Starting off the New Year comes with resolutions. I used to be fairly cynical about them until I started to reframe my thinking around resolutions and goal setting. Resolutions are an opportunity for you to prioritize what matters based on your previous year. For me looking back on 2022, I struggled with balancing my stress levels and staying healthy. That is not how I want to face 2023! I am focusing on being mindful of my choices and finding room for exercise.
I was talking with a health and fitness expert and we were figuring out ways that I could prioritize exercise in my schedule. What we discussed is truly applicable in many areas of life. These are the ways I plan to achieve my priorities.
GET SUPPORT
It's one thing to have the motivation and enthusiasm to accomplish a goal but having support will help you accomplish it. In the case of wanting more exercise, I need my family's buy-in if I want to change our schedule around to accommodate my needs. But in the world of PCS that support may look different. You may be relying on friends, family, supervisors, or even businesses such as DiploDash ®. Whatever the case may be, this is a good first step in helping you to plan out how to accomplish your goals.
GET GRANULAR ON YOUR CALENDAR
Accomplishing goals requires planning. Often a goal is more of a project than a task. The difference between a project and a task is important to understand. A project is multiple tasks, and a task is one step. So before I can even begin to accomplish my goal of more exercise, I need to first dig into my calendar. Sure, I could just start walking more or doing more push-ups, and sit-ups, and things like that, but if I don't have a concrete plan I know it's not sustainable for me. This is why I need to look seriously at my calendar and map out what is going to happen each day. When it comes to your PCS, and if you're several months out, you can certainly start by looking more at what you're going to accomplish in a month. By digging down into the granular level of your calendar, it assesses where on your calendar you can accomplish those monthly goals.
"Doing anything is better than nothing. Do what you can."
- Leslie de Grande
DON’T EXPECT THAT YOU’LL HAVE TIME DURING WORK
This may be hard to hear, but your working hours are not a reliable window of time to accomplish other goals. Of course there are always exceptions, and you may have bonus windows of time to work on something tangentially related to your job, but if you really want to accomplish your goals then you have to find time elsewhere in your schedule. It's pretty common for folks to want to work out during their lunch break, but this is hard to do if you are busy. If I relied solely on lunch breaks to exercise, my chances of always being able to take that time diminishes as I get busier – which ultimately would set me up for failure, and I certainly don't want to start out planning to fail. I realize many folks can use work hours to do some of their PCS planning, but many offices such as the Consular Office don't have that same level of flexibility.
REALISTICALLY LOOK AT YOUR CAPACITY
Now that you know what time you have on your calendar, you can realistically look at your capacity to work towards those goals. Sometimes that means you have to accept that you can't do as much as you had hoped to do. I have a tendency to start at 150% when I am super motivated to achieve results quickly. I would love to exercise for 45 minutes to an hour everyday of the week. Unfortunately, I do not have the capacity for that much daily exercise in addition to what's already on my calendar. When it comes to PCS, knowing your capacity to accomplish the goals you've set, whether they are monthly, weekly, or daily, will help you to methodically plan and execute those goals.
So let's all get out our paper and pencil and map out the month so that we can each start planning for this month's goals. I wish you nothing but success, and please know that if you need support as a busy diplomat, reach out to DiploDash® and hear how we could support you.
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