As a principal, you dig hard work. You didn’t sign up for school leadership thinking it would be easy. However, if you find yourself feeling perpetually busy, trying to spin multiple plates at once, and believing you have too much to do and not enough hours in a day, it’s time to understand what hard really means.

There’s an important distinction between allowing things to be hard, expecting things to be hard, and taking a break when something is too hard. I’ve been exploring this for myself in both my personal and professional life, and being able to differentiate between these three types of hard has been profound. 

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Do you think being in a leadership position means you must sacrifice yourself in favor of productivity and success? Where in your life do you feel like you can’t embrace moments of joy?

My clients often find themselves judging the things that bring them joy in their lives, whether big or small. They may believe it’s too trivial or luxurious to experience joy and happiness, and as a result, they deny themselves what is inherently their right as humans. The truth is that expanding your capacity for joy is a practice, and you might be using a lack of joy as an excuse for not having the experience you desire.

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Today’s episode is a quick, down-and-dirty conversation about how to plan out norms. We’re already in October, but we still have time to establish and revisit norms in our schools. I’m giving you a strategy I use with my clients when it comes to planning out norms and getting others to follow them from a place of compassion.

Discussions about norms are one of those things that make people roll their eyes. You do them every year, and it can feel like they don’t matter. However, they establish a standard and expectation for collaboration and meeting behaviors, and they’re super important for getting things done. It’s time to talk about creating compassionate norms.

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It’s October, which means it’s a beautiful month of colorful leaves, costumes, and candy, but for school leaders, it’s one of the most exhausting times of the year. The fall dip is hitting schools left, right, and center, so in today’s episode, I’m showing you what you can do when you start experiencing the fall dip.

You’ve been going full blast since July, hiring, onboarding, planning, preparing, meeting, and getting things moving. October comes around and things are humming, but we’re exhausted. So, if you want some tips for getting through this tough month, this is the episode for you.

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You’re now at the point in your school year where you’ve been at it for a few months. This means the initial honeymoon period of excitement and enthusiasm has likely worn off, and your mind is racing about how there’s so much left to do and not enough time to get it all done.

We’ve been led to believe that we need to have a combative relationship with time. We say things like, “I don’t have time,” or “Time slipped away from me,” and we use time as a scapegoat for why we’re unhappy or for not accomplishing the things we truly want to do. The truth is we’ve been sold on this oppressive framework of time, but we can begin building a beautiful relationship with it instead.

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