Ep #411: Why School Principals Feel Bored (And How to Fix It)

Hello, empowered principals. Welcome to episode 411.

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.

Well, hello, my empowered principals. Happy Tuesday. I have got a very different topic to talk with you about today. Kind of the other end of the spectrum. And when I talk with a client and we’re coaching and something comes up, I think to myself, if one person’s feeling this way, then there’s many other leaders out there feeling this way.

So this topic is going to sound very different and it may be for my more veteran principals out there. Perhaps not. But I want you to glean some wisdom in whatever form that it offers you this week. So, I was talking with a client about feeling bored with her work. Bored at the job. Bored with the same old, same old.

So, if you are a veteran principal, I can’t imagine new principals would feel this way, but it’s possible out there that you might be bored with the work. And I just want to talk about that emotion of bored or feeling bored, boring, that kind of thing.

So I was talking with the client and she has had an extreme amount of success in her work as a principal. She’s in her, I believe it’s her fourth year, maybe her fifth. And she worked really hard to calm down her mind, her energy, her busyness and be very intentional with her time and her schedule and her planning and learning how to delegate. Like she’s gone through my program. She is a third year one-on-one student. She’s been in EPC for the last two years and she’s really done this work.

So, I usually focus on the principals who are feeling overwhelmed or they’re overworked, they’re overscheduled, they’re overbusy. But today I want to talk about directing the conversation over to principals who have been in the position for a while. And now that we’re into the month of November, you’ve been at this. August, September, October, November, and you might be feeling or having the thought, like new school year but same old stuff.

And so if this is you, let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about what bored looks like, what bored means, and why you might be feeling bored. So, oftentimes when I feel bored or when clients tell me that they are bored, it feels like their work is on repeat. It’s like Groundhog’s Day. They’re on a treadmill and it’s rinse and repeat. Same old actions, same old story, same old behavior.

So, what your brain will offer you is you’re tired of doing the same old things. All of the behaviors feel the same. The complaints feel the same. The teachers are the same. The people are the same, whether, you know, you get one kid out, another kid in. There’s always something. And there is a pattern or rhythm that feels very similar.

And if you think about what boring is, how you define it, when I’m bored, you’re not engaged, you’re not interested, you’re not inspired, you’re not energized, right? There’s not something engaging and fulfilling or satisfying about the actions, the work that you’re doing. When you feel bored, you’re kind of disengaged. You might feel some fatigue, some apathy. You might not feel like working or you feel a little resentful or a little annoyed when you have to do the same old thing over and over, the repetitiveness of maybe behavior investigations or IEPs or observations.

There’s a lot of things we do on repeat. We have multiple observations, we go to multiple IEP meetings, we go to leadership meetings, we hold a lot of staff meetings. We do a lot of observations. We have a lot of behavior investigations and conversations. So there is a pattern of actions that we take as a school principal.

So we dug into this idea of, I just feel blah. I don’t know if any of you have felt blah. Like you come in and you’re just feeling blah. Like you’re just not engaged, you’re not enthused, you’re not feeling excited about the day. And there might be a little part of your brain that’s like, what’s the point? I just get up, I do this, I do that. Day after day, round after round, week after week, month after month. What’s the point of all this? And is this all there is?

I had another client who said, I’m curious to know, is this what life is? Is this it? Is this what it feels like? Is this what it is? Is this as good as it gets? So let me break this down into these two components here.

There is the what’s the point frequency. When you say what’s the point, that is on the frequency, on the playing field of disempowerment because what’s the point means I don’t have the power to create a point. The things I’m doing aren’t making a point. There’s no point to this. There’s no purpose. There’s no value in this. What is the point? We’re asking ourselves as though we’ve already answered the question. There is no point. When we say what’s the point, there is no point is what we’re thinking. There’s no point to this.

Instead of saying, wait a minute, what is the point? Why am I doing teacher observations? Why am I having classroom observations? Why am I holding them? Why am I going to these IEP meetings? Why do I do what I do? Is it valuable? Does it have a purpose? Or am I just going through the motions?

So when you’re feeling bored and there’s that level of disengagement, ask yourself, am I thinking that this is not working? I’m just showing up, running on a treadmill all day, feeling exhausted at the end of the day, and this is not working or what’s the point? I don’t see how it’s working. When you don’t see how it’s working, that is because you’re not looking for how it’s working. I’ve done this too. I do this in my business actually. I’m like, wait, what am I doing? How many podcasts do I have to record? Why am I posting on social media? You have to ask yourself, like, why am I doing this? What is the point?

I’m very committed to this podcast. I have yet to miss a deadline on my podcast. I have yet to miss recording because I know the value. I know there are thousands of school leaders listening to this podcast. And I know that when they’re driving to work or they’re driving home or it’s Sunday night and they’re feeling the angst of going back on Monday, they listen to this podcast. They have a favorite episode or they re-listen or they go on a walk and they feel inspired and re-energized, or they go home and journal and contemplate. I know this podcast has value. I know it has meaning and it’s helping individual people.

I’m very connected to the value, which makes it highly engaging for me to record. When you go into work and you’re feeling disconnected and what my client called bored with the job, kind of this blah feeling, it’s because we’ve disconnected from the purpose and the value.

The other question that comes up when we are feeling bored or feeling detached, feeling uninspired with our work is, is this all that life has to offer? Is this the life of a school principal where it’s just boring? I have to do boring things. I have to go on repeat. I don’t really get to feel successful, feel accomplished. I don’t get to feel that productivity. I don’t get to have a sense of fulfillment. It’s just serving people all day long to the point of exhaustion, depleting myself, emptying my bucket for other people, and then feeling disgruntled about that. Is this it?

And again, my response to that would be, let’s ask the question but answer it in a different way. Is this all that principalship is? Meaning not that this is it. It’s just we’re at the upper limit. This is all that it has to offer, but what else does it have to offer? Is this all that school leadership has to offer or is there more? Could it be better? Could I learn more skills? Could I connect with more people? Could I find new solutions? Could I work on a passion project and reignite my soul? How can I make school leadership more than this? How can I make it feel better? What would inspire me again? How can I go back to feeling like I did in the beginning, when I was excited, when I was anticipating, when I wanted so badly to land this job, and then I got it. And then all of the excitement, all of the enthusiasm of that new principal energy, tapping back into that. What’s something I haven’t explored yet? What is a conference I haven’t yet attended? Who’s a person I’d like to speak with? What leadership skills would I like to develop? What kind of instructional leadership would I like to focus on next? Is there something different you can bring to the table, different spices for this year?

I mean, it’s only November. We’ve got all of December, January, February, March, April, May, June. We have so much time to spice up life here. So if you are feeling disconnected and bored in any way, shape or form, is it some apathy because you feel like you have no impact or are you feeling like you’re ready for a different level of impact and you want more?

Explore this a little bit. I know this sounds like an odd concept to feel bored as a principal when there’s a million things on your to-do list and it feels like you can’t do them fast enough. So when your mind’s like, oh, blah, I just feel blah about this. Like I don’t want to go into work, I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to do that. Why? Why not? Why don’t you feel like going to that IEP meeting? Why don’t you feel like going in and doing another round of behaviors knowing that kids are going to misbehave? Why do you feel pressure and kind of resistance when it comes to getting your observations done?

Explore that. That will bring you some insight. And then ask yourself, what would spice things up? What would make it more interesting? How can I make this enjoyable? Because the job has plenty to offer. Trust me, you know that. I know that. But when we feel bored with it, it’s either because we don’t believe we’re making any impact at all and we’re spinning our wheels, or we feel we’ve made impacts in the way that we can and we’re looking for something new, something fresh, a little bit more. So try that out. Let me know how it goes.

And hey, if you’ve got a great story to share with me, I want you to reach out and tell me. I am going to be connecting with listeners of this podcast and I’m going to be connecting with you, listening to your stories, and inviting some of you on to the podcast. This is something new that I’m starting in 2026. I want to highlight real principals in real time doing the job, not just my clients, but people who are out there doing the work who want into the world of the Empowered Principal. If you’ve got an amazing story, if you’ve had a turnaround, if this podcast is somehow resonated with you and just because of the podcast you’ve made transformations in your outlook, in your mindset, in your experience, I would love to talk with you, hear from you, and possibly highlight you on one of our shows.

So let me know if you have been feeling bored or you have been feeling blah and you have found a way to put some passion back into your job. I would love to hear your experience. So reach out. Let me know. Join the Facebook group and I look forward to hearing from you. Have a beautiful week and I’ll see you next week. Take good care. Bye.

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