Stop Waiting for Someday: How Intentional Living Creates a No-Regret Life

 

Jodi Wellman, founder of 4,000 Mondays, inspires us to live more fully!

Most people aren’t afraid of dying.

They’re afraid of getting to the end of their life and realizing they never really lived it.

They lived for weekends.
They lived for vacations.
They lived for “after this season” or “once things calm down.”

And quietly, almost imperceptibly, their days slipped by.

This is the heart of intentional living—and the difference between a life filled with meaning and a life filled with regret.

In a powerful conversation on the Feel Good Nakd podcast, Chardet sits down with Jodi Wellman, creator of 4,000 Mondays and author of You Only Die Once, to explore what it actually takes to live a no regret life—not in theory, but in real, ordinary, human days.

• Intentional living starts when you stop assuming time is endless and choose presence now.
• The fear of the unlived life—not death—is what creates regret, procrastination, and anxiety.
• Counting your 4,000 Mondays brings you back into the power of now through small, daily choices.

 

TIMESTAMPS

(00:00) Are you just counting down? What intentional living looks like
(06:30) 4,000 Mondays as a wake up call
(12:15) The fear of the unlived life
(18:40) Why we feel FOMO
(25:10) Small everyday choices that build a no regret life

 

ABOUT JODI WELLMAN
Life is short, so let’s get on with it! Four Thousand Mondays is where Jodi Wellman helps people live like they mean it.

 

CONNECT

Instagram: @fourthousandmondays
Website: https://fourthousandmondays.com/

 

LISTEN TO NEXT
How to Change Your Life (ep #432)

 

 

 

MORE ON THIS SELF-HELP PODCAST EPISODE

 

“I’m asking for my life to go faster so I can enjoy one or two stupid days of the week.” – Jodi Wellman, founder of 4,000 Mondays

 

• Intentional living begins when you stop waiting for someday 
• The fear of the unlived life, not death, is what quietly drives anxiety
• Counting your 4,000 Mondays brings you back into the power of now
• A no regret life is built through small, everyday choices

 

Why We Keep Living on Autopilot

Most of us don’t consciously choose to drift through life. It happens slowly.

You wake up.
You do what needs to be done.
You get through the week.
You wait for Friday.

Then you do it again.

This pattern isn’t a personal failure—it’s a psychological one. Humans are wired for adaptation. We get used to what once felt exciting. The new job becomes normal. The relationship becomes routine. The dream you worked so hard for fades into the background.

Psychologists call this hedonic adaptation—and it explains why even “good lives” can feel strangely flat.

Without intention, presence fades. And without presence, life becomes something you manage instead of something you experience.

 

The 4,000 Mondays Wake-Up Call

Jodi’s work is built around a deceptively simple idea: most people will live roughly 4,000 Mondays.

Not 4,000 Fridays.
Not 4,000 vacations.
Mondays.

She chose Mondays deliberately—because they’re the litmus test. Mondays reveal how you actually feel about your life when there’s nothing to distract you.

Are you engaged?
Resentful?
Numb?
On autopilot?

Counting Mondays isn’t morbid. It’s clarifying.

It brings you back into the power of now by forcing one essential question:

If this week mattered—because it does—how would I show up differently?

This is intentional living in practice, not philosophy.

 

The Real Fear: The Unlived Life

At the core of this conversation is a truth most people avoid:

The deepest fear isn’t death.
It’s the fear of the unlived life.

This fear shows up as:

• Procrastinating your dreams
• Avoiding difficult conversations
• Staying in situations that no longer fit
• Waiting for permission that never comes

 

We delay because trying—and failing—feels like a kind of death. Rejection threatens identity. Change threatens certainty. But not choosing has consequences too.

Research shows that the regrets people carry most deeply aren’t the things they did wrong—but the paths they never took. The words they never said. The lives they postponed.

A no regret life isn’t about making perfect choices. It’s about making honest ones.

 

Why Being Present Is Hard (and Why It Matters)

Presence isn’t just a mindset—it’s physiological.

When your nervous system is constantly activated by stress, urgency, and mental noise, the power of now feels inaccessible. You can’t drop into the moment if your body doesn’t feel safe enough to slow down.

That’s why intentional living doesn’t start with grand gestures. It starts with awareness.

Small pauses.
Moments of noticing.
Creating space where your body can land.

This is why people often feel most alive on vacation—not because the location is magical, but because permission finally arrives.

Intentional living asks: What if you didn’t have to leave your life to feel present in it?

 

Making Ordinary Days Count

One of the most powerful reframes in this episode is deceptively simple:

Stop saving life for special occasions.

Jodi shares examples that sound almost too small to matter:

• Using the good china on a random Wednesday
• Wearing your favorite outfit to the grocery store
• Opening the bottle you’ve been “saving”
• Creating novelty in ordinary routines

 

But these moments add up.

They interrupt autopilot.
They signal to your nervous system that this day matters.
They create meaning without requiring intensity.

This is how a no regret life is built—not through constant transformation, but through repeated, intentional choices to be here.

 

Intentional Living Is Not Hustle in Disguise

This conversation is not about squeezing more productivity out of your life.

It’s about choosing consciously instead of defaulting unconsciously.

Intentional living might look like:

• Planning joy instead of waiting for it
• Blocking time for what restores you
• Saying no sooner
• Starting before you feel ready
• Letting go of the fantasy that someday will save you

 

It’s not glamorous. It’s not dramatic.

But it works.

 

The Question That Changes Everything

If you strip this episode down to its core, it leaves you with one quiet, powerful question:

If your time is limited—and it is—what are you waiting for?

You don’t need to overhaul your life.
You don’t need certainty.
You don’t need permission.

You need presence.
You need honesty.
You need to choose this week—before it becomes another crossed-off Monday.

That’s the work of intentional living.
That’s how a no regret life is built.
And that’s the real power of now.

 

 

Full Podcast Transcript with Jodi Wellman

Chardet Ryel (00:00)
Welcome to feel good naked Jodi. I’m excited to have you here.

Jodi Wellman (00:06)
well, I am even more excited. So there.

Chardet Ryel (00:09)
We’re on opposite times of the day. She’s here really early. I’m here really late, but we are excited to talk about being alive.

Jodi Wellman (00:18)
Yes, and I love how you’ve seen the future. You know that it’s bright and I still have the potential of whatever’s gonna happen on my Tuesday.

Chardet Ryel (00:21)
It’s not so great.

I will, you know that I’ve talked to you briefly before about how we wanted to have a conversation on here about really being present in your life, especially right now with all the chaos, turmoil, et cetera, that going on in the world. I think it’s especially hard right now to ground, to be present. And I think that the way that you’ve talked about it in your book,

on your socials, in your speaking is so, I don’t know, it doesn’t feel too woo woo, but it does feel like hopeful, you know?

Jodi Wellman (01:01)
I’m glad that you chose the word hopeful, especially considering that I love to talk about death, which is ultimately hopeless. But I promise, anyone listening now is like, wait, what have I gotten myself into? Don’t go anywhere because, ⁓ yeah, I love what you said. Like the hopefulness is about this precious special time we’ve been allotted. And I frame it in the reality that like,

there’s no spoiler alert required. Like we’re all totally gonna die and you know, some of us hopefully, know, we’re gonna live an average of 4,000 Mondays, which is why I kind of called my business that. ⁓ And it’s only when we stop to reflect on how impermanent we are that we start to really take our time that we have now, maybe more serious or less serious depending on what you need in your life right now. But your point about being present.

There could be no better way to startle ourselves into presence than to say, this thing that I’ve been just taking for granted ain’t gonna last forever, right?

Chardet Ryel (02:03)
Yeah, especially when we start thinking about how many Mondays have already passed, right? Like that reframe. How did you come up with the idea of Mondays specifically? I’m sure you get this question a lot, but I think it’s important to really understand why that because that’s not usually the day that you want to think about that you have left, right?

Jodi Wellman (02:09)
Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, you just made me think for the first time ever that like my deciding to name your company two really offensive things. A, the fact that we’re limited and B, the worst day of week. One wouldn’t think that was a really good like marketing idea, good branding move. And I was really deliberate about Monday, even though it’s annoying. And here’s why. If I want to draw attention to the finite nature of life, okay, so 4,000 roughly weeks. That’s cool. But like if I had said 4,000 Fridays or 4,000 Saturdays,

Chardet Ryel (02:38)
Hahaha!

Jodi Wellman (02:57)
It doesn’t have that sense of poking the ribs that I need. Cause every, like every Friday is great. Saturdays are pretty good. But Mondays are the, like this litmus test, do believe. Especially in our working years. But like, am I waking up ready to enjoy this week and kind of excited about facing the next week ahead of me? Or am I dreading it? Or am I just going through the motions? And that is for me the opportunity to kind of evaluate.

How’s this life I’m living going? know, do I need to maybe make some tweaks? And do I maybe need to make some giant overhauls? But Monday is a little bit more of a visceral, than just again, like any Fulu’s Fancy Free Friday.

Chardet Ryel (03:41)
It’s exactly what I experienced when I first saw that phrase with your company. And I was just thinking like, yeah, because how often do we sit here and we think, ⁓ just a few more days until Friday, almost to Saturday. And then it’s Sunday. ⁓ God, is it Monday tomorrow?

Jodi Wellman (03:59)
You know, I admit, I sometimes chastise myself. Like I think for some reason, because I talk about this for a living, that I’m supposed to somehow be above it. I’m the worst. I can’t wait for Fridays. And I’m like, wait a sec. It’s just this funny notion that savoring life, however much time we have left, whether like I know as of this week, I’ve got 1,740 on average, maybe more, maybe less. We obviously I’m crossing my fingers, right?

I am trying to expand and back to your point about being present and love the crap out of all of my moments. And yet I’m also the one, is it only Tuesday? why isn’t it Thursday? It feels like it should be Thursday. Why isn’t it Friday? Like, it’s so weird. I’m asking for my life to go faster so I can enjoy one or two stupid days of the week when I guess that, you know, here’s the lesson. It’s like, how do you love a Monday? How do you love a Tuesday? How do you love a random Thursday night? How do you, how do you just…

be intentional and, you know, maybe it’s not jam pack. I used to say the words jam pack life into the remaining Mondays we have, but I think it creates this connotation that I am wary about, especially for someone like me who I’m more of an introvert and I’m more of a homebody. Like jam packing life in to me sounds like, well, maybe I’d rather be dead. Like I don’t want all that intensity. I don’t think I can handle that much social interaction and like I can only handle like.

you know, a concert if it ends at 8 p.m. and like, so maybe it’s not jam packing, but whatever you want for your lovely life, let’s just make sure you’re getting to do what you wanna do rather than putting it off, putting it off, waiting for what, right?

Chardet Ryel (05:42)
when you framed it just now, it really stuck of not necessarily the jam packed and trying to, every single second has to be perfect. But when you were saying the idea of you are waiting to enjoy two days and you have seven in a week, that just hit me so hard because it’s like, yeah, wait a minute, what’s wrong with that?

Jodi Wellman (06:07)
Right, well, because sometimes the weekend is crap, right? Sometimes it rains. Sometimes your whole plan is off or you’re like, maybe you get a cold on the Saturday and you’re like, well, I could have been living on Tuesday. You know what else you just made me think of? It’s not just the weekend. It’s that don’t many of us, like we save up living for our vacations. So I was like, I really come alive when I take my week off.

Chardet Ryel (06:11)
Yeah? ⁓

Jodi Wellman (06:34)
in the summer or my week off at the holidays at the end of the year. And I love that, like, don’t not keep doing that. But does that mean that we’re putting life on hold or we’re like simmering in a pot and then we get to live when we go on vacation?

Chardet Ryel (06:49)
And how much pressure does that create? You go on vacation, it rains, you have a fight with your partner, you lose your kid for a few hours. All these problems can happen. And because you’ve saved your happiness for two weeks of the year in the States, or if you’re in Europe, sure, a month, but even then, imagine that, the pressure that you’ve put on just these few moments that have to be the best because everything else is so crap.

Jodi Wellman (07:13)
Yes.

completely, yeah. And I think we do that too. I don’t know if I’m the only one, but the idea of like, you want your birthday to be a special day. Or like, you put a lot of effort into thinking about this thing that’s supposed to be. And I don’t know if I’m gonna tap into the, you know, different ideologies like Buddhism about like, release the attachment, it’s gonna be what it’s gonna be. But my belief is back to the birthday thing or a holiday or some sort of special event. Yes, let’s make them special and have rituals that are cool, but also,

all the more reason to make a mundane day something worth treasuring. And so that’s where we could get into the silly stuff. But I do think it’s the silly stuff that actually adds up to a life that maybe is full of more joy, which is on a Wednesday, pulling out the good China and ordering pizza and having it on the China and like making making it special saying like, what movie do we want to watch? That was our favorite movie in the 80s, ⁓ which actually would be very hard choice to come up with. But anyways, that’s a different topic.

Chardet Ryel (08:14)
You

Jodi Wellman (08:15)
⁓ But making, know, saying, I’m gonna wear, like, when was the last time you wore, like, your favorite best outfit or like your best jewelry? I don’t even really have jewelry, but like, what are, you know, the stuff that we save, the amazing bottle of wine, you know what? There’s no, like, the special occasion you’re waiting for might end up being your fricking funeral. So why don’t we open up the bottle tonight on a seemingly nondescript day because we’re just celebrating the fact that we get to be here.

Chardet Ryel (08:42)
I love it. I hope someone’s listening in there like, you know what? I was saving this for a special day, but I just heard Jodie talk about it. So I’m doing it today. And I fully believe this. Like take out the outfit, wear it to the grocery store. Do the thing.

Jodi Wellman (08:52)
Exactly.

Do know it’s so

funny that you said that? I wrote an article about this exact idea and there’s a guy in the grocery store here in Palm Springs where I live who is, let’s just say he’s an octogenarian for sure. And he wears this dapper white suit that was certainly very hot in probably the sixties. And he walks around Ralph’s grocery store and he is dressed to the nines, even with these like patent leather white shoes. And here I am like,

barely presentable and that’s fine, I don’t care, but like he’s just making that choice to just rock it. Like, and that might even be a fun time, like on a fun date or a fun girls night where you do say like, let’s get in our gowns and go to In-N-Out Burger or like just, you know, you don’t have to juxtapose it, but just make something to celebrate just because yeah, again, you know, we’re letting life pass by and taking it for granted, which we are wired to do. And I want to normalize it because the research I’ve done in psychology, I think is important to go.

We come by it honestly. I ⁓ still do sometimes blame myself that I have to say, honey, you’re absolved. This is a human condition is to adapt to every single scenario. And it’s called hedonic adaptation. Every time something good happens, just kinda, ⁓ the new car isn’t as fancy after a few months, right? Or this beautiful thing you’ve created, we adapt to it and that’s life. So through this concept called temporal scarcity, I swear I’m gonna stop with all this science in like a hot minute.

Chardet Ryel (10:24)
No, keep it going.

We love these kind of things.

Jodi Wellman (10:25)
Okay,

okay. We are some smart women listening. That’s what we are. We’re just in this. So temporal scarcity is what helps explain that how this works in our brains, that even though it seems morbid to talk about the fact that our time is ending, it is the idea when we see something that’s rare, limited time only situation, we value it more. And that’s life. So that’s why we need these reminders that are

Chardet Ryel (10:31)
Yes.

Jodi Wellman (10:55)
Unfortunately, sometimes they’re really horrible. know, it’s that maybe you have someone, a friend that dies and you, ⁓ that is a wake up call that no one wants. And sometimes we even experience a brush with death. You know, I’m sure many of your listeners right now are like, my gosh, that was my cancer diagnosis. Or that was when I was in that car accident and they said that I was within an inch of my life and I shouldn’t have lived. Or the moments where…

I’ve never had a near death experience and I’m going to be super honest and I should not jinx myself. I should knock on wood. I’m so envious of people who’ve had them because, because the research is really, really clear that they have an appreciation for life that is so extraordinarily large compared to even someone like me who likes to study this and work on it. It’s because when you know what you had to lose, you really, really savor and appreciate.

what’s still here. So that’s really what we’re talking about is, like, I even do this in workshops sometimes. I get people to imagine that they have just left the hospital today after being in a coma for quite some time and you almost died, but good for you, you didn’t. Now what? You know, and as far as I’m concerned, I always think about it, like I look at my desk and I look at the stupid stuff I’m worried about, like my stupid to-do list and I’m worried about…

how fast I did or didn’t respond to that email, or I’m worried about, ⁓ did I get the lemons? Like, you know what, who cares? I’m alive. I didn’t die. You know, it puts everything in perspective.

Chardet Ryel (12:30)
It’s one of those things where I’m going to ask you about this because I think I have had a near death experience and it definitely does, but not for something that would be like ⁓ cancer or serious illness where I think that really shakes you and makes you be like, okay, I’m going to focus. But even then I wonder just from my own experience, I’m thinking it’s still hard as time goes by to feel that viscerally.

that you had that moment, right, for like those six months or that year, or I’m sure in the case of terminal illness, it’s much longer, right, that effect, but you still can’t help falling back into the mundane of how do I appreciate things again? You still think of your anxieties, like checking the email and will this person respond? And I see the three dots on my app and they’re not like, you know, all these things come up still. So how do you remind yourself?

Jodi Wellman (13:00)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Chardet Ryel (13:29)
to do this, whether

you’ve had that experience or not.

Jodi Wellman (13:32)
Yeah, you’ve asked the best question because even so I don’t want to paint a brush over anyone who’s had like you have in your death experience because if it’s very normal, I used to work with a woman back when I was coaching. ⁓ She said because she came out of breast cancer and remission and said, I’m now in Becky 2.0, but I want to be very clear. I don’t want to forget this lesson. And she worked really hard to stay in touch with it. ⁓ And

So even people who’ve had this epiphany, the epiphany dims that build the light bulb, you know, flickers and then stop. So we have to be really conscious about it. And that is why I am pretty, pretty aggressive about having us count our Mondays. And it’s a weekly exercise, which is a pretty easy one. You just knock one off every week. know, it’s the math could not be easier once you calculate it. And on my website, I have a calculator to calculate how many Mondays you have left. So you don’t have to do the mortality math. ⁓ But I think that that’s a crucial thing is

consistently having, you I know one person who has like a sticky note and she has hers written out. I think she’s got right now like 1900 and something left. So every week she crosses it out and puts the new number down. I think that there are ⁓ visual reminders that can be very helpful. I keep a coin with me everywhere. I’ve got 1,839 skulls everywhere around my place, but by now that’s wallpaper. ⁓ I actually think having conversations with friends and family, ⁓

can be really helpful and it doesn’t have to be, wow, how do you think you’re gonna die? Like it doesn’t have to be that blatant. Like trust me, if you wanna have that conversation, I’ll have it with you all day. But for most people, the soft entry into this whole, hmm, it’s called memento mori by the way. It’s a Latin phrase that means remember we must die. And so, well, how do we do this without being complete buzz killers? I think it’s like if you’re out with friends, be like, hey, let’s,

go around the table and talk about something on your bucket list. Like, what do want to do before you go? So the emphasis isn’t about your death, because no one wants to linger there, that is gross. What about, what do you want to do? Like all this is in service of what do you want to do before you go? So it could be the bucket list. And then I think any good group of friends or any family, know, ⁓ it’s more than just hearing that someone wants to go to Portugal, right? It’s more than hearing that someone wants to start.

⁓ a yarn shop for knitting. It’s more than hearing about it. It’s, my gosh, that’s amazing. When do you think realistic, when do you think you might be able to do that? Like holding us accountable to our dreams. So I think it could be conversations with friends about that. It could be conversations also just if you wanna go deeper, you know, about how do you feel about the fact that, you know, our days are numbered. And we avoid those conversations.

We come by that honestly too. We deny death. It’s a protective mechanism we have. And I think that let’s go to the research. People who are more open to talking about it tend to have actually less fear because it’s less of a taboo. And then people who have really made a commitment to experience life tend to feel less afraid of death because we kind of feel a little bit like, man, I killed it. Like I did it. You know, they call it the fear of ⁓

the unlived life. And so there is a relationship in research where people who have a lot of anxiety about our mortality are often, not always, but often those of us who are like, geez, I’m leaving a lot of life on the table. I’ve got all these dreams and I’m not doing them. And that actually was the impetus for me to start 4,000 Mondays is because my mom died when she was in her late 50s of a heart attack, unexpected, and she had so many dreams that she didn’t fulfill.

Chardet Ryel (16:56)
Mm-hmm.

Jodi Wellman (17:23)
because she kept thinking she would do it later. And she also lacked confidence, but it was mostly just this idea like, I’ll send that manuscript someday. But she didn’t have someday because she died. And I recognized that she died with what would have been just a bunch of regrets if she’d been conscious to go, my gosh, look at all the stuff that I didn’t get to, you know? So anyway, I’m getting all excited over here.

Chardet Ryel (17:47)
Excited and also like that’s something that gives me goosebumps. I know that you talk about this a lot and you talk about it on big stages and probably everyone has the same reaction when you tell that story of like, my gosh, like I’m going to think about this a little bit more. And I really wonder about it because I think you’re right. If you are more open to discussing it, that it takes away the fear. also forces you to be accountable because the fear is not the death, it’s the life on lived.

And I have this, like, right? you were, think about all the things that you haven’t done. If you did them and you said the things you would want to say, how scary would it be then?

Jodi Wellman (18:17)
yeah!

huh, you just gave me shivers. Cause I think you nailed something that I believe more and more and more now that I age and also research. it’s the fear of the unlived life. The way you worded it is so bang on because sure we can fear death because oftentimes it can be branched out into like, is it fear of the unknown? Is it fear that, my gosh, my time will get cut short and I didn’t get to do all these cool things. Whatever that is, that’s over there.

But let’s be honest, we do experience fear and I think some of us, it’s cloaked. We do this very convenient thing, which is delay our life. So we will have a dream and sometimes it’s a dream that could be a little bit scary. So I referred a minute ago to starting the knitting business, but like say there’s this idea like, I wanna branch out and open my own consulting thing or I wanna… ⁓

I want to go back to school or I want to divorce my long-term partner or I want to move bigger things, right? Not just, wow, I’d love to try a new curry, which is also pretty cool. But the bigger things that maybe come with more emotional weight, like what if I do it and what if I get rejected? Like what if I get on a dating app and it doesn’t work out for me? Does it mean I’m unlovable? I don’t think we consciously think this, but oh yeah, that’s what they are.

If I launch the business and what will my friends think? If they’re think it’s stupid or what if it doesn’t take off and become an instant success, then that’s gonna really erode my fragile ego. All the reasons that it’s so safe not to pursue a dream. It is so comfortable, but it will smother you to death. So the moral of this story, because I think most of us, we kind of know it, right? It’s like we could have…

large dreams, medium dreams, small dreams, tiny dreams, and then just little notions, right? Like, you know, I would love to, I don’t know, try a kumquat. I’ve never had a kumquat. So like, that’s obviously, small stakes. Maybe I will, you know what, I will do it and I will get back to you. ⁓ I do think for the record that I could die happy without having had a kumquat, but maybe not. Maybe that’s the final cherry on the top of my life, the kumquat on the top of my life. ⁓

Chardet Ryel (20:29)
⁓ Maybe that could be for this week, your bucket list item.