Actually Trying

Want to actually try this year? Join me at - https://rosehoneymorgan.substack.com/subscribe 

I’ve started Actually Trying - a private Substack podcast + newsletter for people who are sick of collecting advice and never applying it.

Each month includes:

• A realistic book club (starting with Atomic Habits by James Clear — no perfection required)
• An Anti-Brain-Rot Club to relearn things we probably should already know
• Weekly private podcast episodes
• Cheat sheets, summaries, and notes delivered straight to your inbox

New private episodes drop every Wednesday.

You can listen in your normal podcast app.

In this episode of Field Notes, I go somewhere my family would deeply prefer I didn’t: signs from the universe, communicating with the dead, near-death experiences, and whether any of this is actually real — or just a very effective placebo.

This all started after I listened to neuroscientist and psychiatrist Dr Tara Swart on Diary of a CEO, where she calmly (and alarmingly confidently) explained that she believes it is possible to communicate with people who have died — not as a spiritual guru, but as an Oxford-educated medical doctor with a PhD in neuroscience.

So naturally, I had to investigate.

• Why humans have always searched for signs, meaning, and messages from “elsewhere”
• Dr Tara Swart’s experiences after losing her husband — and the science she believes supports them
• Near-death experiences that are genuinely difficult to explain (including the red MG story)
• Whether consciousness might exist beyond the brain
• The placebo effect — and why “even if it’s not real” doesn’t necessarily mean it doesn’t work
• Famous placebo studies (fake knee surgery, antidepressants, pain relief)
• The reticular activating system (RAS) and why asking for “signs” might simply train your brain to notice more
• Manifestation, meaning-making, and why modern life feels spiritually hollow
• Whether looking for signs can help with grief, loneliness, and uncertainty — even if you remain deeply sceptical

I’m going to ask for a specific, offline sign — not from Instagram, not from scrolling — and I’ll report back on Fridaywith what happened.

If you’re not into the idea of signs from the dead, I also talk through an alternative:

connecting with future you — the older, calmer version of yourself who already survived whatever you’re panicking about now.

Probably not.

For most of human history, we’ve consulted gods, oracles, ancestors, rituals, astrology, omens, and stories to make sense of the world. When societies lose shared meaning systems, anxiety and loneliness tend to rise — which might explain why manifestation, astrology, and “signs from the universe” are having such a moment.

This episode isn’t about convincing you to believe anything.

It’s about asking whether meaning itself might be useful — even if it’s a little bit made up.

• Friday: Field Report — what happened when I asked for a sign (plus a story involving a psychic)
• Next week: Ask Guru & Granny — the new listener Q&A segment with:
• a chronically online take (me)
• a chronically offline take (Old Ma)

Send your questions to: [email protected]

Or DM me on Instagram: @rosehoneymorgan

(Anonymous is absolutely fine.)

Follow along to see me desperately trying in real time on:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosehoneymorgan/

For podcast clips and BTS stories: https://www.instagram.com/actuallytryingpod

Youtube: www.youtube.com/@rose.honey.morgan

For brand enquiries: [email protected]

***DM me with your Guru & Granny questions on Instagram***

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week’s Field Report follows on from Monday’s episode on Main Character Dressing — specifically the idea of “dressing for the life you want.”

So naturally, I committed to the ultimate test:

I dressed as a Clean Girl.

And so did Old Ma.

What followed was… humbling.

Scraped-back buns. Stark white activewear. An identity crisis involving my hairline, forehead, and general facial geography. Turns out Clean Girl Dressing is not for the faint-hearted — or anyone with a large skull, ginger hair, or a low tolerance for belts.

In this episode, I report back on:

• What Clean Girl dressing actually feels like in real life
• Why scraped-back buns are basically a humiliation ritual unless you’re a 9 or 10
• Whether wearing white really does change behaviour (spoiler: it does, slightly)
• Why clothes can affect confidence, posture, and how willing you are to steal your children’s snacks
• The unexpected psychological impact of feeling “seen” vs wanting to disappear
• Why everyone needs a symbolic power item (boots, hat, gilet, etc.)
• The problem with buying “nice pieces” instead of full outfits
• Why belts are medieval torture devices
• And what Clean Girl taught me about hygiene, confidence, and hand-washing (sad but true)

Find of the week:

• The concept of a power outfit — clothing that lets you walk into places like you own them (post office, returns desk, life in general)

Fail of the week:

• Wearing nicer clothes under the coat
• Belts
• Stiff blouses
• Thinking I could style “mid-range” outfits without buying the full mannequin look

• How to get a workout done without creating a third outfit or extra laundry (sports bra under pyjamas = elite behaviour)

From next week, we’re officially launching Ask Guru & Granny — the new listener segment where we tackle your problems from two perspectives:

• Chronically online (me)
• Chronically offline (Old Ma)

If you’ve got a dilemma, spiral, life question, or quiet panic — send it in.

📩 Email: [email protected]

📲 Instagram DM: @rosehoneymorgan

Tell us if you want to be anonymous or named.

Neither of us are licensed therapists.

My mum’s main qualification is “a life well lived” and decades of being deeply unimpressed by nonsense.

You can see:

• Old Ma’s Clean Girl attempt
• Aesthetic references
• Power item discussion

Over on the podcast Instagram:

👉 @field.notes.pod

I’ll be back on Monday with another experiment — and yes, it may cause a domestic incident.

Follow along to see me desperately trying in real time on:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosehoneymorgan/

For podcast clips and BTS stories: https://www.instagram.com/actuallytryingpod

Youtube: www.youtube.com/@rose.honey.morgan

For brand enquiries: [email protected]

***DM me with your Guru & Granny questions on Instagram***

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’re told to dress for the life we want — not the life we have.

That if we change how we dress, we’ll change how we feel.

That confidence, motivation, discipline, and even happiness might be hiding in a blazer, a slicked-back bun, or a pair of cowboy boots.

But… is that actually true?

Or is this just another internet reinvention fantasy dressed up as self-improvement?

In this episode of Field Notes, I look at main character dressing, aesthetic identities, and the idea that clothes can function as behavioural cues — through humour, cultural anthropology, and lived experience.

This one is for anyone who:

• feels permanently scruffy, flat, or half-alive
• knows they care about how they look, but can’t seem to follow through
• suspects there’s something psychologically real going on here… but also something deeply ridiculous

• Main character dressing — what it actually means, and why it’s everywhere

• Dressing for the life you want vs dragging yourself around in leggings and a fleece

• Why clothes can genuinely affect mood, confidence, and behaviour (without becoming delusional about it)

• A gentle roasting of men in tracksuits (you can sit with us — just behave)

• The aesthetics currently doing the rounds online:

• Clean Girl
• Tomato Girl
• Mob Wife
• Cottagecore
• • Why switching aesthetics can feel like trying on identities
• • Whether “rehearsing” a version of yourself helps — or just makes you overthink everything
• • The anthropology of adornment, status, and signalling (including a Copper Age man buried with a solid gold penis sheath)
• • Why Old Ma is always dressed properly — and why she might be onto something

This episode also sets up a new weekly segment starting next episode:

Ask Guru & Granny

Each week we’ll answer listener questions using:

• a chronically online take (me)
• and a chronically offline take (Old Ma — archaeologist, control group, deeply unimpressed by nonsense)

You can ask about:

• identity
• work
• confidence
• relationships
• motivation
• or anything you’re quietly spiralling about

Send questions to: [email protected]

Or DM me on Instagram: @rosehoneymorgan

Tell us if you’d like to be anonymous or named.

(Neither of us are licensed psychologists or counsellors. My mum’s main credential is “a life well lived” and decades of not indulging bullshit.)

I’ll be actually trying this in real life:

• testing different aesthetics
• seeing whether clothes change behaviour, mood, or self-control
• and reporting back honestly — including whether it’s worth the laundry, the sensory overload, or the effort

Photos, visuals, and Old Ma’s homework will be shared on the podcast Instagram.

📸 Podcast Instagram: @field.notes.pod

(behind-the-scenes chaos, visuals, and things that didn’t make the edit)

If this episode made you laugh, think, or feel mildly called out — share it with someone who’d enjoy being part of this group chat.

See you on Friday for the Field Report.

Follow along to see me desperately trying in real time on:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosehoneymorgan/

For podcast clips and BTS stories: https://www.instagram.com/actuallytryingpod

Youtube: www.youtube.com/@rose.honey.morgan

For brand enquiries: [email protected]

***DM me with your Guru & Granny questions on Instagram***

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You send in your problems.

You get:

• a chronically online take (me)
• a chronically offline take (Old Ma)

Questions can be about:

• work
• relationships
• identity
• confidence
• decision paralysis
• ....anything

Send questions to:

📩 [email protected]

Or DM me on Instagram: @rosehoneymorgan or @field.notes.pod

Tell us if you’d like to be anonymous or named.

(Neither of us are licensed psychologists or counsellors.)

(they actually give one to anyone. still... I think it's 20% off)

This Episode

This week I went all in on mushroom coffee - far beyond the recommended daily allowance - and flirted with the idea of ayahuasca.

Not at a retreat.

A workshop.

Which is very much the pre-retreat.

I went in curious, sceptical, exhausted, and - unfortunately - deeply distracted by a fit shaman, which immediately ruled out any future scenario involving vomiting, purging, or losing control in front of an attractive man.

So: ayahuasca is crossed off the list for now.

Mushroom coffee, however? Fully in the running.

We’re all knackered.

Properly frazzled.

Running on broken sleep, caffeine, and whatever scraps of energy are left after bedtime.

And yet Instagram and TikTok cannot agree on what we’re supposed to do about it for more than eleven seconds.

So this field report looks at what actually helped — and what absolutely did not.

In this episode, I cover:

• What ayahuasca actually involves (spoiler: buckets, purging, and zero dignity)
• Why psychedelic “healing” feels wildly incompatible with my personality
• A deeply unsettling mushroom horror story involving horses, Marmite, and sixth form
• Why I don’t buy the idea that neuroplasticity + strangers + vomiting is the answer
• Mushroom coffee vs normal coffee — how it actually feels in the body
• Brain fog, focus, and that rare feeling of being mentally “on”
• Why mushroom coffee feels more like:
• a full night’s sleep
• peak flow
• a few days before ovulation
• Coffee side effects (yes, including that one)
• The creatine variable (and why it complicates the experiment)
• Sleep deprivation, parenting, and surviving on medium-to-go energy
• Why mushroom coffee works brilliantly before midday and terribly after
• How to make mushroom coffee taste genuinely good (no grim watery nonsense)

We talk about:

• Mushroom coffee
• Functional mushrooms
• Nootropics and adaptogens
• Lion’s Mane
• Cordyceps
• Chaga
• Reishi
• Maca
• Creatine and cognition
• Brain fog, focus, and fatigue
• Coffee alternatives

Brands mentioned (not ads):

• Spacegoods
• DIRTEA / Dirty

• Full mug of oat milk (yes, the whole mug)
• Microwave for one minute
• One tablespoon mushroom coffee
• Stir
• Drink

Optional (if you’re feeling fancy):

• Hazelnut or pistachio crème (M&S)
• Do not bother with water
• Do not add washing-up admin to your life

Mushroom coffee made properly — creamy, hot, and not vaguely punishing.

Drinking it after midday.

Absolutely wired.

Absolutely no sleep.

Do not recommend.

I’ll be back on Monday with:

• the first proper Ask Guru & Granny
• another thing I’m actually trying
• and a report on whether any of this is helping or just rearranging the exhaustion

See you then.

Follow along to see me desperately trying in real time on:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosehoneymorgan/

For podcast clips and BTS stories: https://www.instagram.com/actuallytryingpod

Youtube: www.youtube.com/@rose.honey.morgan

For brand enquiries: [email protected]

***DM me with your Guru & Granny questions on Instagram***

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tiny cultural translation (for non-UK / under-25 listeners)

•Bargain Hunt: British daytime TV where people buy antiques and act like it’s a pension strategy.

•Wordle: a daily five-letter word game we all got hooked on in lockdown.

New listener segment starting next week: Ask Guru & Granny

From next week, we’ll be answering listener questions — anything you’re stuck on, spiralling about, or quietly panicking over.

You’ll get:

•a chronically online take (me)

•and a chronically offline take (Old Ma)

Send your questions to: [email protected]

Or DM me on Instagram: @rosehoneymorgan or @field.notes.pod

Tell us if you’d like to be anonymous or named.

Neither of us are licensed psychologists or counsellors. My mum’s main credential is “a life well lived” and several decades of being unimpressed by nonsense. Mine is that I'm now a guru.

We are all exhausted. Properly frazzled. Brain-fogged. Running on caffeine, habit, and whatever scraps of motivation are left after bedtime.

And then you open Instagram or TikTok and get hit with the most infuriating contradiction imaginable:

Drink coffee for energy.

No — coffee is ruining your nervous system.

Try mushroom coffee.

No — you need to microdose psychedelics.

Actually, you just need perfect sleep, perfect routines, and zero stimulants (good luck with that).

So today, I’m trying to work out what we’re actually supposed to do when we’re tired, overwhelmed, and drowning in wellness advice that can’t agree with itself for more than eleven seconds.

This episode looks at energy, focus, and brain fog through the lens of:

•coffee vs no coffee

•mushroom coffee / nootropics / adaptogens

•microdosing psychedelics

•and why optimisation culture often collapses in real life

I react to some of the most common reels doing the rounds right now — doctors, nutritionists, biohackers, and internet experts all offering wildly conflicting advice — and try to slow the whole thing down enough to make sense of it.

What we cover

•Why so many of us feel permanently tired and mentally scattered

•Coffee on an empty stomach: cortisol, hormones, gut health — fearmongering or fair warning?

•Mushroom coffee explained (what it is and what it definitely isn’t)

•Common functional mushrooms and adaptogens you’ll hear about online, including:

Lion’s Mane, Cordyceps, Chaga, Reishi, Maca, and other “brain-boosting” blends

•Nootropics vs stimulants: focus without the crash?

•Brian Johnson, extreme optimisation, and the fantasy of total nervous-system stability

•Psychedelics and microdosing: potential benefits, real risks, and why this conversation has gone so strange online

•The Stoned Ape Theory (and why archaeologists absolutely love an unprovable idea)

This episode also introduces my mum — Old Ma — an archaeologist, lifelong observer of human behaviour, and proudly chronically offline control group. She brings a very different perspective on psychedelics, energy, and the idea that modern life can be “fixed” with powders and protocols.

This is not medical advice. It’s an honest attempt to translate modern wellness culture for tired people who don’t have the bandwidth to fact-check every reel.

⸻

Follow for clips, extras & deleted scenes

•Podcast Instagram: @field.notes.pod (deleted scenes, extra bits, behind-the-scenes chaos)

Next up: I’ll actually test some of this advice in real life and report back.

Follow along to see me desperately trying in real time on:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosehoneymorgan/

For podcast clips and BTS stories: https://www.instagram.com/actuallytryingpod

Youtube: www.youtube.com/@rose.honey.morgan

For brand enquiries: [email protected]

***DM me with your Guru & Granny questions on Instagram***

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Absolute lol Brick have given me a code : https://www.getbrick.app/ROSE90330

It may not get you any more of a discount that you can get yourselves (I haven't clicked it yet), and they may request that I take it down after listening to this episode. But hey ho. The show notes are looking professional this week.

Field Report of the dopamine detox experiment. I tested three “highly scientific” methods in my most dangerous scrolling window: 7–10pm after the girls are asleep.

What I tried:

• Night 1: full raw-dog detox (no phone, no TV, no music, no book… just vibes and existential dread)
• Night 2: reading instead (Kindle + a dangerously moorish fantasy romance)
• Night 3: TV without the phone (feat. the Bonnie Blue documentary and a sudden moral debate I wasn’t prepared for)

We also cover:

• why “doing nothing” is a rich man’s hobby
• the weird way scrolling has ruined reading
• why watching a whole film now feels like personal growth
• sex being transactional across human history (lightly… then not lightly)
• Flatmate’s Field Notes: my husband’s unhinged business analysis of Bonnie Blue
• Find of the Week: Brick (a physical gadget that blocks apps unless you walk to it)
• Fail of the Week: realising I’m not enjoying reading like I used to (rude)

If you tried a dopamine detox too, I want your results. And if you’ve used Brick, please report to the group chat (my DMs).

Follow: @rosehoneymorgan

Podcast IG: @field.notes.pod

New Monday episodes + Friday Field Reports.

Follow along to see me desperately trying in real time on:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosehoneymorgan/

For podcast clips and BTS stories: https://www.instagram.com/actuallytryingpod

Youtube: www.youtube.com/@rose.honey.morgan

For brand enquiries: [email protected]

***DM me with your Guru & Granny questions on Instagram***

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week I’ve saved a worrying number of reels about dopamine detoxes.

So naturally, I decided to make it everyone else’s problem too.

From raw-dogging flights (no phone, no music, no water, no joy) to promises that cutting out dopamine will magically fix motivation, laziness, and modern life in general — dopamine has officially entered its villain era.

In this episode, I’m not trying anything yet. I’m circling the idea, poking it, and asking some basic questions first, like:

• What actually is dopamine and why has it suddenly become the enemy?
• Are dopamine detoxes sensible… or just dry January for your phone?
• Is scrolling ruining our brains, or are we just terrible at stopping?
• Why can I listen to podcasts endlessly but can’t watch a full TV episode without grabbing my phone?
• And at what point does “self-control” turn into sitting on a plane staring at the flight map like a Victorian orphan?

I also dig into:

• Healthy vs unhelpful dopamine (effort vs passive flooding)
• Why modern life makes everything feel simultaneously overstimulating and boring
• How screen culture is quietly reshaping films, TV, and attention spans
• And whether completely removing stimulation actually helps… or just makes life grim

By the end, I set up this week’s experiment:

• One day of doing nothing (true detox, unfortunately)
• One day replacing scrolling with reading
• One day watching a full film without touching my phone (pray for me)

This is Field Notes — where I test modern self-improvement ideas in real life, outside of perfect conditions, and report back honestly on what actually happens.

🎧 Friday: I’ll be back with a Field Report on whether any of this helped, or whether I just became deeply annoying to live with.

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review or subscribe.

Find me on instagram: @rosehoneymorgan

Follow along to see me desperately trying in real time on:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosehoneymorgan/

For podcast clips and BTS stories: https://www.instagram.com/actuallytryingpod

Youtube: www.youtube.com/@rose.honey.morgan

For brand enquiries: [email protected]

***DM me with your Guru & Granny questions on Instagram***

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After launching the podcast and immediately developing a brief but intense sense of delusion, I realised I’d slightly abandoned the entire premise of the show. Instead of calmly testing a saved bit of advice and reporting back, I panicked, went semi-guru, and tried to convince everyone (including my family) that vision boards absolutely, definitely work.

This episode is me correcting course.

I talk about:

• my delusions of grandeur
• why outcome-based vision boards can feel motivating and then quietly ruin your life
• how “process pictures” are supposed to work in theory, and why they’re surprisingly hard when your goals involve screens, editing, or admin
• and the growing realisation that naming a podcast without Googling it first may have been… optimistic

We also establish two recurring Field Notes features:

• Fail of the Week (there were many)
• Find of the Week: if your perfume doesn't smell great, leave it for 4 years then come back to it

If you like self-improvement in theory but struggle with it in real life, you’re in the right place.

• Follow me on Instagram: @rosehoneymorgan
• Podcast clips, experiments & visual chaos: @field.notes.pod

You can:

• follow / subscribe so you don’t lose it in your apps
• leave a review (even a short one, I will screenshot it for my lame folder)
• or send this to someone on the same wavelength

On Monday, I’m testing another widely saved piece of internet advice to see whether it actually survives contact with real life.

Follow along to see me desperately trying in real time on:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosehoneymorgan/

For podcast clips and BTS stories: https://www.instagram.com/actuallytryingpod

Youtube: www.youtube.com/@rose.honey.morgan

For brand enquiries: [email protected]

***DM me with your Guru & Granny questions on Instagram***

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

📸 You can see the vision boards mentioned in this episode on Instagram:

• Personal: @rosehoneymorgan
• Podcast: @field.notes.pod

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review — even a short one. It genuinely helps this show find the people it’s meant for.

New episodes every Monday, with short Friday Field Reports.

Why Vision Boards Fail (And How to Fix Them)

Most of us don’t have a motivation problem.

We have a too-much-advice problem.

If you’ve ever saved hundreds of self-improvement posts, understood all of them, and still felt overwhelmed, guilty, and no closer to actually changing anything — this episode is for you.

In the first ever episode of Field Notes, I explain the premise of the podcast and put our first experiment to the test: vision boards. Not the fantasy, yacht-and-linen version — but the kind that might actually work in real life.

I talk through:

• why modern vision boards often backfire
• the neuroscience behind why visual cues can work
• where self-help goes wrong when it focuses on outcomes instead of process
• how humans have used imagery for survival and behaviour change across history
• and why cave art might be a better model for self-improvement than Pinterest

I also bring along my 2024 and 2025 vision boards as the first (and most humiliating) guests on the show, including the one goal that accidentally did work thanks to a Sarah Connor lock-screen.

This podcast isn’t about becoming a new person overnight.

It’s about filtering advice, testing one small idea at a time, and figuring out what’s actually worth doing, outside of perfect conditions.

On Friday, I’ll be back with a short Field Report on what happened when I made a process-based vision board and whether it helped or just gave me another thing to judge myself by.

Follow along to see me desperately trying in real time on:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosehoneymorgan/

For podcast clips and BTS stories: https://www.instagram.com/actuallytryingpod

Youtube: www.youtube.com/@rose.honey.morgan

For brand enquiries: [email protected]

***DM me with your Guru & Granny questions on Instagram***

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Field Notes is a weekly experiment in self-improvement, psychology and modern life, tested badly in public.

Each week, one idea is filtered and tested in real life, outside of perfect conditions, then reported on honestly.

This short trailer explains the premise of the podcast, the format, and what to expect from the weekly Monday episodes and Friday Field Reports.

Follow along on Instagram: 

@rosehoneymorgan

@field.notes.pod

Follow along to see me desperately trying in real time on:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosehoneymorgan/

For podcast clips and BTS stories: https://www.instagram.com/actuallytryingpod

Youtube: www.youtube.com/@rose.honey.morgan

For brand enquiries: [email protected]

***DM me with your Guru & Granny questions on Instagram***

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.