These days it’s common to answer the casual “How are you?” greeting with a chipper, “Busy!”. Being “busy” has become so normalized in our culture that everyone just seems to assume that we all, collectively have a lot on our plate. “You have the same hours in your day as x successful person” is a common phrase to see going around the self-growth and motivation corners of the internet.
But what if you aren’t a chipper “busy”, but you truly do have too much on your plate? There are moments in life when you’re busy because your situation is actually chaotic, like caring for a sick parent or child, dealing with a mental illness flare up, being in an abusive relationship, needing to work multiple jobs to recoup after a big financial hit, amongst many other unsavory situations.
You can read all of the time management books in the world, but unless there is one to teach you how to magically make time when there literally is not any left, you won’t be able to do as much as the average “busy” person.
I am currently in my chaotic busy stage of life and I am still pursuing my wellness goals, it just looks a bit differently. Here is what I’ve learned in this process:
Leave room for surprises
If you’re anything like me, you want to do it all, and have everything done optimally. I want to have the perfect diet, the perfect morning routine, the mindset of a guru, the abs of Adonis, and the mobility of a yogi.
At this stage in your life, however, you need to give yourself the grace and understanding to only take on what you can realistically manage. Assigning yourself promises you won’t be able to keep is only going to make you even more stressed and feeling hopeless.
Write a list of all of your habit goals and number them according to priority. Make yourself a schedule for the week. Before and after each task, give yourself 15 to 30 minutes. Even if you don’t think you’ll need it, think of it as space for surprises.
Now that you have your schedule and list right next to each other, go down your list of habit goals and find a time for them in your schedule. If you can’t find a time for one tuck it away for a future goal, and skip to the next one.
Keep those “surprise” spaces open.
Once you’ve found three habit goals (or less) that you want to dedicate your time to, put them into your calendar. As you go through your week, if those surprise spaces don’t get filled by chaos, go back to your list and see if you can fit in one of the goals that didn’t make it to your schedule.
If possible, take your mornings.
This is not going to be possible for everyone, but I’ve always found the mornings to be the time when I can get uninterrupted work in. While no one is awake and needing your attention or making noise to distract you, it is a prime time for getting in a workout, meditation, deep work, or journaling.
Not only is it an advantage because it’s time you can spend just on yourself, but our brains are more ready to handle difficult tasks in the morning. Our attention span for difficult things (or things that require motivation) is finite. If we’re using it all day dealing with housekeeping or familial issues, we’re going to have less of a drive to do something for ourselves in the evening.
If you really want to be sure you get something done, do it first.
Do not compare yourself to others.
No one is living your life right now but you. No one is dealing with your collection of problems except for you. Even if they were, they would be dealing with them completely differently due to how their brain is set up, their selection (or lack of) coping mechanisms, and their history.
Allowing someone else’s accomplishments to dictate what you “should” be doing is a quick way to spiral into a hole of negativity, which will ultimately kill your drive to continue pursuing your goals. With all of the craziness going on in your life right now, you need to guard your drive with your life.
Plan B
Think about your ideal goals, then think about what you’re doing now. Now give yourself a plan B that meets you halfway.
For example, your goal is to go to the gym for an hour and a half to do 5 lower body exercises, a 15-minute ab circuit, and 30 minutes of incline walking. Currently, you aren’t doing any workouts. Your plan B can be a quick walk after lunch and dinner, two ab exercises and 2 lower body exercises. Or if you’re really short on time, you can make it an at-home Pilates workout that targets the abs and lower body.
This way, you’ll still feel accomplished having gotten something in.
Nothing is worse on your sense of self efficacy than breaking promises to yourself. Make sure the promises you make are achievable. It’s much better to blow “easy” goals out of the water than to drown under a storm of broken promises the quickly breed self-doubt.
Reflect often and reassess
Make sure your plans go WITH your life. Assess the moments you missed your goals. Is this consistently happening? How can you make your goals more realistic to go with the obstacle instead of against it?
For example, do your kids constantly interrupt your home workout session by storming into the room, running around, and playing with things they shouldn’t be playing with? Instead of fighting to do your workout session in the living room and hoping your kids just stop, why not take it outside to the lawn at the park? The kids can come with you and play there and you can bring your mat on the grass.
While having my glass of salt water in the morning, I jot down a few things in my journal, one of them is how did yesterday go, and why? At the end of the week, I review this and notice if their are any patterns, and adjust the habits in my tracker accordingly.
If, for example, I’m noticing I am not meeting my steps goal, and the reason why is beyond my control, I will drop my goal to a reasonable number.
Track your habits and make a point to celebrate what you did well
I highly recommend you start tracking your habits in a journal, app, or a note on your phone. This will quickly give you an overview of your patterns so that you can adjust your goals to go with them. You can also use this to take note of what you ARE excelling at, for moments when you feel like you’re failing. Be sure you add some well-established habits into your tracker along with your new ones, to help with this. If you don’t take this time to celebrate what you did well, you can easily get sucked into beating yourself up about what you didn’t do. You will be miserable.
Daily self affirmations
In this same vein, celebrate yourself.
Your life is crazy right now and you’re going to miss goals. That’s a given. If you don’t practice daily affirmations, it will be very easy to fall into a spiral. I try to make a point each day in my journal to write 3-5 things I’m great at and why. It only has to be 2 sentences per item but it makes a huge difference in my motivation and self-esteem for the day when I do this.
Final note…
The only sure thing in life is that nothing lasts forever- this includes difficult times. Have grace with yourself during this time and applaud your efforts over optimal goal attainment. Wellness isn’t supposed to be your priority in a crisis and that does not make you any less of “that girl”.
If you need help fitting wellness into your life, apply to work with me here and let’s set up a free strategy call.
