Over December, we’ve been discussing what self-care is, what it isn’t, and how to hone your self-care discipline so that time for yourself is scheduled and boundaries are set around it so you can honor your body’s needs. And while physically attending to ourselves is important, today’s focus will be on how you can empower your emotional and mental wellbeing.

This is a topic that is less a part of the discussion around self-care because there’s something vulnerable about exposing our mental health needs to others, especially as administrators of a school. However, it’s time to talk candidly about our own emotional self-care and how taking the time to see to your emotional needs will transform your work as a school leader.

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One thing I took from working as a principal is that the hours are long and it can feel like the work is never done. I even know some school leaders who, after they’ve finished up for the day at their school, will go and volunteer at their child’s school.

With such an incredible workload, there is one thing that almost always falls by the wayside – self-care. When you’re focusing so much of your time on work, a little self-care can go a really long way to helping you be the effective leader your school deserves.

 

 

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We’re continuing the subject of time scarcity this week with some of the easiest to digest work on the subject. However, it is also some of the trickiest work to implement in your professional and personal life. All of these time fails are going to make sense to you, but you will definitely experience some pushback from your brain, so it’s time to get to work.

The process of thought work around time scarcity is never finished. I find myself having similar conversations with my coach week after week. The work is hard, but it’s also incredibly worthwhile and you will be astounded at what you can achieve when you implement what I’m sharing today.

 

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The thought that there is just not enough time in the day to get all of our things done is present in the minds of, I would say, all educators in America. It doesn’t matter if you love your job and you wish the days were longer so you get to spend more time doing it, or that you think your day is so busy already that there is no way you could fit anything else in, time scarcity is incredibly prevalent.

The thing about our perception of time is it’s just that: our perception. Our beliefs around how much time we have really do affect the way we work, and without us even knowing, have us making poor decisions that could actually make us less efficient.

 

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We’ve been focusing on workload this month and I hope it’s helped you through the lull in motivation a lot of school leaders feel around this time of year.  Today, we’re going to take a good look at how you can reframe your thoughts about your workload, especially when it comes to taking on new responsibilities.

Learning new things is hard. We know this. But why is it such a challenge, even though we’ve gone through our whole life acquiring new skills every step of the way?  Well, that’s kind of the reason. It occurred to me just the other day, there is a type of mental fatigue that goes with every part of the process of learning something new.

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