Small achievable goals

My interviewee was a lady, with over 30 years of experience in education; her primary subject is physical education, but she also teaches students in the early education stage and in pre-school education class. She lives in a small village and likes walking and hiking a lot.

The beginning of the pandemic was very hard from the work perspective. The work from home forced me to change the way I work completely. I haven’t had occassion to use any ICT tools for communication befor the pandemic came. I needed plenty of time for learning. I’ve been spending a lot of time for making myself familiar with the communication tools. I enrolled the computer course and in result I was spending more than 12 hours a day in front of the computer, which was completely exhausting.

Befor the pandemic I lived very active life. I was walking every day, riding a bike, doing workouts and apparently I realized that I have no time for these activities. After two months I observed that this has damaged my health considerably.

And then I decided that I have to spend at least two hours a day outside. In spite of the lockdown I walked a lot in the forest (I live in the village, so the restrictions were not so harmful), I was also hiking (I live in the mountains). During weekends I was going out for trips and trekking. I have also discovered new iterests and passions.

My main motivation was health. I observed health problems as a results of sitting in front of the computer for a long time. I couldn’t allow myself for loosing good health. I tried to organize myself in a way that prevented me from spending the whole day and evening at work. After classes I was doing house works. I was planning the time for preparation for classess in the same hours every day and after 20.00 I didn’t check any messages of e-mails.
“Thanks” to the pandemic I gained the time, that I was loosing for travels to work (for meetings with parents, conferences). I acquired new skills and I had to use my deep creativity for preparing classes. I also learnd doing things, that I have never had occasion to do, like cuting my hair or using the ICT tools.

The pandemic made me think more about myself. I learned to respect my needs, my time. The most important from my perspective is to find for yourself a some activities, that you are going to perform and keep the daily time schedule. Do not let the work and people around you to put a pressure on you. Setting small but achievable goals will help you to overcome difficulties, and contact with nature, long walks helped me to recover and stay in good shape.

Small, achievable goals and contact with nature!

Date: 23. 9. 2022
Organisation: Szkoła Podstawowa nr 2 w Sanoku