This year has been extremely challenging. I wrote a bit about it on Substack and will likely write some more, but suffice it to say, this year has exhausted me emotionally, mentally, and physically in ways I never expected. I left the job that I have called home for seven years to jump into a job that is very much the same and also extremely different. My day job is in election administration policy. I develop best practices, convene election officials and provide trainings and other resources to help build resilient, safe and secure elections.

I love my job but during the federal election cycle it is high stress, high travel and the perfect environment for illness and burnout. The past few federal election cycles took me out. I was sick, I felt miserable and I had no clue how I was going to get through to the end of the year. This year however, I am taking steps to create a plan that finds contentment and harmony over the coming months. With the goal of carrying that contentment into the new year so that things feel a bit more sustainable in the coming years.

The Plan

The rest of the year is not light on travel. In fact, it feels a bit never ending. For the next few days, I will be in Savannah, GA celebrating my 30th anniversary with my best friend. I'll be honest, I cannot believe we made this trip work but I am so freaking glad we did. It gives me a few days to truly rest before a marathon of work starts. My plan through to the end of the year involves carving out time for the people I love, focusing on my mental and physical health and building harmony and contentment into my every day life.

Carving out time for friends and family during seemingly never ending travel

In the midst of this fairly grueling travel schedule, I am also trying my damndest to make sure that I am carving out time for friends and family. In addition to the holiday trips for Thanksgiving with L's family and Pennsylvania for Christmas with mine, I may try to slot in a trip to see my parents in here as they have also had a hell of a year. We will hopefully be keeping up with our monthly Dungeons and Dragons campaign with L's brothers and sisters-in-law. L and I will be going to some concerts—Josiah and the Bonnevilles, Bendigo Fletcher and Abby Hamilton—and a Dustin Nickerson stand up show. I will also have my CivicLex and Lexington Public Library Board meetings and book club.

When I'm traveling this much, I often spend my time at home not engaging with anything. Usually I stay home, I sleep and I say no to activities under the guise of needing to rest. But rest does not necessarily mean regaining energy. As an aggressive extrovert, what gives me energy is spending time with my people and doing activities that bring me joy. So a busy calendar at home in spite of the travel is actually taking care of myself.

Focusing on My Health

I'm the type of person that as I get more stressed I stop taking care of my physical and mental health. So for the past month or so, my health has been a 'Jesus take the wheel' situation. That stops now. I am working with my therapist to find some appointments when I am home over the coming months. I am also focusing on eating right and moving my body—two things that will go a long way toward improving my A1C. And because I don't really do well without really specific goals I have some overarching tiny experiments to try to improve my health.

The Goals

1. Take all of my medicine, every single day.
2. Take at least a 5 minute stroll no more than 30 minutes after a meal.
3. Stretch for at least 7 minutes as soon as I get out of bed.
4. Aim for at least 20 grams of protein at every single meal.
5. Drink water soluble supplements every single day.
6. In bed and lights out by 10:30 p.m. even on weekends (unless travel arrangements prevent it).
7. Eat lunch every single day.
8. Strength training and/or pilates weekly scheduled on Sundays to account for travel.
9. Increase fruit and vegetable intake.
10. 20 minutes wind down before bed—stretch, journal, deep breathing.

As a former project manager, I also know that if I don't have a tactical plan in place then failure is inevitable. I don't want to set myself up to fail and knowing that travel is going to be take up a lot of my time this quarter, I worked to identify goals that can be achieved no matter where I am. My tactical plan is live over on Substack.

Build Harmony and Contentment into my daily life

I can be the most productive, effective, girl boss the world has seen but that doesn't mean anything if I'm not enjoying my life. This should not be conflated with being happy all of the time. Life isn't easy. Hard times happen. I don't think that achieving balance is possible. In fact, I think it sets us up for failure in the long term. There are only so many hours in the day and different days need different efforts on different parts of your life. Instead of an unachievable balance, I'm looking to create harmony and feel contentment in my life.

For me this means spending time with the people I love and doing things I enjoy when I'm home. It means caring for my body and mind when I'm traveling. It means building habits and routines that encourage me to embrace creativity, support my spirit and make me feel whole. It means taking a bit of time while traveling for myself and making sure that while I'm home the work keeps happening.