I Didn’t Set Out to Live More Intentionally Then We Moved
How a change of place gave me the space to notice what I wanted the next chapter of my life to feel like. I didn’t set out to create an entirely new way of living. I thought we were simply moving. Packing boxes. Sorting closets. Choosing what would come with us and what we were finally ready to leave behind. But somewhere between letting go of one home and creating another, I began asking myself questions that had very little to do with furniture.
What do I truly want to carry forward? What still fits the woman I am becoming? How do I want my days to feel?
Without realizing it, I had begun exploring what it meant to live more intentionally. Not as a perfectly organized system. Not as a minimalist challenge. And certainly not as an attempt to strip life down until it became beige, empty, and devoid of personality. For me, intentional living became something much warmer. It was about creating a life that felt more like mine.
Moving Made Every Choice Visible
Moving has a way of making you confront your choices. Every object has to be touched, considered, packed, donated, discarded, or carried into the next chapter. You suddenly see how much has accumulated without your consciously choosing it. Some things once served a purpose. Some belonged to an earlier season. Some had simply remained because there had never been a reason to question them. At first, I was only trying to make the move easier. But as I began editing what we owned, I noticed something unexpected:
The less we carried forward by default, the more room we created for what we truly wanted.
That realization stayed with me because perhaps we do the same thing in other areas of our lives. We carry routines, commitments, expectations, identities, and habits forward simply because they have always been there. We rarely stop to ask whether they still belong—or whether they still support the life we are trying to create. The move gave me permission to explore.
I Began With How I Wanted Home to Feel
As we settled into our new home, my decisions began to change. I wasn’t only asking, “Do I like this?” I found myself asking:
- How do I want this room to feel?
- How do we want to live here?
- What would make our everyday life easier, calmer, and more beautiful?
Those may sound like decorating questions, but they became something more. I began to understand how quietly our surroundings shape us. A home cannot create a meaningful life for us, but it can support the life we are trying to create. It can make it easier to gather people around the table. To prepare a nourishing meal. To rest. To think. To create. To begin and end the day with a little more calm.
I also realized that simpler did not mean less beautiful. This was not deprivation. It was curation. There is a difference.
Deprivation asks, “How little can I live with?” Curation asks, “What deserves a place in my life?”
Intentional Living Began to Look Very Ordinary
The biggest changes were not dramatic. They were practical. Preparing a few foods ahead of time. Organizing the closet so getting dressed felt enjoyable. Creating a home for the things that always seemed to collect on the counter. I began noticing the small points of friction in our days—the unnecessary decisions, the clutter we repeatedly moved from one surface to another, and the systems that made simple things feel harder than they needed to be. Every time we removed one of those friction points, we preserved a little more energy for something that mattered. This, I realized, was intentional living too. It wasn’t always about adding another meaningful practice or beautiful object. Sometimes it was simply about making the life we already had easier to live.
I Stopped Designing for an Imaginary Version of Myself
The move also made me more honest about how we actually live. Instead of creating a home—and a life—for an imaginary version of myself, I began supporting the real woman who lives here. My wardrobe began reflecting the woman I am now. I wanted to open my closet and recognize myself: comfortable without becoming careless, current without chasing every trend. I wanted our rooms to reflect what we genuinely value, not what a room was supposed to contain. I wanted our routines to support our actual days, not an ideal schedule that looked good on paper but never quite fit. There was freedom in that honesty. The goal was not to become someone entirely new. It was to create more alignment between who I was becoming and the way I was living.
Then I Began Editing More Than Our Belongings
Once I started thinking this way about our home, I couldn’t contain it there. Editing our belongings made me think about editing our schedules. Creating peaceful rooms made me more aware of protecting my own peace. I began paying closer attention to where my time went, what restored my energy, what depleted it, and what I wanted to make more room for in this season. It became clear that creating a well-lived life wasn’t only about what I added.It was also about what I was willing to release.
Intentional living does not mean controlling every detail or getting every choice right. It is a practice of returning. Returning to what matters. Returning to the way we want to feel. Returning to ourselves when life becomes crowded, noisy, or automatic again.
The Move Was Only the Beginning
Looking back, the move didn’t suddenly transform me into someone who lives intentionally. It simply gave me a doorway. It interrupted my routines long enough for me to see them. And once I began asking what would move forward with us, I couldn’t stop asking the same question about everything else.
- What do I want to carry forward?
- What am I ready to release?
- What deserves more room in my life?
- What kind of woman do I want to be in this next season?
Those questions became the beginning of A Well Lived Life. Because a well-lived life is not waiting for us somewhere else. And it is not created all at once. It is created through hundreds of thoughtful choices: how we care for our bodies, shape our homes, spend our time, nurture our relationships, and respond when something no longer fits. One intentional choice. One meaningful habit. One ordinary day at a time.
A Question for Your Next Chapter
You do not need to move to begin. Perhaps you simply need to look at one area of your life with fresh eyes—a room, a routine, a commitment, a habit, or even an old idea of who you are supposed to be. Then ask yourself: Does this still deserve a place in the life I am creating? You may not have the answer immediately. But asking the question is a beginning to getting started creating your own version of a well-lived life.
Stay Connected
For thoughtful inspiration and practical guidance for a stronger, healthier, more intentional life, subscribe to my newsletter The Well-Lived Edit.
