The Principal's Handbook

[00:00:00]
In today's episode, I want to talk about the Sunday Scaries as a school principal. That's all coming up next right here on The Principal's Handbook. Stay tuned.
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, I'm Barb Flowers. 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're going to be talking about the Sunday Scaries or also known as the [00:01:00] Sunday Blues, the Sunday Night Jitters.
Whatever you call it, it's that feeling you get over the weekend, hopefully on Sunday, but sometimes people even start to experience this on Saturday as they start to think about going back to work and really what the Sunday scaries are is just a form of anxiety.
As a teacher, as a principal, there were periods of time where I definitely had this feeling, the Sunday scaries. There were periods of time where I didn't, I was so excited to get to work. I had a lot to do, I wanted to be there on Monday morning. So we all have different experiences with this.
Sometimes, It can be really hard when you're coming back from a break, those long periods of being off work and you have that freedom. And then all of a sudden you have to go back to the structure of work can be hard. Some people love going back and some people struggle to go back. So everybody's a little bit different with this, but just know that the Sunday scaries can be normal.
It just depends on your personality. And if you get anxiety sometimes, because really what the Sunday scaries [00:02:00] are, it's a form of anxiety. And so I want to normalize that if you are feeling this, It doesn't have to mean that you hate your job or that you're burnt out or that you're overwhelmed. It could mean that, but it doesn't have to.
, I think one thing that happens with the Sunday Scaries is our brain starts to tell us stories of how hard the work is as a principal, how hard the week's going to be. And I'm not saying that the work of a principal is not hard. It just starts to really dramatize these stories. And I know this from my own personal experience.
I'm not saying this with judgment for anybody. It But it starts to gather evidence from all of the hard things we've faced in our role as a principal. So for me, if I think about the span of a school year, there were hard situations, but not necessarily daily. But when I'm dreading going to work or thinking about how hard it's going to be, all of a sudden, I feel like I dealt with all of those hard situations in one day.
And it's our brain just trying to protect us, right? It's our brain. Going to the [00:03:00] negative because that's what the primitive part of the brain does. It goes to the negative to protect us. And so we reinforce those negative thoughts because then we start thinking, , it is hard. I had this situation happen and that's hard.
And I have to deal with this teacher and that's going to be hard. And we just start to Tell ourselves how hard it's going to be. And we start to really develop this anxiety about going to work. And I just want to challenge you. And I want you to think about what if you just didn't entertain the Sunday scaries?
What if you acknowledge that you were having anxious thoughts about going back to work and you just let them pass instead of feeding into them instead of really letting them mean something. Over time, I've learned to not feel those negative thoughts because sometimes I have really negative thoughts and other times.
I realize that's just what they are. They're thoughts. They're not necessarily true. Sometimes I have thoughts that are fiction, right? It's a story I made up. So I like to ask myself, is that thought fact or fiction? Our [00:04:00] lives are 50, 50 of good and bad. It's just part of the human experience. It's part of what we talk about in life coaching because We have to remember that we're not going to be happy all the time.
We're not going to have excitement all the time. It's great to have those positive feelings. However, without the 50 of the bad things like. Sadness and doubt and fear all of those things. It's hard to enjoy the 50 percent that's good, right? That helps us know what is good and we want to feel bad when something sad happens or we want to feel bad.
We don't want to feel happy all the time. Just imagine if somebody felt happy all the time. You would be like, what's wrong with them, right? It's not meant to be like that as a human. We're not meant to be happy all the time. And so having a feeling of anxiety is completely normal, right? But anxiety is really just ruminating on the future.
So if you start to feel anxious, you need to bring yourself back to the present. If it's Saturday and you're already getting those Sunday scaries, you're thinking about, Oh, I don't want to go [00:05:00] to work on Monday. I want you to bring yourself back to the present. Okay. So that's something I want you to focus on, but just remember that.
Okay. It really is just a form of anxiety and anxiety comes from overwhelm. It comes from uncertainty, so you could be feeling anxious or have the Sunday scaries because you're overwhelmed. It's that time of year where there's so much going on, or it could be uncertainty. Our brain likes certainty, and we know as a principle there is no certainty.
Right. Every single day we deal with different situations. As a principal, I sometimes had the most boring days ever. And then other days they were not boring at all. There were things that happened that I had never dealt with before. Right? Like there's so much uncertainty and it's the same with being a teacher, just an education.
You're dealing with people, you're dealing with humans. There is uncertainty. We don't know how other people are going to act. We can't control how other people act. We can only control ourselves. , one thing I want to just let you think about is you can bring the certainty, [00:06:00] right?
What if you brought the certainty to the week that you're able to handle anything that comes your way. And we're going to be talking about that, but I just want you to think about that, that you can be a person to bring that certainty. But principals, they just faced a lot of difficult situations. And when we take time to think about them and ruminate on them, they seem harder and harder.
It was funny. I was talking to a friend who is a middle school assistant principal and we were talking about, you know, I talked to her that morning and I said, have a good day. I hope it's a calm day. Cause she was the only administrator there. Okay. And of course, she called me later and was like, it was not a calm day.
There were drugs at school. There was this, there was that. And I just had to laugh when she said that, because of course, when you hope for a calm day, it never is. But we talked about the fact that you just handle it, right? Like in the moment, we're not anxious. Like, what do we do? What do we do in the moment?
It's almost like your adrenaline takes over. You go into principle mode and you just handle the situation the best that you [00:07:00] can. No matter what hard situation comes up, it's not like in the moment, you're like, Oh my gosh, I don't know how to handle this. , usually in the moment you just take action, right?
And if you're brand new and you don't know how to handle it, that's where you call somebody that can help you call somebody that can give you tips or have a coach that can work through these situations with you if you need help. But anyways, just, I think so often we forget that in those moments that are hard.
We know what to do and our instincts take over and we just handle it. So as we ruminate and get anxious about what's going to happen, just know that you know exactly how to handle situations to the best of your ability. And then I briefly want to talk about just a reminder that principals impact the culture and the school atmosphere.
And so you want to make sure that you're not going into school on Monday morning with that feeling of, , I don't want to be here. I hate Mondays. I can't tell you how many people I would pass in a hallway on a Monday who just make conversation and they might not even mean it , but we say things [00:08:00] like, , is it Friday yet?
, why Mondays are hard. We make up all these stories about Mondays and then we share them with each other. And what that does is it makes it harder. And so you as the leader, you need to be the optimistic one. You need to be ready to go excited, enthusiastic for the week. And I'm not talking about toxic positivity where everything's perfect.
I'm just saying, bring that positive energy. And if you go back to episode 67, I talk about leading with optimism, go back and relisten to that episode if you need help with that, but, Don't engage when other people are talking about the negatives of it's Monday, they don't want to be here, they want to be back in bed, whatever.
You have to set that tone for your school. So now I want to give you four practical strategies to help you beat the Sunday scaries. So number one is weekend preparation. So I used to do this all the time. I would really set boundaries around my Sundays as much as I could. that I would have time on Sundays to prepare for the week ahead.
Because if I didn't have time on Sundays, I felt more [00:09:00] stressed out. I would start by organizing my Monday schedule and advanced. I like to know what I was going to be doing on Monday. So I would look at my phone on Friday at work. I would make sure that
my desk was clean and organized and I was ready for Monday morning, but for myself, I like to make sure I knew what was coming up on Monday morning. On Sunday, I knew if I had a meeting first thing, what time I really needed to get to the school, and just set myself up for success. I also would , and I still do this.
I write on a calendar on a refrigerator of what events are happening that week. And so I would write, , what days did I have to stay after school later? What days would I be home on time? You know, and know what that week would look like. Because that way, if it was a week where I had three late nights, I knew that.
If it was a week where I'd probably get home every day by 4. 30, I knew that. So it just helped me mentally set myself up for success. So really take the weekend to prepare. , the other things I like to do on the weekend were prep my food. I like to pick out my clothes for the week.
But always having [00:10:00] my meal prep for the week , that was a non negotiable for me.
And then the other thing I did, I don't like to cook when I get home from work. And so I would also like meal prep proteins for the week and have vegetables cut up for my family because when I got home from work, even though I had plenty of time, I usually would feel too tired to cook.
So that was a strategy I had. The other tip I have is to have Sunday evening routines. So we call it the Sunday Scaries. You're starting to feel anxious about Monday. But what if you created a calming evening routine? What if you took that time to read a book? to do some meditation, to just allow yourself to be calm before work.
Instead of, you know, being up till 10 o'clock, you want to get to bed early. , set boundaries on work related communications. Don't be up texting everybody at work, you know, set those boundaries. Don't be looking at work, but take that time for yourself as you prepare for the week. So you feel calm, collected, and ready to go.
Because that's going to help you feel more ready for the [00:11:00] week versus if you're like thinking about things you need to do and you're sitting up working until late and then you wake up and start your week. Okay, so you want to set yourself up for success, you want to plan ahead, create that calming evening routine, whatever that looks like for you.
For me, I like watching shows with my husband at night. That's something that we like to do, but just taking that time to find some calmness, find peace, find time for yourself. My third tip is to have a Monday morning success plan. So you want to set your Mondays up for success. As a mom, there were days where I was running out of the house, hurrying to get to work so I wasn't late, , grabbing my stuff.
It just felt very chaotic, right? Running into meetings right from out of my car, whatever it was. That's never how I wanted to set my week up, right? Those things happened because things happen in the morning. You But especially on a Monday morning, I always wanted to set my week up for success. So I tried to get there a few minutes early.
I tried to just have some quiet time in my office. [00:12:00] I tried to just set priorities for how I was going to start my morning on that Monday morning, because like I said, I didn't want to be running in stressed out. That adds to that feeling of anxiety and not wanting to be there because then I'm thinking about all the things I have to do.
But instead, if I just go in knowing that I have plenty of time and go in a peaceful state of mind, you're going to feel better. So make sure that you set yourself up for success. And like I had said in weekend preparation, but also make sure on Friday you had set your office up for success. Coming in on a Monday morning to a clean office with my calendar out, ready to go.
I could go in my email, check my, um,, Google calendar, really look at things. It just set me up for success. That was something that was really, really helpful. And then my fourth tip is positive affirmations. So one thing I teach my clients, and I've talked about it on the podcast before, is your thoughts create your emotions and your emotions create your actions.
If you're going into work with a negative thought, I'm [00:13:00] anxious about the upcoming week, I don't know what to think, , you're going to have emotions of uncertainty, of doubt, of all these things that are not positive.
And so those negative emotions are going to drive negative actions. Okay, and so we really want to focus on rewiring those negative thoughts into positive thoughts through intentional thought work and repetition. And really intentional thought work is just being intentional with the thoughts that you choose.
Choose that thought and practice it over and over. So if you have the negative thought, and first you have to be aware of what that negative thought is, but if you're thinking, I'm anxious about the upcoming week, a positive thought would be, I trust in my ability to handle whatever comes my way.
But sometimes you're not ready to think those positive thoughts. So if that's the case, I always say, it's called a thought ladder, but we're just gonna say it's Instead of that negative thought, you could say a neutral thought. Mondays are just another day in the calendar. Each week has its ups and downs, and this one will pass like any other.
Right? It's not a positive thought. It's [00:14:00] not a negative thought. It's just a neutral thought. But what you want to do is be really intentional with what you're thinking and be aware of what you're thinking. If you notice in your body you're feeling the emotion of anxiety, you're feeling those Sunday scaries, You have to go back.
What thoughts are causing that emotion? And I want you to write that thought down. Is it that you're anxious about the upcoming week? Is it that you're overwhelmed about the upcoming week? What is that thought for you? Again, we often have negative thoughts about the upcoming week because there's a lot of uncertainty around the week, right?
We create this in our minds that we're not sure how the week's going to go. It might go really bad, and we don't want to deal with that. And there's so many things that are going to happen, and we really dramatize what that could look like. And I just want to invite you to think, what if you could create thoughts that help you feel certainty?
What if you could create thoughts? that help you feel certain about your leadership and how you're going to lead people that week. So today I want to give you five positive [00:15:00] affirmations that can help you create certainty about your own leadership and about the week ahead. So one affirmation is my calm and confident leadership creates a welcoming space for both students and staff.
And if you feel like you're not a calm leader, that's something I want you to work on. Start telling yourself you're a calm leader and start acting in that way. Be calm and confident. Another affirmation, each new week is a chance to grow, learn, and make our school even better than before. Number three, another one, have the energy, wisdom, and capability.
Another thought is I have the energy, wisdom, and capability to navigate this week successfully. Today I choose to focus on progress over perfection as I lead my school community. Where you could think I'm ready to embrace the challenges and celebrate the victories that await me this week. And my last thought for you is my presence makes a positive difference in my school and I'm grateful for another week to serve.
So these are some thoughts that you could think [00:16:00] on purpose and it can really help you go in feeling more certainty with less anxiety. I also really want to challenge you to think about if you. struggle to think these thoughts. What are those negative thoughts that you're having? You have to be aware of what those are.
One thing I work on my clients with is there's an assessment I'll give you that helps you figure out what saboteurs are sabotaging your success. And once you figure out that, you can stop the saboteurs and start thinking the positive thoughts. , so if you're struggling with feeling negative thoughts and you have those saboteurs, those judges that tell you you're not good enough, you're not perfect, you're not doing it right.
Any of those things that get in your way of being the leader that you know that you can be, You need to schedule a free consultation with me and don't wait to do it. It's completely free. Schedule the consultation, and we can talk about how I can help you get rid of those negative thoughts so that you can lead to the best of your ability.
Because once you get rid of those negative thoughts, it's going to improve your performance. It's [00:17:00] going to improve your wellbeing. It's going to improve the relationships you have with your staff. Your students, parents, your own family, it improves everything. So if you don't know what those saboteurs are, if you don't know what's sabotaging your success, reach out to me and schedule a free consultation.
So I just want to summarize those key strategies. So just remember to stop the Sunday scaries or to reduce them. You want to prepare on the weekends for the week, create a Sunday evening routine, create a Monday morning success plan and create a positive affirmation you can use. I hope that you take some of these strategies.
I hope you try them out. If you love the show, if you're listening on Apple, scroll down in your app and leave a review.
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.
[00:18:00]