Ep #335: Why Are You in a Rush?

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 335. 

Welcome to The Empowered Principal® Podcast, a not so typical educational resource that will teach you how to gain control of your career and get emotionally fit to lead your school and your life with joy by refining your most powerful tool, your mind. Here’s your host certified life coach Angela Kelly Robeck. 

Hello my empowered leaders, happy Tuesday. Hey, if you just found out about The Empowered Principal® Podcast, so happy you are here. Welcome to the club. We are having a great time. Hey, I just want to point out, I know it’s getting towards the end of May as this episode is dropping. 

I want to invite you in to the Empowered Principal® Facebook group. If you’re not in there, get in because Summer Fun Challenge is coming, and you guys know this is the third or fourth year I’ve done this. We have a fun challenge every week. Everybody posts all the fun they’re having over the summer, whether that’s professional or personal, it doesn’t matter. As long as you’re having fun and you’re posting it and sharing it and cheering people on and uplifting people and having the most amazing exceptional life yourself. 

You get eligible for prizes. I send out amazing prizes every single year. They get better and better every year. I’m so excited. Join us in the Facebook group. Join the Summer Fun Challenge. Post in there. Get engaged. Get busy living your life, having fun, sharing it with others in the Facebook group, commenting. Every time you post or comment, your name goes into the drawing. We get one prize per week, and we do this for eight weeks during the summer, and it’s a blast. I’m telling you. Let’s go.

All right. This is a quickie, but it’s important. I want to talk about the urge to rush to better. This sounds like a convoluted topic, but it’s not. We all are in a rush. We’re in a rush to get it done. We’re in a rush to the end of the year. We’re in a rush to get better grades. We’re in a rush to make more money. We’re in a rush to have our kids grow up. We’re in a rush for something better. We think that something better is coming, and it is, but we’re in a rush to get it.

I was just coaching a client on this and she’s like, “Yeah, I know. Life is really good. I know that. We’ve been coaching forever.” This client of mine has been coaching with me for years. She’s like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that, but I really want now. I want this now. I want that now.” I said, what’s the rush? Why the rush? 

She’s like, “Well, I want to feel more certain. I want to feel more settled. I want to have this experience, and I want to make more progress. I want to make a bigger impact. I want to serve more. I want, want, want, right?” Which is amazing. I love, love when clients come to me with desire, with compelling urgency to live an exceptional life. It lights me up to see them lit up.

It is not wrong to want and to desire. Where the pain comes in, where the suffering comes in, where the focus on the lack of not having it comes in is when we want it right now and we think we need to rush to get there. 

Here’s why we rush. We rush because we think that being there is going to feel better than where you’re at right now. We think that when we’re an aspiring principal, we’re going to feel so much better when we land the job. When we’re in the job we have now, we think it’s going to feel so much better when we make more money or when we’re better at our job, when we know what we’re talking about finally once and for all. When we get that promotion, we think we’re going to feel better. 

But what do you notice? When you were an aspiring principal and you were daydreaming about how amazing school leadership was going to be, and you had those rose colored glasses on, and you were just dying to get that job, and you interviewed three, four, five, 10, 20 times before you landed that job. You were aching for it. You were in a rush.

Yes, it felt so good to get the offer. You felt so accomplished, so proud.  Then what happened? You got into the job and you got a whole ‘nother set of oh, this doesn’t feel good. I want to rush through what doesn’t feel good to get to the part where it feels good. 

I want you to see that no matter where you’re at on your career journey right now or in your personal journey right now, there’s always a moment where we think it’s going to feel better in the future and we are aching, pining, longing, wanting, desiring the future. 

But in the midst of doing that, we’re focusing on the lack of what we have in our life right now. I want to make this much money, but now I only make this much money. Instead of saying like I’m so grateful that I make this much, and I look forward to making this much.

So if you’re making $80,000 right now and you want to make six figures, you want to make 100K as a school leader, you can be grateful that you’re making $80,000 because a lot of people are not in this world. Be so grateful for all the things that that $80,000 affords you and how proud you are that you’ve accomplished this amount of money and be delighted in wanting to hit that 100K mark.

Not because you’re going to be better. It doesn’t make you a better principal to make six figures. It doesn’t mean you’re better, smarter, a better person, better leader. It doesn’t make you better necessarily. It doesn’t even feel better because once you’re making a 100K, guess what? Now you want 120 and then you want 140 and then you want 160. There will always be a desire. 

So when I hear clients in a rush to get somewhere, I know that there’s a  thought error, a thought obstacle I call them, that’s happening. There’s a block that’s saying like oh, there is better than here. Anytime I hear that in a client, I know that it’s my job to help them see that where they’re at right now is just as good as where you’re headed.

It’s still a 50/50 experience. There are good days. There are hard days. You have wins, you have losses. You get it right. You get it wrong. You say it beautifully. You mess it up. You make the meeting. You forget the meeting. You pay the bill on time. You forgot to pay the bill on time, right? You get your kids on time to soccer or you don’t. It still all happens. Life still happens. 

Now, what I have found to be true is that when I’m open to not rushing to living and embracing this little mini-chapter that’s today or this week or this school year, when I embrace this and look for what’s happening that’s so amazing here, what happens is my future feels even better because I’m always focusing on how good my life is. There never ends up being a bad chapter, right? 

It’s like when Alex was born, I just wanted him to stay newborn because I loved it so much. But then he became like three months old, and he started smiling and like responding and I was like oh my God, I love this the best.  Then he was six months old, and he was crawling and he was chubby and his little teeth then I love that the best. Then nine months and then a year.  Then I loved every chapter, every season, every moment of his life the best. 

Then the best just kept getting better. Now my son, oh, it makes me cry to say it. He just turned 25 in April. We did a big quarter of a century birthday party for him. I had all of his friends and family from birth to 25 shower him with love, birthday cards, birthday gifts, messages, texts, letters, whatever, however they wanted to shower him for his 25th. It was just incredible. I love this the best. I love my adult relationship with my son the best. As much as I loved him as a newborn, I love this the best. So life keeps getting better with him and better with him and better with him. 

You can apply this to anything. Your job, you can love this chapter the best and the next one’s going to be oh, I love this even better. You can do it in your job, in your career. You can do it with your own kids. You can do it with your relationships, with your friendships, with your own life, this house, the next house, this car, the next car. You don’t have to rush to get into the dream home. You can love the mini apartment you’re in right now.

I had a client, she’s worked with me for gosh, four years now. When she started, she was the youngest little principal. She wasn’t even 30 years old yet. She was in her late twenties. She was a principal during COVID, no less. She was living in a small apartment. She lived in New York city by the way. So literally living in New York city in a small apartment. She was daydreaming about someday getting a big beautiful house out in the suburbs, I guess of, of New York.

But I told her but look at you now. You’re a school leader, and you’re not even 30 years old. Look at you go girl. Yes, you have a small apartment, but you’re living urban life. Love the urban life. Love your little place. It’s so cute. You were going to have the fondest memories of that place. They’re going to be the best memories ever. 

When you get to your big, beautiful suburban home, you’re going to love that the best. Then you’re going to have children. Then you’re going to love that the best, but love being single now. Love being married without children now. Love the car you have now, and you’ll love the next one even better. 

There is no rush. There’s no need for the rush because you can love where you’re at right now in order to expand and love what’s coming even better, even bigger. So I invite you, there’s no need to rush. Slow down, take a breath, enjoy spring, enjoy the end of the year. Embrace it now, love it for what it is now, and you’ll love the future even bigger and even more. Have an amazing day. I love you all. Talk to you guys next week. Take good care. Bye. 

Hey empowered principal. If you enjoyed the content in this podcast, I invite you to join The Empowered Principal® Collaborative. It’s my latest offer for aspiring and current school leaders who want to experience exceptional impact and enjoy the school leadership experience. 

Look, you don’t have to overwork and overexert to be a successful school leader. You’ll be mentored weekly and surrounded by supportive like minded colleagues who truly understand what it means to be a school leader. So join us today and become a member of the only certified life and leadership coaching program for school leaders in the country. Just head on over to angelakellycoaching.com/work-with-me to learn more and join. I’ll see you inside of The Empowered Principal® Collaborative. 

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