How I'm Embracing The “Soft Life” Without Quitting My 9–5

For a long time, I didn’t like it. It seemed like justified laziness, and I was too busy juggling my nine-to-five, my side hustle, and my personal life to take yet another internet buzzword seriously.

But after 2023, I was forced to learn about the soft life. That year, I ended up hospitalized with a heart condition that doctors traced back to, you guessed it, stress and burnout. It’s fair to say that it was a genetic condition that had flared up due to the stress, but nonetheless, my body was giving up on me as I kept trying to push through everything. I had been living on caffeine, late nights, and, perhaps most importantly, I was blatantly ignoring things that I knew were wrong. The scary thing is, I thought I was normal. Isn’t that what we all do? At least those of us crushing it in the big American cities?

That experience was my wake-up call. Something had to change. I couldn’t afford to keep pushing myself until my body broke down again. I couldn’t afford to ignore the rock in my stomach signaling that something was wrong. And so, almost reluctantly, after four days of bed rest in a hospital and a cardiac defibrillator installed, I started experimenting with this “soft life” concept I kept seeing online. To my surprise, it wasn’t laziness, and it certainly wasn’t passivity. It was a mindset shift: a way of approaching work, ambition, and daily routines with order, confidence, and health at the center.

Two years later, the soft life is not just something I scroll past; it’s how I live. And yes, I still have a demanding full-time job and a side hustle. But instead of my schedule suffocating me, it supports me. Here’s what I’ve learned about cultivating softness in a life that’s still very full.

Redefining the Soft Life

The first thing I had to do was strip the concept of all the social media noise. Online, the soft life is often depicted as poolside martinis, weekly spa appointments, and designer handbags. But for me, the soft life is not about luxury without effort; it’s about ease with intention.

The soft life is not about luxury without effort; it’s about ease with intention.

It’s not measured by how few hours you work, how many trips you can take, or how many rituals you can film for TikTok. It’s about the posture with which you face your daily life. Do you wake up and immediately panic-scroll through emails? Or do you start the day with a grounding routine that makes you feel centered? Do you treat your calendar as a tyrant, or as a tool that gives you structure and freedom? Do you simply keep yourself busy all day, or do you pause and consider whether what you're doing is actually leading to anything productive?

I realized the soft life wasn’t about doing less. It was about doing what matters most in a way that feels sustainable.

The Power of Intentional Organization

One of the most surprising things I discovered is how much organization can create softness instead of rigidity. I now see my calendar and to-dos as a guide on how to make the most of my time so I can secure a free evening to watch some of my favorite shows and take my time cooking a delicious dinner.

Before my health scare, I had become numb to the feeling of exhaustion. I considered myself happy to do everything I needed and wanted to do—so happy that I didn't even notice how exhausted I was until my body gave in. But it wasn’t all work; I was also ignoring my boyfriend’s odd behavior, and perhaps I was simply too busy to give it the necessary thought. I paid for this mistake when, while already strapped to the heart monitors at the ER, the guilt crept up on him, and he confessed that he had been cheating on me with one of my best friends.

There is no way to word what a low point in my life this was without understating it. But I'm grateful for it now, for, as they say, once you hit rock bottom, you can only go up from there. And so I did. The days, weeks, and months that followed were my introduction to the soft life. I continued to work full-time and write between 8,000 and 10,000 words per week for various publications, but my approach to work, relationships, and everything else did a 180-degree turn.

Before, my day was packed with work and social commitments, and any 20 minutes I had free were intense writing time. The reason this doesn’t work is that the rigidity itself is stressful, and the older I get, the more I realize the importance of having time to do nothing. Leisure isn’t laziness; it’s the time for our brains to rest and our energy tanks to get restocked. So now, instead of scheduling every second of my life, I make sure I have time for leisure. Time to do nothing, time to think of nothing.

In an interview a couple months ago, Barbara Walters mentioned to Grace Kelly that some people thought her husband was watching too many movies. They implied that a Head of State should be busy and not have so much time for entertainment. She defended her husband’s passion for movies by posing the question: “How many paintings did Churchill paint while being Prime Minister?” (Correct answer: at least four.)

My first steps in embracing the soft life consisted mainly of embracing more leisure in my life and starting to use all my organization methods toward creating more time for leisure, not more time to work. By mapping out my week ahead of time, I created pockets of breathing room. I would say no to events not because I was busy, but because I was already going out the night before and the one after, so I knew that was a good time to have a dance party at home, bake something to bring to work, or even just stare at my apartment’s ceiling in silence.

I even started taking my time cooking and savoring my meals. I also started blocking out time for deep work, and by doing so, I prevented tasks from spilling into my evenings.

Now, my calendar has turned from a prison into the support system keeping me happy. I know when I’ll work on my writing and when I’ll rest. I know when my errands fit into the week, so they don’t eat up my entire Sunday. I don’t have to hold everything in my head anymore, which has melted away a layer of anxiety I didn’t even know was weighing me down.

The Grace of Flexibility

Of course, organization only works if it’s paired with flexibility. This was another lesson I learned the hard way: a truly soft life doesn’t crumble when things don’t go according to plan. For me, flexibility is not about being flaky, but about having the resilience to pivot as needed. It’s the ability to respond well when a work meeting runs long or when an unexpected opportunity arises. It’s choosing to adjust my workout to a walk when my energy is low, instead of forcing myself into exhaustion, or not working out at all and feeling guilty about it afterward.

Flexibility also means allowing myself to be human. There are days when I don’t check everything off my list, and that’s okay. The old me would have spiraled into guilt; the soft-life me views it as part of the rhythm. True wellness isn’t perfection—it’s the ability to adapt without breaking. We either evolve, or we go extinct.

Ambition Without Burnout

If you’re wondering whether the soft life means giving up on ambition, let me be clear: it doesn’t. I am deeply ambitious. I love my career, I thrive in my side hustle, and I’m always dreaming of what’s next. The soft life hasn’t killed my ambition; it’s kept it alive by making it sustainable, and, consequently, I get to enjoy it even more.

Ambition without ease is a recipe for collapse. But ambition with softness becomes long-lasting. There’s also something to say about how men and women handle stress and ambition differently. I think corporate America, and much of what, as a society, we define as success and hard work, is based on the male version of this. I recently heard about a group of women who left their finance jobs, not because they didn't like them, or because they weren't good at them, but because they reached the point at which they decided they didn't want to be pushed the way that industry, and perhaps their employer, required.

The soft life hasn’t killed my ambition; it’s kept it alive by making it sustainable, and, consequently, I get to enjoy it even more.

There are stats proving that women tend to outperform men in the stock market, so their decision to leave doesn't seem to be about not being good enough to excel in that career, but instead how that career was making them feel. Maybe it's not about what we do but how we do it and, perhaps more importantly, how we treat ourselves, or let others treat us, in the process. I use this example because the finance industry is well-known for operating under a lot of pressure, and this seems to work wonders for men, while many women walk away after experiencing it and swap that career for something that allows them to move at a softer pace instead.

I was already in my soft-life era when I talked to one of these women, and I quickly realized that she was about to enter her own soft era. She was surprised that after she put in her two weeks’ notice, she found out that four other women on her team of six women and 12 men were also planning their way out, and all for the same reasons. They were all switching to roles in which they could have a soft life. A life in which work is fulfilling, enriching, and doesn’t wreck our bodies (hormones, hello!).

In many ways, the soft life has given me permission to hold two truths at once: I can work hard and still live gently. I can pursue big goals without sacrificing my health. I can be driven without being drained.

Practical Ways I Live the Soft Life

To make this tangible, here are a few systems and rituals that have become the backbone of my soft life over the last two years:

• Weekly planning sessions. On Sunday evenings, I spend 20 minutes looking at the week ahead. I block off work hours, side hustle projects, and equally important rest time.

• Bookending my day. I start my mornings with some quiet time and a full breakfast, and I end my evenings hanging out with my roommate, going for walks, reading, and sometimes journaling. These little rituals frame the day with calm and enjoyable routines to look forward to.

• Movement I enjoy. I stopped forcing myself into workouts I dreaded. Now, I walk, dance, or practice Pilates. Exercise is no longer punishment; it’s care. I know I'm always happier once I'm done with my workout, so I work out looking forward to that feeling.

• Simplified wardrobe. A capsule closet saves me time and reduces decision fatigue. Getting dressed is joyful when I know I have things I love that are clean and available. I know how to figure out what to wear quickly in case of chaos, and I actually look forward to putting myself together, instead of throwing something on carelessly and running out the door as I used to.

• “Phone-free” windows. I give myself blocks of deep work in which I'm away from screens entirely. It’s a reset button for my brain. I go for walks and tell myself I can’t check my phone until I'm done with my lap, or I set a timer to write and I (gently) throw my phone across the other side of the room, only to be retrieved once I'm done.

• Mini-pleasures. Fresh flowers, a playlist I love, or using my favorite mug for coffee. These small touches of beauty remind me daily that life is meant to be enjoyed. And these pleasures aren’t just a treat for good behavior. I deserve better than to treat myself like a pet. Instead, I recognize that rest and leisure are part of a good life, a soft life. I don’t earn treats; I deserve treats.

The Soft Life as a Mindset, Not a Trend

What I love most about the soft life is that it isn’t defined by a paycheck or a shopping list. You don’t need luxury handbags or exotic vacations to live softly. You need presence, order, and perspective.

Softness is in the way you carry yourself when life gets overwhelming. It’s in the boundaries you set so you can protect your peace. It’s in the small decisions, like choosing an early bedtime over one more Netflix episode, that add up to resilience. At its heart, the soft life is about living intentionally enough to enjoy the life you’re working so hard to build and to treat yourself honestly and caringly at all times.

Final Thoughts

I’ll be honest: I never thought I’d be writing about the soft life. A few years ago, I would have rolled my eyes at the phrase. But living through burnout and facing the physical consequences changed me.

Now, the soft life is not just a pretty aesthetic on social media. It’s my safeguard. It’s the way I make sure I never sacrifice my health for ambition again. It’s how I keep my side hustle fun instead of suffocating, and how I make my full-time job part of my life instead of my whole life.

So if you’re reading this while scrolling through your endless to-do list, or if you’ve been running on fumes, consider this your invitation. The soft life is not about doing less or sacrificing your ambition; it’s about doing what matters in a way that feels good. And it’s about realizing that gentleness isn’t weakness. Sometimes, softness is the strongest thing you can choose.