The Principal's Handbook

Back-to-School Mindset Reset: Starting Strong with Confidence and Clarity
[00:00:00] In today's episode, I wanna talk about a back to school mindset reset and starting strong with confidence and clarity. Stay tuned.
Speaker: Welcome to the Principal's Handbook, your go-to resource for principals looking to revamp their leadership approach and prioritize self-care. I'm Barb Flowers, a certified life coach with eight years of experience as an elementary principal. Tune in each week as we delve into strategies for boosting mental resilience, managing time effectively, and nurturing overall wellness.
From tackling daily challenges to maintaining a healthy work life balance. We'll navigate the complexities of school leadership together. Join me in fostering your sense of purpose as a principal and reigniting your passion for the job. Welcome to a podcast where your wellbeing is the top priority.
Welcome back to the podcast. Today we are going to be talking about a back to school mindset reset and starting strong with confidence and clarity.
I'm excited about the podcast topic today because everybody feels nervous. Even experienced [00:01:00] principals and teachers about the start of a new school year, right? There's a lot of unknowns as you start the school year, and so it's pretty common to be nervous about what that could look like even if you've been in the same building for many years.
, you're getting some new students coming into the building. Maybe you've heard about the students, depending on what grade level you're at, or you're just not sure what to expect with them. It can be nerve wracking, right? Maybe you're getting new teachers in the building, or you have a lack of teachers, or you're just starting in a different way.
For me, I'm starting a new building, which is a little bit different. And it's a whole different set of unknowns. , and so , for everybody it can be really nerve wracking. And so I just wanna normalize first of all that the beginning of the year can be nerve wracking for a lot of different reasons and
even seasoned educators get the back to school butterflies. Okay? So just know that's completely common, , because you care about your job. You wanna do it right, you want the start of the year to be good for teachers, for students, for parents.
And, like I said, [00:02:00] it's completely normal for it to be nerve wracking for everybody. One of the things I love so much about education is the built-in reset. So even if you're in a year round school district, usually there's some sort of break where you get that reset. And so there's a natural cycle that every school year feels like a fresh start, and a lot of professions don't have that.
And so I always say as educators, we really have to take advantage of that. Every school year is a chance to be a different version of yourself, and that's what we're really going to talk about today, is thinking about who you wanna be as a leader and how you wanna show up this school year. I wanna take some time today to help you intentionally reflect and grow.
So you can leverage the reset of summer to become an even stronger and more grounded leader in your leadership. So I want you as we're going through this podcast, if you're listening in your car, walking, I. Just go in your mind and think about, , this reflection.
Think about how you showed up as a leader. If you [00:03:00] are at home and maybe have a pen and paper, you could stop the podcast and actually jot down some notes and do some journaling during this. Either way works great. , but I want you to just reflect on the past school year and how you showed up as a leader.
We're gonna reflect through your. Values, your thoughts, your emotions, your actions, and just a reminder, if you listen to the podcast regularly, I talk about in coaching that your thoughts. Create your emotions, which create your actions. Okay? But we're gonna break down all three of those areas, plus your values, and if you're aligned to those values.
So before we dive into setting new goals and thinking about that, it's really important that you pause and you really reflect on how you showed up over the past year, and hopefully you reflected on the past school year as well, throughout the year, but it's really good to reflect right as you go into the beginning of the year so you can think about how you wanna show up.
So first I want you to think about what did you do well last year as a leader? In your leadership skills, what did you like that you did? , you need to take time to celebrate [00:04:00] those wins, even if it was the tiniest thing, what were you truly proud , of how you showed up as a leader, and where did you grow?
Maybe you became more patient, maybe you improved how you coach teachers. Maybe you improved feedback, or you were able to handle teacher conflict with more composure and less emotions. Like where did you grow as a leader? So reflect on that. And then what's one area you want to improve about yourself? Is it your mindset?
Is it how you handle stress, with how you communicate, with teachers, with parents, , what is it that you wanna improve about yourself as a leader? So those are just some general leadership questions to think about, but I want you to also stop and think about what emotions did you experience most often last year, and which emotions do you wanna manage better?
Were you frequently frustrated with people? Did you feel anxious and nervous about the unknown of each day? Were you overwhelmed? Were you feeling burnt out? What were [00:05:00] those emotions? Or did you mostly feel calm and confident? Did you feel like you had everything under control? Now, I will say as a principal, I think this ebbs and flows, right?
I don't think. Every day everybody feels calm and confident and under control. But maybe you did, which is amazing. , I think you probably have certain days where you're , frustrated. Certain days you're anxious, I'm sure this is like a roller coaster. And so I want you to think about though patterns and trends, what did you feel the most, and then
how did you respond in emotionally charged situations? As principals, we are constantly dealing with this, whether it's between , staff and students, parents and teachers. Where did you, how did you respond in those emotionally charged? How did you respond in those emotionally charged situations?
Were you able to regulate your emotions? Were there situations that sometimes got the best of you? I can easily think of situations in my mind that come right up of where my emotions [00:06:00] got the best of me. But being able to reflect on that is how it has helped me in the future. Okay. So where were you emotionally charged?
Where are areas in your leadership that you took bold action? Were there areas that you said, I'm going to try something new, I'm going to be a different version of who I typically am as a leader, or did you play it safe, or did you play it safe all year? Think of those moments that you really leaned into discomfort to try and grow yourself as a leader, versus times you held back and stayed more quiet than you would like.
Where did you wanna stretch yourself more this year coming up. Remember, the more you step outside of your comfort zone, every time you try something new, you lead. You take bold action. The more confidence you'll have and your confidence will continue to grow. And we're gonna talk about that in a minute, but were there values that you wanted to embody but you didn't always live up to?
I had a principal who always talked about the value of integrity and that, as a [00:07:00] school we valued integrity students, staff, which I loved. I can think of him so specifically, and he always led with integrity. So maybe that's your value. Did you always lead with integrity or did you have situations where you didn't handle it with integrity or you wanna change that for the future?
Maybe you value confidentiality, which we need to as leaders. Loyalty, compassion. Did you always live up to those values in all of those areas where can you show up more aligned with your values to school year coming up?
Okay. What thoughts did you have that contributed to a positive school year? So maybe you had thoughts like, when tough situations came up, I can figure this out, or my team wants to succeed too. Or these, teachers are only upset because they care. Those are positive thoughts that you could have.
But maybe if you're going into your school with the thoughts of , I can't do this. I'm so tired of handling this same situation, these teachers don't care. The parents don't care. , if you have these [00:08:00] negative thoughts, are you leading well with those negative thoughts? Because that leads to negative emotions and actions.
So what thoughts contributed to a positive year, but what thoughts do you need to release? What thoughts would help you have had a better year? So think about what those negative thoughts were that creeped in as well. Notice what thoughts that may have added stress or overwhelm. I mean, if you have the thought, I have to do everything myself, it'll never get done.
There's too much to do. These thoughts lead to overwhelm. So what thoughts do you really need to release this school year? . As you reflect, just focus on who you want to be. We spend so much time focusing on a goal or you know what we want to achieve, but really take some time.
The purpose of this episode is to think about the leader that you wanna be. Think about, , the leader who's confident and leads with clarity. Who is that person? Who do you wanna be as a leader? What does that [00:09:00] look like? How do you wanna feel as you lead? What emotions do you wanna have?
What thoughts do you wanna have that are going to impact those emotions and actions? That's going to be your foundation for everything else. So if you can take time to really reflect through your values. Your thoughts, your emotions, and your actions that you took this year. It's going to help so much with creating more confidence and clarity as you lead next school year, and confidence is simply your belief in your own abilities.
We think a lot of times that confidence is a trait that just magically people have, right? Some people are confident and some aren't. But really, confidence is built by consistently doing hard things. The harder the things that you're doing, it's creating growth. And every time you're growing, it's building your confidence and your belief that you can do new things, that you can do hard things that.
You have belief in your abilities. If you're always playing it safe and you're never going outside of your comfort zone, you're not building that [00:10:00] confidence. And so you always have the choice to be confident. It's a choice. You can flip it on and off. And I know some people think, oh, it's not that easy. , if you think about confidence, it's an emotion. It's how you feel, and so you have to have thoughts that are going to create confident emotions that are going to create confident actions. So if you have the thought, I'm good at tough conversations, or I'm someone who doesn't shy away from challenges or tough conversations every time you have that thought.
You're going to be able to handle those tough conversations. Whether you do it well or not, you're going to have it and it's going to lead to more confident emotions, more confident actions. The more I made myself have the tough conversations, the more I made myself implement the initiative that I knew people might not be happy about.
Every time I did that and I did something hard, it built my confidence even more and more as a leader. That's why leaders with experience typically have more confidence, they've had [00:11:00] more time to do these hard things and have that choice to take bold action to be confident. So just remember, confidence is a choice.
It's not a trait. You get to choose every day to be confident. It's an emotion that you have and so you just need to have thoughts that create that confident emotion. So reminding yourself what you're good at, reminding yourself that you can do hard things, reminding yourself that you can handle whatever comes your way.
. All of these things are really important, and then having clarity as a leader is really just deciding ahead of time that you're gonna have clarity around your year. So it means you're proactive, you determine what matters most. This year you're really clear. I. Be clear. What matters most to you? What matters most to how you behave as a leader?
What matters most to you in the building? Is it staff wellbeing? Is it instructional priorities? Is it protecting your own time boundaries? Thinking about what these things are, and it doesn't have to be one thing, but what is going to matter most to you? What is really [00:12:00] important to you? And being clear about it for yourself and for your staff is really important.
Being clear, like I said, how will you show up each day being clear about the fact that you get to intentionally choose your thoughts and how you lead that building. Is going to build your confidence, it's a simple decision that is so powerful and
It's going to set the tone for the entire year. . So it's really important for you to think about how do you wanna start the year strong? How do you wanna start it with confidence and clarity?
I also want you to just do this quick mindset shift. I want you to write down three things you're proud of from last year. Write down one belief about yourself as a leader that you wanna practice this year. So again, maybe it's, I can handle tough things calmly.
I can handle my emotions. , I can communicate and help bring this building together, whatever it is, but write down those three things you're proud of because it's going to help you have that positive thought about yourself as a leader. Positive emotion, positive actions. [00:13:00] And then having that one belief that you practice thinking about yourself as a leader.
Maybe it is, I'm a leader who handles things with integrity, or I'm a leader who leads with compassion. Whatever it is that aligns with your values and you want to think is really important. And I encourage you to practice having that thought as you go into the beginning of the year. So just to recap our main ideas here.
It's totally normal to start the year feeling nervous. It doesn't mean you're not confident in your leadership abilities if you start the year feeling nervous, but you always get a reset. So if you didn't like how you led last year, that's okay. You get a reset this school year. It's a whole new year.
You get to choose to be a new version of yourself. Just a reminder, confidence is chosen and built. It's not a trait, and you can decide to have confidence and clarity going into this school year. So I hope that you found these tips helpful.
I hope you take some time to really reflect on yourself as a leader, not just on goals and the things and actions that you've [00:14:00] accomplished. But on your thoughts, your emotions, your values, how did you show up as a leader? Take that time to really reflect on that. Think about that and think about what you're excited about this year as you start the year
, and if you struggle with confidence, I have a free workshop called Stop Doubting Your Decisions, which I'll put a link in the show notes where I actually go through how to stop doubting your decisions as a leader, which really does come from a lack of confidence. So that might be helpful as well.
And if you love this show, if you're listing on Apple, scroll down in your app and leave a review. That helps other people find the podcast. But keep in mind, you have the power to shape your life according to the mindset you choose. I hope you have a great week, and I'll see you back here next time.
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