Here we are at the end of 2019. Now, if you’re anything like me, you’ll be filled with excitement for a fresh start and new goals for the New Year. However, we also feel the burn of disappointment for the targets we didn’t reach and the experiences we missed out on in the past year, and that can create a lot of discomfort and reluctance to really analyze what went wrong.

The way we set goals is incredibly important. Sure, achieving your goals is important and feels great, but that shouldn’t be the only focus. If we set goals that are easy to achieve, what’s the point? Setting easy goals doesn’t serve you, and it certainly doesn’t serve your students and staff.

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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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We are continuing on with December’s theme of self-care. We spoke last week about what self-care really is and why it often takes a back seat when it comes to our work as school leaders. Now you have that in your consciousness, I want to discuss how to build up your self-care discipline, so you can incorporate it into your life in a way that serves you.

Just like anything, having boundaries around your self-care is incredibly important. It’s so easy to neglect yourself when your work is demanding, as it is when you’re the principal of a school. A lot of us even think about self-care as selfish, but when you consider self-care as for the benefit of everyone you deal with in your day-to-day, you’ll see a huge difference in your life. 

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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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Oh, my gosh, we are at episode 100! To mark this momentous occasion on the podcast, I’ve got a special treat for you this week. I have Daniel Bauer on the show, the mastermind behind Better Leaders Better Schools. I’m so happy to have Daniel here and I know he’s going to have a ton of amazing insights for you.

Daniel has had an amazing journey up until this point. As is the case with so many school leaders, Daniel got to the top of his profession and was disappointed with the lack of professional and personal development opportunities for school leaders, so he started his mission to cultivate better leaders while still in the job of principal and has not looked back.

 

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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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Over the last couple of episodes, we’ve been talking about time management, specifically about getting your mindset in the right place about what you have to do and how long you have available to do it. This week, we’re bringing that work together with some real actionable tips for making the most out of the time you do have.

Our to-do lists can be pretty intimidating, and especially if it’s all up in your head, it becomes an all-consuming monster that you can’t stop thinking about. Well, it doesn’t have to be this way and I can’t wait to share with you how you can put your to-do list into perspective and give yourself the best chance of getting everything completed.

 

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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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Something I see in a lot of my clients is a reluctance to associate work with pleasure. They see work as work and fun as something that should be enjoyed out of office hours. This makes a lot of sense on some level, but what it’s actually doing is making your work environment so much harder to enjoy.

It is not your job’s job to make sure you have a fun time at work. The only person responsible for making work a pleasurable experience is you. We’ve talked about every other aspect of scheduling this month, but now, it’s time for the good stuff.

 

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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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