Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Being in education, the opportunity to experience two ‘new years’ during each calendar year provides time to reflect on successes and challenges, as well as time to set goals for the coming weeks, months, and year.

The excitement of a new school year in September brings a fresh start, new classes of students, and a new promise for the next 180 days of providing a top-notch educational experience for each and every child in your classroom and school.

The most recent New Year celebration often lends itself to personal reflection and goal setting – health, organization, giving up a bad habit, saving money, etc. But the January 1^st milestone also provides the perfect opportunity for a mid-year reflection of your professional work, too.

This is my first year as an elementary principal and winter vacation has served as a check-point of reflection on accomplishments as well as goals. I have a feeling of much success in terms of staying organized and not being too overwhelmed with all of the responsibilities that come with being a building administrator. Beginning in a new job is exciting and challenging as the learning curve is steep and hundreds of hours are devoted to learning all that is involved in the new role. It can feel all-consuming but I’ve loved every minute of the job this fall.

Further personal reflection at the New Year has identified a desire for me to work on the idea of balance in the coming weeks and months – finding ways to ensure that my work-life and personal-life are both being tended to and valued.

Over the winter vacation I had lunch with a friend who is also a first year administrator. She was telling me about how her 10 year-old son serves as her ‘check-in person’ and helps her gauge the amount of time she is focusing on her work versus personal life.  When Cameron comments on how much time mom has been on her computer or that it’s 8:00pm and they haven’t had dinner yet, my friend knows it’s time to refocus and find balance.

Our conversation made me think about ways in which I could have this same kind of gauge and its importance. Beyond borrowing Cameron for a reality check now and then, I jotted down some ideas on my phone that I’d like to try out in the coming weeks and months. Some of these include:

·         Knowing that working on the weekends is inevitable, I will provide myself a set amount of time to get work done on Saturday or Sunday and then give myself permission to stop when that time is up.

·         Identify goals each week of things I want to accomplish outside of my work-life

·         Putting after-work activities on my calendar and sticking to them the same way I do with work appointments. If it says, dinner with friends at 5:30, it happens!

·         Identify my own check-in person to help me gauge my progress toward more balance.

We all know what research says about the importance of finding a balance in the different parts of our lives – mental and physical health, reduction of stress and burn out, overall productivity, and improved work performance. Yet, the constant feeling of there is more to do can quickly overshadow what the research says. I absolutely love my job and I’m grateful every day that I get to be the principal at our school, but I have to remember that I will be an even better leader if I can work on managing the balance and nurturing of my professional and personal life.

 

What are YOUR indicators that one aspect of your life is outweighing the other?  How do you ensure your work-life/personal-life balance? Do you have a check-in person?

 

Each and every child deserves the very best of you every day… Best of luck to each of you in the new year!