Podcaster and author Linda Marigliano doesn't like to see anything as permanent.
"I like the feeling of being settled and safe, but I also like the challenge of change," she says.
Linda moved to Los Angeles in 2022 and enjoys being able to oscillate between a quieter life in West Hollywood, and a more robust family life when back in Australia.
She's currently working on the next season of her award-winning podcast, Tough Love, which explores life's lessons on everything from work, to wellbeing.
She shares the daily habit that's helped her find balance and why she loves a solo walk with a scary podcast.
Unwind with… is a weekly column that explores the simple ways people take care of themselves.
To set my day up for success…
I have a "daily success plan" to help achieve my version of balance and happiness. It's a concept I learnt from Jono Nicholas from The Wellbeing Outfit when I interviewed him for my podcast.
It's one page with the date at the top, and it's divided into four quarters using subheadings: Wellbeing, work, social, and personal. I can see at a glance if things are off-balance.
At the end of the day what makes me feel like a successful person isn't solely my productivity with work — it's also making dinner for myself or giving myself 15 minutes of meditation at the start of the day.
Something that helps take the end-of-year pressure off…
In previous years, I might have thought, "Oh my God, everybody's about to be off, what can I do, how can I really make this year count?"
Now I've learnt nothing happens overnight — you are slowly chipping away at the career that you want to have, the person that you want to be, the partner you want to be, how you want to approach your health. How you approach life is really the sum of its parts.
With that perspective, I can let go of things a lot easier. I'm not holding on to whatever so-called plan so tightly that if something doesn't happen, or I don't progress as much as I wanted, it's not going to destroy me.
My favourite way to unwind
My version of fully unwinding is going for a walk alone and listening to a compelling, often horror-tinged story — at the moment I'm loving Ghost Story, Love and Radio, and the No Sleep podcast.
To unwind with other people, I enjoy…
Making a recipe with my boyfriend. We call it "cosying up" and we go through a cookbook and choose a recipe. We often do it on a Sunday night and I think it's the nicest reset for the week.
I think there's an added level of gratitude because my boyfriend and I were long distance for seven years, so the thing I really missed was being able to cook together and share a meal.
Something I like to do for fun…
I love to go with my girlfriends to a Korean spa with different saunas and beautiful baths. I think it's really beautiful being nude with your friends.
We're constantly comparing how we look or dress to other people on social media, but it just strips that away and you get to see such a diverse group of women and bond on more vulnerable level.
Some advice on how to unwind…
Something that I heard recently is that "no is a full sentence."
The reason I felt like I had no time to myself was because I was saying yes to everybody and everything else. Sure you get some great things out of it and you get ahead in your career, but the quality of that output goes down at some stage.
Learning how to say no and learning how to carve out time for what I actually want to do and what makes me happy has been just such a big lesson.
Unwind with… is produced by Madeleine Dore, a writer, interviewer and author of I Didn't Do The Thing Today.
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