The Principal's Handbook

Bonus Workshop
[00:00:00] Welcome to the teacher burnout podcast. I'm excited today to share a workshop that I did. Where I was talking about the single most effective strategy to achieving any goal that you have. This was a great workshop that will just help you reach any goals that you set, whether it's a personal goal or professional goal.
This workshop also comes with a worksheet that you can use there's affirmations and journaling prompts with it. I will put that in the show notes, but I hope that you find this helpful. I hope you find this workshop as a way to meet your goals. Where. Whatever you're struggling with.
It can help you reach those goals.
Welcome to the Teacher Burnout Podcast, where we explore the challenges of burnout for teachers and share practical strategies to support teacher well being. I'm your host, Barb Flowers. If you're a teacher looking for ways to prevent burnout or an educational leader searching for strategies to support your team, this podcast is for you.
Let's dive [00:01:00] in.
Well, welcome everyone to my mastering goals workshop today. I'm going to share the single most effective strategy so that you're able to meet your goals. We always want to know what is that one thing that's holding us back from meeting our goals. So that is what we're talking about today. And the one thing that's always holding you back from your goals, any goal you want to accomplish is your mindset.
So that is going to be the focus of today is talking all about mindset and how that contributes to reaching our goals. So I want to start by talking about what is mindset. Well, mindset is your perception you have of yourself and the beliefs that you have about yourself. So however you perceive yourself.
So if you tell yourself, you know, I'm a procrastinator or, , I'm a person who doesn't exercise. I'm kind of lazy. Anything you tell yourself about yourself or any belief you have about yourself is what [00:02:00] your mindset is. So your mindset is so crucial to accomplishing goals. And it's. How you think about yourself.
So we want to focus on having a positive mindset and changing how we think about ourself. So how does our mindset impact our goals? Well, first you can't make progress from a negative place. So anything you're trying to achieve, you cannot do it from a negative place. I always think of weight loss because that's such a common goal for people.
If you hate your body and you are constantly thinking negative thoughts about your body, you cannot make progress. So to move forward, you have to foster self love, self encouragement and come from a place where you just want to get better, not out of beating yourself up or you're not good enough. But you want to think about being better and you want to think about how you would support and encourage a friend who's pursuing a goal.
If we think about that, so many times we're way harder on ourselves than we are on other people. If our friend had a goal to start a business, we would [00:03:00] be supporting them and be excited for them. But if it's us, we're usually beating ourselves up thinking we're not good enough or it's going to be hard and having all these negative thoughts.
So think about how you would talk to a friend. And then just know that positive thinking, it transforms challenges into opportunities for learning and development. So it allows you to overcome whatever obstacles you face and get forward in advance towards your objectives. It's really common, any goal, you're not going to have a straight line of progress.
There's going to be obstacles along the way. And so you have to be ready for those obstacles and anticipate those obstacles and just be ready to think positively through them. Get yourself back up and continue towards that goal. So mindset really does impact how you are able to achieve goals. I want to talk about this idea of fixed versus growth mindset.
And as an educator, we talk about this a lot in the education world. And I think that we don't talk about it enough, just in general, that a growth [00:04:00] mindset is the belief that you can change and become whoever you want to be. And a fixed mindset is the belief that you're born a certain way, and your personality will never change.
I knew that there was a growth mindset, you know, again, being an educator, we talk about that a lot in education, but I would say I had more of a fixed mindset, thinking that I had certain personality traits. That would never go away. For example, being a people pleaser, you know, I grew up, I was always a people pleaser.
And then I became a principal where I was leading and people are not pleased with what you decide you're never going to make everybody happy. So that was an identity shift. I had to change about myself. I could no longer be a people pleaser. And with a fixed mindset, you know, at first, I didn't think that would ever change.
That was something I it would be hard to fix about myself. But I changed to a growth mindset and learn that. . I can become whoever I want to become. I can decide I'm no longer a people pleaser and change that about myself. You know, I'm an introvert, so I like to say that it's harder for me to [00:05:00] talk to new people, but I've really changed that identity about myself and realized I talk to new people all the time.
I love meeting , new people. So just because I say I'm an introvert doesn't mean that I don't talk to people or I'm not outgoing enough. So Think about what traits you think of yourself as or what what personality traits or what beliefs you have. And if you want to change something, just know you always get to decide and you can change it.
I want to talk about now how to change your mindset to achieve any goal you want to accomplish. The first thing is I want you to look at challenges as opportunities for growth. Like I said earlier, you are always going to experience challenges. No matter what goal you're trying to What goal you're trying to achieve.
It's never a straight line. It's always going to be, you know, progress where you're up, down, up, down, but hopefully moving up towards the goal. So you can't give up when you encounter obstacles because progress is never that straight line. And failure is always an opportunity [00:06:00] for growth. Mistakes are ways that you grow.
If you think about, I'm going to give the example of weight loss, you, if you overeat and stray from your meal plan, you can't give up when you have that obstacle. Or if you go out to dinner and you eat too much, because if you give up, you're never going to reach your goal, or you could have had that backslide.
And then you just come back up. Towards your goal exercise. If you plan to exercise every day and you skip a workout that you had planned again, if you just decide to give up, you're not making progress towards that goal. So you have to keep going. So you made a mistake. You just keep going. You exercise the next day.
Work if there was something you did that you didn't perform at the level that you expected, or you didn't have the outcome that you expected. Maybe you're a principal and, you know, you look at your students test scores for the school and they weren't what you thought instead of getting frustrated and giving up on trying to, you know, have better student achievement in your school.
You're going to just look at it as a setback and [00:07:00] Really reflect what caused that setback. What steps do you need to take to move forward? Just remember when we get frustrated, if we give up, we never reach the goal. So it's okay to have obstacles. We just can never give up. We have to decide to be a person who will never give up and always work towards those goals that we want to achieve.
Another strategy for having that positive mindset is set small goals and celebrate the wins. So whatever your large goal is that you want to accomplish, I always say set micro goals to meet along the way. If you're trying to lose weight, focus on losing two pounds at a time. If you have 10 or 20 pounds or a hundred pounds to lose that can feel like a lot, but if you're just celebrating and focusing on losing two pounds at a time, you'll get there and you'll be able to celebrate those small wins along the way exercise.
If you're trying to exercise and get healthier. Focus on just exercising for 10 minutes a day. You don't need to start where you're like, I'm going to start exercising an hour a day, or go run [00:08:00] three miles, start small, and then build from there and celebrate when you exercise and get into a habit of doing 10 minutes a day.
Work. If you're trying to improve something as a, if you're trying to improve something at work, focus on improving just one area at a time, if you're a teacher and you teach multiple subject areas, I always tell teachers pick one small area to focus on and get better at that. If you're a principal or any type of administrator, there are so many areas we're in charge of, , you know, we have discipline, we have, we're leading staff, professional development, observations, giving feedback.
What's just one area you want to improve on and focus on that? There's so many. It's too many things to focus on getting better at everything. And then as you develop your goals and you know what you want to accomplish and you set your micro goals, you need to make sure that you're celebrating the wins along the way.
By celebrating wins, it helps you enjoy the process. And when you enjoy the [00:09:00] process, you're not just focused on getting to the goal. Sometimes when we set goals, we're so focused on getting to the goal, and we feel miserable and think life will be so much better when I get to this goal, or it'll be better when I'm better at teaching reading versus just enjoying the process of getting better along the way.
We need to enjoy where we are right now. And love ourselves where we are right now and continue to get better. And then my last tip is to change your thoughts from negative to positive. So remember that you are whatever you believe you are. Whatever you believe about yourself, you're right. So when you catch yourself, just focusing on negative thoughts, make a conscious effort to replace them with positive thoughts.
For example, if you find yourself thinking, I can't exercise. Reframe it to I can exercise. I might need to start with lighter exercises, but I can exercise instead of feeling defeated with like, instead of feeling defeated with thoughts like I'll never lose weight. I'll [00:10:00] fail anyway. Tell yourself I can and I want to lose this weight.
Go into it with a positive mindset. If you think about all the times you failed before with your goals and you bring that into a new goal. That's not going to help you meet that goal. If you're a teacher and you say, I'm a terrible math teacher and I'm struggling to teach my students math.
I've never been good at math. I'll never be good at math. And I want you to remember that when you tell yourself that I've heard teachers tell their students, I was a bad math student. I'm bad at math. Students understand that and they create their own perceptions about themselves. They say things like I'm bad at math.
Well, if you say you're bad at math, you're going to be bad at math. So whatever you want to accomplish, you have to have that identity that you're good at that. For example, if you want to be a good math teacher, you have to say, I'm good at math. I like to learn math. , If you want to become a better runner.
I'm a great runner. I get faster each time I run. You have to take on that identity, take on those thoughts of someone who is a good runner, [00:11:00] because if you have negative thoughts, you will not meet that goal. You have to come from a positive place and you have to replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts.
So I wanted to give you some positive affirmations you can use. And I love positive affirmations because sometimes it's really hard to come up with positive thoughts that we want to use. But if we have these affirmations ready to go, when we don't know what to think, or we're thinking something negative, we just have this affirmation that we're ready to go with.
So the ones I gave where I can accomplish anything I put my mind to, I am a person who embraces challenges as opportunities for growth. I will persist and not give up even when things get tough. I know that setbacks are only learning experiences to get me closer to my goal. I am capable of making positive changes in my life.
I will find joy and pride in small victories every day. So now what I'd like you to do is to create five affirmations yourself. [00:12:00] And I put two starters here because I love affirm, I love affirmations that start with I am a person who, I use that all the time. I am a person who eats healthy. I am a person who works hard.
I am a person who does not give up. I use that all the time to start with whatever I'm thinking and trying to make it positive or I will. I will achieve the goals I want to achieve. I will run five miles. I will eat a healthy meal today. I will get in every classroom and, you know, great students and be present for teachers.
So having those statements that really focus on who you want to be and focusing on that is you and that's the type of person you are is going to help you believe that. I want you to create five affirmations yourself.
Now I have some journal prompts that are going to help you also reflect on what we've been talking about and come up with ways that you can reach your goals. My first journal prompt is what thoughts are holding me back from reaching my goals? What [00:13:00] thoughts should I be thinking instead?
How can I be more intentional with my thoughts? What small steps can I take today that will That will bring me closer to my goal in what ways have I improved in the past month that I can build upon. I want you to answer these questions and really think about, your thoughts and what's going to get you closer to that goal.
All right, well, that is the end of my workshop. So I wanted to just give you some information if you wanted to continue. If you want to coach with me, when you coach with me, you get weekly coaching sessions. We meet for 30 to 45 minutes each week. We communicate between sessions, so I hold you accountable to your goals, and I hold you accountable to becoming the person that you tell me you want to become.
So if you say, I want to be a person who loses 10 pounds, I'm going to hold you accountable to that identity. If you want to be a teacher, Who overcomes burnout that I am going to protect that and hold you to be accountable to that identity of being a teacher who's no longer burnt out, [00:14:00] whatever it is that you're trying to achieve.
That's what I do as a coach. I help you reach that goal, whatever it takes. We overcome obstacles. We help change your thinking and we'll get you to whatever goal. And I have a variety of tools and resources I love to share that you can use immediately after each coaching session. And so that'll also help you get results.
I hope you found this workshop helpful. I'd love to work with you. So reach out to me. If you want to do a one on one, I do free consult. So we can determine if we would be a good fit to work together. If I'm a person who could help you reach your goals. So reach out to me. I'd love the opportunity to work with you.
Outro