The year is quickly coming to a close and so often in June, we start to lose momentum. We feel that the year is over in a month, so why not ease up on the gas pedal and cruise control into the summer holidays. Actually, this is the time to rev it up so that you can enjoy your weeks of summer and sun. This is the time to shine the flashlight forwards and backwards on the year. Is so important to not view your year as a destination but as a journey. Now pump up the music, get your community on their feet, dance, and then sit down and get – to – work!
Stay close to your inspiration and intention in this time of wrap up. Stay inspired to reach that finish line. However, try not to view it as a finish line but as a mile marker to set up the next step. Continue to set up meetings and adult learning experiences every time you meet with the goal of improving the way you do things, motivating them to continue the journey, and surrounding the learning time with conversations of big dreams.
Take some time to sit with and think through all of the things that your community has come out of this season. The successes, the challenges, the short falls of goals, how you challenged yourself, the growth through experience, the times you felt lost, the times you were comfortable, and lastly, be honest about where you sit today. Are you happy with what you have achieved as a community this year as action takers. Perhaps, your community is in that middle space of comfort where nothing got worse, nothing got better, you just stayed the same. Or maybe you regressed as a community and you lost traction for whatever reason. Reflect on this as a reality but with the lens that everyone loses ground at times. The important part is that we pivot to start gaining traction again. You will then look at how you stand back up as a community or personally. Look at what are things about your community that are strong enough and worth pushing through. Reflect on your intention again and then make it even more important. Perhaps your why wasn’t strong enough in the first place. Set a goal that would be easy for you to achieve that you would feel proud of and envision it. Then come up with a power theme or word to remind yourself why you are here. Power up by generating value and energy back into your community.
As I go through this list of how to continue the journey through June, I want you to think about it through a few different scaffolds. The first is you, as a leader, going through this process as a leadership team. The second layer is having the teacher leaders go through it with their grade teams. Reflect individually on your own progress and have each teacher do this too. Lastly, reflect on this list as a whole staff. Look back at your year and the mile markers that you set. Have a conversation about whether or not you reached those mile markers. Look at how you mapped out your commitments and set goals. Look at how you carved out routines in the year, how you dedicated time to reach your mile markers. Take time to reflect on individual and cohort experiences and take a deep look at the successes, the shortcomings, the growth and the challenges. Celebrate the favourite moments!
Next, make a list as a staff of what results you produced. You can start with having them do this individually or in teams and then as a collective whole. Notice what you actually achieved that you set out to do. Be sure to acknowledge and be proud of the what happened this year. You may be surprised at all the tiny mountains you’ve conquered over the past ten months, without ever recognizing them as such!
After, take a look at what you planned for that didn’t happen. Reflect on what got in the way of achieving those goals or tasks and what you can do next year to ensure that you achieve those goals. Once you have looked at this list through the business/craft bucket, next look at it from a personal/mindset bucket. Have your community look at how they took care of themselves this year. This is so important because it adds value to the people. It allows them to see that their leader cares not only about the work that they produce but who they are as people and how they are doing.
The next idea to consider is how to set yourself up for next year. Think about the big deals that are the most important that you will have going on next year. List out your commitments and then things you would like to accomplish for next year. These things can include ideas from the three buckets: work/craft, mindset/wellness, and friends/family. After, have them spread these tasks out over the year. Again, this puts the value back in the stories of the people rather than just what needs to get done. As a leader, you need to always consider what behaviours do you want your community to adopt that will outlast the event. The event might be a staff meeting, a product , a conversation, etc. The processes of behaviours that you want to instill within your community might be action takers, organizers, priority setters, coaches, collaborators, synthesizers, feedback appliers, questioners, etc.
This one is important! Take time to thank the people who got you through the year and provide a space for your community to do the same. This might be a get up and walk to someone who you need to thank instead of standing in front of a crowd. We all know that not everyone is comfortable to stand up and talk to a crowd. It might even be a quiet thing where you have everyone write notes of thanks and then they can give it to them at a later date. The point is provide the time for people to be grateful and notice the small miracles and wins that happened because someone else was in the room.
Another fun one is to sever the ties you know you did wrong along the way. This might be another great way for your community to notice your vulnerability and how you might change things if there was do over. Which there is! It is called September! However, you always present with the opportunity and the lessons learned that rose from the hard stuff. These might be a table conversation where the table gets to reflect on the failures they encountered but with the intention of noticing what the opportunities that came from it. This provides a space for your community to accept the failures as opportunities you encountered and learned from. It gives them the strength and audacity to let it go before the year ends. It might allow them to let the disappointment sink in, but also to revel in the freedom it allows for them to let go.
End the year with the vision you cast at the beginning of the year. Revisit it and notice the journey. Notice the new skills you picked up along the way or the ones you might still need to work on. Make a concrete plan for the following year with deadlines to fill in those gaps. Explore the habits you like to kick the new year off with and start now. These habits can be to generate more happiness, health and overall sense of well being in order to pour into our work with more energy and passion. June is an opportunity to check in about whether or not you are really where you want to be and if not, what you could be doing to start to gain traction.
You may need to look at the obstacles that were getting in your way and look at the negative beliefs that have been holding you back. Challenge those believes by looking at what you can do before September to see the other side of them so that you come back more positive. Make a list of all the things you want to do, choose the biggest one that will get you the closes to your dream. Write down the actions steps that you are going to take and then choose three from that list that you will take. It is kind of like the visioning that we were talking about in the last blog entry.
Make a concrete list of all the places life has taken you in the past year that you didn’t expect – and let it serve as a reminder that the coming year will likely be full of surprises, too. Now set the old list of obstacles on fire and ignite the new one that contains action steps starting in June rather than waiting until September! However, in July that list can wait…summer is calling!
Want more? Check out my FREE guide to generating a thriving culture using the three bucket system.
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My students and I have a podcast called Even If You Miss. It is a wellness podcast by kids for kids. It is also available on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!
Even If You Miss..... 