn into self-criticism, the pressure to become your imaginary “better self,” and what changes when you stop using personal growth as proof that you’re worthy. Because maybe self-improvement isn’t the problem. Maybe it stops helping when every new piece of advice becomes another way to decide you’re not good enough yet.

What if your self-improvement isn’t actually helping you feel better, it’s just giving you more reasons to feel like you’re not good enough yet? In this episode, we’re talking about the difference between healthy personal growth and self-rejection disguised as self-improvement. Especially if you’re naturally more relaxed, flexible, or Type B but keep trying to force yourself into the perfectly disciplined, productive, “best version of yourself” you think you’re supposed to become. We’ll talk about the signs your self-help habits have turned into a way of judging yourself, why your imaginary “better self” may be impossible to live up to, and how to keep growing without treating who you are right now like a problem that needs to be fixed. Because you can want better habits, more confidence, bigger goals, and a better life without making self-improvement the price of finally feeling good enough.

What if confidence isn’t finally becoming someone you can’t find fault with? In this episode, we’re talking about what happens when you’re naturally easygoing, but you still put an insane amount of pressure on yourself to become more productive, disciplined, secure, successful, interesting, or “put together” so you can finally feel good enough. For years, I thought confidence would make me feel so capable and secure that I’d stop having reasons to question myself. But real confidence might be almost the opposite. You’re still going to have moments when you’re behind. Wrong. Rejected. Less skilled. Unproductive. Not someone’s favorite. You’re still going to find things about yourself that you want to improve. The difference is that those moments no longer become proof that something is wrong with you. We’re getting into the difference between self-confidence and constantly collecting proof that you’re good enough, why self-improvement can quietly become self-rejection, and how to grow without turning every weakness into another reason to fix yourself. Because maybe confidence isn’t never feeling inadequate. Maybe it’s knowing you won’t turn against yourself when you do.

If you’re naturally easygoing but constantly worried that you’re too lazy, too inconsistent, or not disciplined enough, you might have spent years trying to turn yourself into a completely different person. You consume self improvement because you want to feel better about yourself. But somehow every new routine, habit, productivity rule, or “best version of yourself” checklist just gives you another way to feel like you’re falling short. So you try harder. You become more disciplined. More self-aware. More productive. More agreeable. More put together. But you still don’t feel good enough. In this episode, we’re talking about what happens when self-improvement becomes a way to reject who you already are and how to grow without constantly trying to become the kind of person you think no one could criticize, reject, or call lazy. We’ll talk about why your ideal self may not actually fit your personality, why accepting your Type B nature doesn’t mean giving up on growth, and how to build habits and a life around the person you actually are. You don’t need to become “that girl” before you’re allowed to feel proud of yourself. You grow because you care about yourself, not because you believe who you are now isn’t good enough.

If you’ve ever tried to become prettier, more disciplined, more successful, more emotionally mature, more confident or just more like that girl because you thought you’d finally feel good enough once you got there, this episode is for you. For years, I thought becoming my ideal self would make me impossible to criticize, reject, or abandon. So I hyperanalyzed myself, tried to fix every flaw, and treated my naturally Type B, sensitive, messy, comfort-loving personality like something I needed to outgrow. But no matter how much I improved, the finish line kept moving (even though I was convinced it didn’t) In this episode, I’m sharing what finally changed: why trying to earn self-worth through self-improvement was actually making me trust myself less, how I stopped organizing my life around other people’s perception of me, and the practice that helped me build enough self-trust to handle criticism, embarrassment, mistakes, and rejection without abandoning myself. Because the goal isn’t to stop growing. It’s to be able to want more for yourself without making who you are right now the enemy. You don’t have to become your ideal self to finally be good enough.

What if becoming more magnetic has less to do with being prettier, cooler, more confident, or more interesting and more to do with finally giving yourself permission to take up space? In this episode of Wellish, we’re talking about the subtle ways we abandon ourselves to stay likable: over-explaining, people-pleasing, being the “good girl,” hiding our preferences, monitoring how we’re being perceived, and making ourselves smaller so other people feel comfortable. We’ll unpack why emotional safety is one of the most attractive qualities a person can have, how people-pleasing disconnects you from your own personality, and what it actually looks like to stop shrinking yourself without becoming inconsiderate or performatively confident. Because magnetism isn’t about becoming someone everyone wants. It’s about learning how to stay on your own side even when someone else might not choose you.

What if becoming more confident and magnetic has less to do with improving yourself—and more to do with thinking about yourself less? In this episode of Confessions of a Wellish Girly, I’m talking about how I confused being impressive with being magnetic. I thought confidence would come from becoming attractive enough, successful enough, interesting enough, healed enough, or accomplished enough that I could finally stop worrying about how people saw me. Instead, I’m realizing how much of my life I’ve spent self-monitoring: Did I say the right thing? Was I weird? Do they like me? How am I coming across? We’re talking about the difference between self-awareness and self-surveillance, why the most magnetic people often aren’t the most polished people in the room, and what happens when you stop asking, “Do they like me?” and start asking, “Do I like it here?” Maybe confidence isn’t becoming someone impossible to reject. Maybe it’s being present enough to stop constantly editing yourself.

In this episode, Brian Pultro is back on Wellish for a conversation about ambition, success, failure, identity, and the pressure to constantly become a better version of yourself. We talk about why so many of us treat happiness like something waiting on the other side of the next goal, why the definition of success keeps changing as we move through life, and what happens when ambition stops being something you have and starts becoming who you are. Brian also opens up about retiring after 20 years in the Navy, losing a piece of his identity in the process, setting a goal to run a marathon before he feels remotely ready, and the belief about himself he’s been carrying since he was 17. We get into fear of failure, saying your goals out loud before you can prove yourself, meaningful lives versus impressive ones, the tiny ways perfectionism shows up in everyday life, and why sometimes the very thing you’re chasing is keeping you from noticing that you may have already arrived. If you’re constantly moving the goalpost on yourself, waiting to feel successful enough to relax, or treating your life like one long self-improvement project, this conversation is for you.

What if confidence isn’t believing everything will work out, but trusting yourself even when it doesn’t? In this episode of Wellish, we’re talking about identity-based confidence: the kind that doesn’t disappear when someone rejects you, criticizes you, doesn’t choose you, or life simply doesn’t go according to plan. We’ll unpack the difference between confidence and self-trust, why compliments and external validation can never create lasting confidence, and how to build evidence that you’ll have your own back. We’ll also talk about keeping promises to yourself without turning your life into another self-improvement project, surviving rejection without making it mean something about your worth, and becoming someone you can depend on even when you feel uncertain. Because real confidence isn’t “I know I’ll succeed.” It’s “I know I’ll be okay either way.”