We are humans. We make mistakes. We fall. We get back up. The getting back up, that is where the magic happens. Do we get back up and try it again or quit and pivot completely, starting from scratch all over again. Now, if you have been reading my blogs or following me for awhile, you will know that my number one rule is to never start from scratch. We do not have time for that. My next rule is to keep everything streamlined and as simple as possible by using or developing a system. And lastly, my third rule to live and lead by is to put everything into see-through, categorized and labelled containers to segment and organize your life and time. These containers can be hypothetical or actual containers but they must be grouped and sequenced according to importance and the priorities that you are giving A+ efforts to and B+ efforts. However, we are never starting from scratch again…
In this week’s blog post, I am going to be super transparent (like see through containers, lol). I am going to share my three biggest mistakes I made as leader. We are going to dive into these three biggest mistakes of growing a lucrative community and how to fix them asap. You know I never approach a problem without an action and a system to fix it. If you’ve been struggling to grow and engage your community and if you have been sitting in a funk for a while now, I am certain a few of these mistakes will sound familiar. However, we are not going to sit in that funk and think they can never get traction or will never evolve. We are going to get you moving in the right direction to grow your community engagement quickly and immediately.
I’ve got some great insights on what not to do because I have done them over and over again. However, you are going to get over these obstacles a lot quicker than I did because I am going to share with you how I figured it out and how I have found a system that works so that I never have to spend wasted time away from my family or friends. Through figuring out a system, my productivity and efficiency have increased along with my teacher community’s engagement. I am going to share a few of these tips and tricks on this blog but I also want to share an invitation to you all to register for my upcoming webinar that is happening on Jan. 5, 6, and 13th where I will be diving even deeper into three secrets to engage your school community. There has never been a time like this where we need connection more than ever so I hope you will join me there and it is totally free!
Let’s get started on the three biggest mistakes that I made when trying to engage my community.
My First Mistake: Trying to make EVERYONE happy. I missed the point of leadership completely. My whole goal was to be their friend and I got so concerned if someone was not happy. I spent all of my energy trying to make everyone like me as their leader rather than trying to give them clear messaging, expectations, and support. I gave them too much wasted time and energy by trying to cater to everyone and get nothing done. I listened and actually invited everyone’s problems into my office and I tried to fix it all. I may have even enabled my community into becoming problem seekers vs. solution seekers. In fact, by trying to make everyone happy, I forgot about community and focused on individuals which only made things worse. I took on their emotions and their reactions and it took me down…..hard. You know the ugly cry…yeah…that was me, a lot of the time because I worried about everything and created stories in my head that were not even true.
Ok you guys, we all know that is not the right way to approach it. Now, after years of doing this, I now always come with solutions to problems and I always have a system with actions to move forward.
The action – What I needed to do was to not make each individual happy or even worry about trying, I needed to look for patterns and trends in conversation of the entire community. I started taking notes and finding what the biggest priority was instead of what everyone’s individual problem was.
Next, I found my 10% edge. Within that biggest priority or pattern in what the community needed, I looked at what I already knew about that priority and wrote it all down. Then I did the research. I tried out what I knew and what I learned in classes with the actual students and I made sure I knew a lot about that one priority that I knew my entire community was trying to figure out. I figured out 1-3 actions that I could teach my community to help to get traction on this problem. I gathered proof and evidence of how my actions impacted the learning of students or my own learning. Proof and evidence is how your community begins to subscribe to you. Can you see here how having a clear system can help? You aren’t trying to make everyone happy, instead you are spending your energy trying to find solutions through proof and evidence. It is then that the community will see this and begin to subscribe to your messaging and expectations vs. you trying to make everyone happy and putting all of your energy into everyone. So much so that you do not have time for yourself. Focus on less and you get a bigger impact.
My 2nd biggest mistake – I did it all. I focused on all the things, all the people, did all the tasks, all the emails, all the 99 problems but never accomplished anything – sound familiar? I had no direction and I was getting nowhere fast….and nobody cared. They just kept piling on more because they knew I would do it. I was my own worst enemy and I had no idea how I was going to do it all. I had no time for my family and no idea where my days went and how I never seemed to get anything accomplished. My life felt cluttered and massively disorganized which affected my mood. I was cranky, unhappy, unproductive which led to lost momentum and motivation. I hated my job. I ran around trying to solve all the problems except I had so much going on I didn’t even know what the problems were.
No one appreciated it
I know you all have felt this way at some point. I was sick and tired of this mistake that I kept making over and over again. Sick of living like this the most.
Now for the system to get out of this mistake once and for all. I took control of my calendar and literally planned out my day using that one priority that I had found out from my last mistake as my focus for everything that I did. Next, I chose the top three things that I could do that day that would get me closer to my priority and my only goal was to get those three things done that day. That’s it. And once my day was over, (like at a normal time), I went home and I actually had a life outside of school.
I used a container system that blocked out chunks of my day to focus on certain priorities. The containers of time that I blocked off were labelled as family, personal, business, priority, and miscellaneous. I set boundaries in my time and day through setting up these containers of focus and I made sure that I stuck to my guns.
I put my A+ effort only on the three priorities for the day and everything else got B+ effort. The results that came from focusing more on less things were that I received a much bigger impact. I had more time for my family and less guilt. I gained more traction and clarity and my community felt that too because I was not doing it all and being super unfocused and unclear.
Now of course, you know (because you are a leader) that this system will take practice, time, commitment and dedication in order for you to find a system that works for you. However, this will change if your life, if you stick with it!
Can you see how this powerful container system strategy is key to clarity which will also give your community a clear picture of your expectations? This will help them to engage more because they know what is in it for them. Now who doesn’t want a clear roadmap of where they are going!
My third biggest mistake – trying to engage my community with too many initiatives. This backfired completely. This was a result of my people pleasing and trying to answer everyone’s questions. I tried all of the new shiny things and strategies to try to engage my community, however, it only made them throw their hands up in overwhelm. I filled meetings with endless ideas, administrative duties, and housekeeping just to fill it. I had no clear outcome and again, no clear expectations and a whole lot of me talking and no one listening.
The Action – Again, I use the priority that I had previously identified and I focused only on that priority meeting after meeting until it was not a priority anymore. Remember those three actions that I had been researching and trying in classrooms? I modelled one of these at each meeting over and over again with proof and evidence every time. I gave them one thing they could take back to their classroom during each meeting through my own modelling and taking them through it as students.
I used a workshop approach where I taught them a mini-lesson about that priority, modelled it, and then gave them time to practice, research, or think through it right in the meeting. Next, I had them try it in their classrooms for the month and come back to teach each other about their process, struggles, or experience. Housekeeping became almost a swear word in our meetings because it was not an effective use of our time. I kept office hours in a separate session and made it a zoom session so people could just call in after they read the housekeeping email if they had questions.
We made it a priority to go deep with my time every time by focusing on less. It didn’t take up a ton of planning time because I was always focused on that one priority and I already had my 10% edge. I always gave the teachers time to practice that action in the meeting while I nudged and supported. I also had them make a decision of one thing to try and practice before next month’s meeting with the intention to come back and teach someone else.
Isn’t it exciting to see how these three mistakes all came together to be something huge because I honed in my focus, pulled the reins back and decided to be veeeery intentional with one priority?
Are you feeling a sense of relief now knowing that you do not have to stay stuck as long as you have a system in place?
Can you imagine if you could do all of these things and focus on so much less, engage your community and get your life back?
Well, I am going to go even deeper giving you my top three secrets on my free masterclass that is called the 3 Secrets to Engaging your Community. I only gave you a sprinkle in this blog of what is to come inside the. masterclass. The best part of attending this masterclass live is you will leave with a system! I will tell you exactly what to do to start to curate a plan that works for your community and demographic.
“Do you see what an engaged, productive, efficient, action taking community of teachers could do to your bottom line? Imagine what it would feel like if you no longer had to worry about engaging your community because they were motivated to take action because of your clarity in messaging, expectations, and trust and instead you could focus on the things in your leadership that you have been dying to implement. If you liked this blog post, I’ve got even more to share with you!
Like I said, I have a free live masterclass coming up in just a few days and you won’t want to miss this. The masterclass is called Three Secrets to Engaging Your School Community but I’m going to take what you’ve learned here and dive even deeper plus we’ll have even more of an opportunity for some real time Q and A if you have any questions. So head on over to jacealyn.com or click on this link to register and to get all the details. It will be live and the Q and A session will be at the end to answer all of your burning questions so you don’t want to miss it. I hope to see you there.
I am always here to support and help us all to do the best work of our lives to impact adults and students to be difference makers. I would love to spend even more time to drill down your engagement questions with you and answering your questions live on my free webinar. Just head on over to jacealyn.com or click on this link! I’ll see you on the inside of our masterclass!
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