The Principal's Handbook

How to Mentally Disconnect from School as a Principal
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[00:00:00] In today's episode, we're going to talk about how to mentally disconnect from school. That's all coming up next on the Principal's handbook.

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. I.

Welcome back to the podcast. Today we are talking about how to mentally disconnect from school. As a principal, do you ever leave the building, but your brain doesn't?

I feel like [00:01:00] this happens to principals all the time. I'm very guilty of this. I had to intentionally work on this all the time. And if you're doing this, you're not failing. It's completely normal.

your brain is doing what it's wired to do. Your job has a lot of urgency. There's a lot of emotion in it. There's a lot of. Unpredictability and so your brain wants to protect you. I found this a lot that at night I would ruminate about what could happen the next day because I felt like if I was mentally preparing, I was protecting myself because I was being ready.

And what I found over time is there is no way that you could. Predict or know anything that's happening the next day, because as we know, schools are very unpredictable. And so in this episode, what I really want to do is give you practical mindset tools to create mental boundaries.

So I talk a lot about having physical boundaries and taking email off your phone and all the things that you can do to set up boundaries, which is really great. But when I talk to a lot of [00:02:00] principals, they still struggle with having mental boundaries. Even if, let's say they decide they're going to be out the door at four, they leave work, they're on their way home, they get home, they're with their family, and they're thinking about work all evening.

And so. It's really you're bringing school home because you're not shutting off your brain, not because you don't have those physical boundaries. So I just wanna share a couple thoughts that I know a lot of principals have based on the T cycle. So if you've been listening to the podcast, you know our T cycle is your thought, creates your emotion, which creates an action.

So if you're having the thought, I should be doing more, so even if you leave at a time you want to. You have the thought I should be doing more, which creates an emotion of pressure, of guilt, of feeling inadequate in your job. And so the action to that is either you're going to stay later than you actually need to.

You're going to take work home, maybe open up your computer after dinner, start comparing yourself to other principals saying yes to [00:03:00] things that you don't have capacity for or any extra time for. And so that's what happens when we're bringing that thought home. I should be doing more. Or you might have the thought, which I've had this thought a lot.

What if I forgot something important? . This was something I loved about working with another elementary principal. There were multiple elementary buildings, so there were two of us that had K through five buildings. And it was nice because I would call her and say, okay what's on your to-do list right now?

Because I had always think, what if I forgot something important? And this creates the emotion of anxiety, urgency. So maybe you're checking your emails all the time as the action, you are, , mentally rerunning through your day to think about what you're missing. To think about what you're missing.

You're trying to pre-plan tomorrow in your head. Like I said, you're trying to think about, okay, what could tomorrow look like? , You're thinking about unnecessary work that you need to do just in case you need to get it done right away.

Another thought is, did I handle that conversation right? I did this a, [00:04:00] lot, a lot of overthinking on. Was that an okay conversation with that parent, with that teacher, with that student? And I would have self-doubt and I would worry. And the emotion also caused rumination and the action. I would just replay the conversation over and over in my head and I couldn't let it go.

Or I would think about all the things I wish I had said instead, or I would seek reassurance through following up through email or thinking about how I was going to follow up. And I would just bring that emotional weight home. I would talk about the situation all evening, , call a friend, talk to my husband, whatever it was, but I could not let it go.

. So those are three, just three different examples. I'm sure there's a ton of different ones, but. What thoughts are you bringing home that's leading to these negative emotions and actions is what I want you to really think about it, because even if you are home physically as a principal, your brain, your identity as the principal is still running.

And so we're working to shift that. We're working. [00:05:00] To have a shift from your work self to how you want to be at home. What is your identity when you get home? And so what I'm going to do today is give you a couple tips to help with that. . So the first tip I have is have an emotional closure ritual.

So this is where personal routines come in. , One thing I love doing is 10 minutes before I leave. Usually for me it ends up being like bus duty. At my last school, I had 25 minutes until I went home. At this school, it's 10 minutes, but I just like to organize my office a little bit, so .

. Check my email one last time. Organize papers, straighten up, put things away. , It just helps because one, I know I'll come into the, I'll come into my office in the morning to a really clean office, which makes me feel productive. , And also just checking email one final time helps me set that boundary that I'm done checking email.

I don't need to do it again. I already did it at four o'clock right before I left, so there's no reason for me to check it at home. And then again, I'm setting my physical [00:06:00] space to being done so that clean desk is giving me a clean brain. There's a lot of research about that, that if you have a clean space, it really does help you have a better clean mental space.

And so it just gives you a sense of closure to know that your office is straightened up, your emails are done. And you are in done mode. Another nice thing is if you have a drive, I talk to a lot of principals who might have a drive. Sometimes that's really nice for closure. You could put on some good music.

Whether it's relaxing music or pump up music, whatever you need. Maybe it's even just riding home in silence, but that can even be a form of closure for you as well. So thinking about how you close your afternoon before you go home to kids. Now, one thing I know that can be really tough is I do know principals who, their kids go to their school and so they don't have a closure routine because maybe their kids come right to their office after school and then they're riding home with them.

If that is the case, just recommend you find a way that you could maybe have [00:07:00] five to 10 minutes or still focus on, checking your email, closing down your office, and making that your mental list, even if you do. , Have, even if you do have your kids there. All right. The second thing I wanna say is to make sure you have preset physical boundaries so others don't control your evenings.

So when you don't have physical boundaries, it is harder to have those mental boundaries. So again, I leave at four, so I'll respond in the morning. . I always tell my teachers if there's an emergency, you call or you text me, do not send me an email because I'm not checking it. That gives me that boundary that I'm not checking my email.

Pretty much with parents, I just don't check my email and so it sets that boundary. Nobody thinks that I'm gonna be messaging them all evening. , And I send home a communication guide at the beginning of the year to kind of set those office hours and let them know that that's my expectation for teachers too, is they email within 24 hours, but they don't need to be emailing all night because they're home [00:08:00] with their families as well.

So if you set those boundaries ahead of time, then mentally you can decompress because you're not thinking about, Ooh, I need to check my email or. What if a staff member, emailed me or needs to get ahold of me? , You don't have to think about that because you have the boundary in place and if there's an emergency, people will call or text you.

So that does really help a lot with your mental energy. Alright, the next thing I want you to think about is protecting your own relationships and don't process work all evening. What I mean by this is, I am remarried, so my ex-husband was in education.

My current husband is not, and it makes it very. It is a very different dynamic. So my ex-husband and I are both very, we're both very passionate about education. We talked a lot about education and I could go on and on about work because he understood, the dynamics. He wasn't a principal, but he understood the dynamics of a school.

And so my [00:09:00] work conversation could go on and on and on, or I would ask his thoughts about something. ? And . It just made me ruminate about things more because I continued to talk about it, which really wasn't fair to him. , And it's not good on a marriage because he's not meant to be like my work counselor.

Right. So thinking about what that looks like if you have a spouse in education, if you're relying on them too much to, , process through some of these work things. This is where I always say having a coach is good because it's somebody who, , is a different relationship dynamic than a spouse.

That's not really their job to process all of your work issues and concerns and things you're dealing with you, because if you don't like their comment or their suggestion than , it could cause friction in the marriage and you just. To me, it's better not to do that.

Now my current husband is not in education, so he really just doesn't wanna hear about it all evening. He likes hearing funny stories about kids and things like that when they do funny things. But other than that, if I shared something [00:10:00] that's happening that's really stressful, he'd have no reference to what I'm talking about.

Or he could. He could hear and , validate a little bit, but at the end of the day, he's not in education. He doesn't really care. He doesn't wanna hear that all the time. So I just think it's really important that you protect your relationships, whether you have a spouse in education or not in education, and have those healthier relationship boundaries.

Now, I do have a friend in education, and I know other principals who have principal friends that they talk through some of these issues with. That's okay if that's. Part of the relationship. It just can be very tricky with a spouse. So that's something I want you to think about, that you don't wanna put it on your spouse all evening to take on your mental energy and emotions when it comes to all of the stuff that you're dealing with as a principal.

So be mindful of how much of the evening becomes school talk. And also it's not good for you, right? It's not good for the relationship, but it's not good for you because you're just ruminating on it more. Instead of [00:11:00] just letting yourself shut down. , So talking about work is not really the problem. It's rehashing and repeating those stressful moments over and over.

So one thing you could do. Is if you really wanna talk through it with a spouse or share something, you could set a timer, say, you know what? I'm giving myself two minutes. If you're cool with it to talk about work and then I'm done. Or tonight we're talking about anything but school. So putting boundaries on your relationship, about how much you're talking about work.

Can be really helpful. So just think about that. , Think about your relationship and what you want that to look like. Alright, another tip is engage in identity reset activity. So I think it's really important that our whole identity is not just about being a principal, but what are the things you like to do for fun? So for me, I like to work out. I work out in the mornings. But sometimes in the afternoon I'll go for a walk or I'll walk on the treadmill and watch a show. I like to read. , my kids are in sports, so I'm taking them to sports all the [00:12:00] time.

, Just being fully present in your evening routine. Now, I will say some evenings are harder than others because I get really tired. So for me, I really like going to bed super early, waking up early. And having more time before school in the morning for myself and to have hobbies outside of school. Like I love a really good morning routine where I'm exercising, I'm reading, I'm journaling because I have more energy in the mornings before school, but that's just me.

But whatever that is, have hobbies that help build that identity. Outside of being a principal. The other thing I love to do right before bed, my husband and I like to watch a show that doesn't require a lot of energy to think about right now. It's parks and Rec. , Just find something silly that you can laugh and enjoy and you're not thinking about school.

So when you have a life outside of school and you really focus on that when you get home, it does help take away some of that mental energy that you're spending on school. So those are just some practical tips I wanted to give. I also wanted to give some [00:13:00] cognitive tools to stop overthinking.

So I want you to really become aware that you are taking the time to overthink. I want you to name the thought loop that is happening. So what do I keep replaying in my brain right now? And for me, a lot of times it was conversations with parents when they were mad about discipline or conversations that didn't go well with teachers.

So I would stop and I would think about what the thought loop was that I kept replaying. And I'd ask myself, is this something I can solve right now? And if no, I would just leave it for tomorrow. And I, if I needed to, I would write down a mental list of things that I wanted to do tomorrow for the situation.

I'd take a couple minutes to do that because when it's on paper, it's outta my brain. I don't have to think about it anymore. I can put it on paper and put it in my bag. Then what I like to do is if I go back to that thought loop. This sounds so silly, but as soon as my brain would start to bring up that conversation again, I would just redirect it by saying, Nope, not tonight.

Nope, not tonight. And the more that I [00:14:00] did that, the quicker I could redirect myself. And then eventually I just wouldn't even go there because I, I stopped the loop in the tracks and I didn't keep playing it in my head. So that's really important is to redirect your brain, have a plan, write down what you need to write down, journal what you need to journal.

Get it out on paper. Then once you do that, anytime your brain goes back to that loop, you're just saying, Nope, not dealing with it right now. Nope, not going there tonight. Okay. So that seems so simple, but just having a phrase that helps you redirect your brain and stop it in its track helps so much. So I really want you to try that.

And then the other thing I want you to spend some time doing, which I already kind of talked about, but write your 1.0 versus 2.0 identity after school. So principal 1.0. Always on, always thinking, reacting, mentally exhausted. Principal 2.0, trust that things are getting done. Knows you're allowed to be a human at home.

You actually relax with your family. You [00:15:00] know, you have hobbies outside of school. You leave school at 4:00 PM you lead with clarity, not constant guilt and shame, , whatever that looks like for you. But spend some time. And I have a previous podcast episode. You can go back. Called your 1.0 and 2.0 identity.

Think about what that identity looks like after 4:00 PM after you get home from work, think about who you wanna be when you walk through that front door. What thoughts create that version of you and what rituals support that version of you. I love the book Beer Future Self Now by Dr. Benjamin Hardy. and one of the stories he shares that really helped shape his thinking about being present at home with his kids was , he thought to himself, if I got to be in this moment, 20 years from now, how would I want this evening to look?

And if you think about that,, that's such a powerful thought. If we got to go back in time to be with our kids and our family at the age that they're at, or even if we're single, if we got to go back in time to be that version of ourselves [00:16:00] that day, how would we wanna show up?

We always think time goes too fast, we don't have enough of it. But think about your future self getting to go back in time. And how they would show up. And that just gives you a totally different perspective. If I think about myself 10 years from now, when my kids are gonna be 20 and 18 years old, I would love an evening with them at the ages of 10 and eight, which is where they are now.

So when I get frustrated, I like to just have that in perspective. What would 10 years from now look like if I got to go back and spend time with them at the ages of eight and 10? All right, so really give yourself that, just the gift of thinking through that lens of your future self. And how do you want your evenings to look?

Do you want it to be that you're stressed out about work all the time, or do you want it to be that you actually take the time to have time for yourself to have hobbies outside of school? To be able to shut down and realize the important things in life and not focus on our job, because I know we don't like to hear it, but I always [00:17:00] like to remind principals, if something were to happen to us, we would be replaced tomorrow and our job as a principal, but we're not replaceable like that at home.

And so when we're at home, whether we're by ourselves with a family, whatever your life looks like, it's so important that you're taking that time to be present. And you have time outside of school to focus on other things that matter. Being a principal is such a rewarding job, but it does not have to be your life.

It does not have to be your only identity. There's so many different parts of you that I want you to be able to focus on and know what you want that to look like, so that can be hard, but you do deserve a life outside of school. And if you want more help building a schedule, building better boundaries that helps you mentally shut off at 4:00 PM , check out the eight to four principal blueprint.

It'll change the way you lead and the way you go home. So go to the eight to four principal.com to check that out. I also have a link in the show notes. Also, I have a free, , checklist to disconnect from school as well. So check that [00:18:00] out at principalfreebies.com or check it out in the show notes. Alright, thanks for tuning in.