“You may be whatever you resolve to be. Determine to be something in the world and you will be something. “I cannot,” never accomplished anything; "I will try,” has wrought wonders.”
—J. Hawes
When I first began "principalling" I learned that I should switch my focus from what I wanted to accomplish to what I wanted to be that day. Instead of focusing on a list of tasks to accomplish and then getting dejected at the end of the day when my plans were derailed, I began focusing on traits that I wanted to exhibit in different situations. I chose "love" as my word of the year and a couple of the traits I work on each day are being "loving" and "present." As part of my daily routine I go through when I start the day, I look at my schedule and ask myself, "How can I be 'present' or 'loving' or 'understanding' in this meeting? in the classroom? meeting with students?"
This shift was a game-changer for me because while I still have my to-do list, my worth is not attached to its completion. When I reflect on my success at the end of the day I think about how I was that day...not how many things I checked off.
What does that look like for you? I remember how overwhelming the classroom was at times. I never felt like I was "done." I hope you are able to feel accomplished at the end of your days and find peace and satisfaction in showing up for your kids and giving them the best of what you have. This is the season of execution of our goals, so we have to be careful that we don't get overwhelmed. I hope I am able to support you in finding that balance between being driven with a sense of urgency, and being able to care for yourself.
I think that narrowing our focus to what constitutes a win for our students might help us in focusing on the important but not getting overwhelmed by the urgent. What I mean by the important is student achievement--helping our students to achieve our mission for them-"to prepare them to become productive members of a changing society." We fleshed that out a couple of years ago, but in simple terms it means to help our students feel loved and safe, valuing their worth as human beings while pushing them to master the content. What I mean by the urgent is what we have to do each day. If we get overwhelmed by the urgent without seeking help and support, we may never get to what's important.
So, what does constitute a win for our students? We will be fleshing that out during PLCs this month as we continue to report on our data, and use that to set goals for our students. We will each set our own "Wildly Important Goal" or WIG that will be the lead goal for you personally related to the goal of us becoming a 5-star school. Then we will create a scoreboard so that we can track our progress related to our goals. This is so exciting to me! Anytime that you can change your "work" to a winnable "game," you can do amazing things and have a BLAST doing them.
We got this! Go team!
This shift was a game-changer for me because while I still have my to-do list, my worth is not attached to its completion. When I reflect on my success at the end of the day I think about how I was that day...not how many things I checked off.
What does that look like for you? I remember how overwhelming the classroom was at times. I never felt like I was "done." I hope you are able to feel accomplished at the end of your days and find peace and satisfaction in showing up for your kids and giving them the best of what you have. This is the season of execution of our goals, so we have to be careful that we don't get overwhelmed. I hope I am able to support you in finding that balance between being driven with a sense of urgency, and being able to care for yourself.
I think that narrowing our focus to what constitutes a win for our students might help us in focusing on the important but not getting overwhelmed by the urgent. What I mean by the important is student achievement--helping our students to achieve our mission for them-"to prepare them to become productive members of a changing society." We fleshed that out a couple of years ago, but in simple terms it means to help our students feel loved and safe, valuing their worth as human beings while pushing them to master the content. What I mean by the urgent is what we have to do each day. If we get overwhelmed by the urgent without seeking help and support, we may never get to what's important.
So, what does constitute a win for our students? We will be fleshing that out during PLCs this month as we continue to report on our data, and use that to set goals for our students. We will each set our own "Wildly Important Goal" or WIG that will be the lead goal for you personally related to the goal of us becoming a 5-star school. Then we will create a scoreboard so that we can track our progress related to our goals. This is so exciting to me! Anytime that you can change your "work" to a winnable "game," you can do amazing things and have a BLAST doing them.
We got this! Go team!
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