I came across an article by Jennifer Gonzalez, called The Gut-Level Teacher Reflection a few years ago and it really got me thinking about my own gut check. I decided to develop a gut check for school administrators once I realized how much this gut check helped me.
As I walk through the days as a school administrator, I often can catch myself feeling overwhelmed, restless, and in a frenzy trying to figure out what the next best thing to do is. My heart races and I tend to lose my magic a little. Sometimes I go through a lot of my days in a negative haze that surrounds me like the dust around the Pig Pen character in Charlie Brown. I used to ignore it and it only seemed to get worse. It wasn’t until I started to go to the source, my gut, and do a gut check to try to pinpoint the problem, that I started to sweep the haze away and feel better. Let’s talk about exactly how to do a gut check so that we can get you out of this swirl of negativity and back on track to feeling better, getting things done, and taking deep, calm breaths.
A gut check requires you to nail down the source of where this bad feeling is coming from. It requires to you to slow down a little and be disciplined enough to trust your gut and check in. This is hard! However, I deeply believe that if you listen to your gut and know how to pinpoint the worry or uncomfortable feeling that you are experiencing, you will start to feel less overwhelm and anxiety in your days. In this post, I am going to teach you how to nail down the source of the bad feeling and make a plan to get out of it.
This gut check is required for any time that something doesn’t feel right. It requires you to go straight to the source. It could be a negative comment from someone about you, a result that you wished was better, something that happened in your personal life, frustration with the length of your to do list, or anything at all really. Sound familiar?
Once you pinpoint the source of your bad feeling, you can start to make an action plan for it. I even do this gut check with teachers at the beginning of the year to help them sift through their worry. Once you have checked in with your gut and determined the source, I am going to break down how you can uncover what is really bothering you and then devise an action plan to help you get out of the funk and back to feeling better.
First off, crack open your calendar and look at what fills it. Look at how your gut feels during each event in the day. If it is making you feel stressed and overwhelmed, think about why and what you might do to change that event so that it is more positive. Is there a way to reorganize your calendar so it is not so cluttered with events that give you stress. Next, look at the events or days that you feel less overwhelm and more positive thoughts. Is there a way to schedule more of those into your days? So for me, I realized that my days were filled with meetings and that made me feel frustrated. I went to what parts of my day make me feel better and I realized it was when I was in the classrooms with the teachers and students. I went to work trying to hone down the meeting time and fill more of my day making connections.
Look at your roster of teachers and go through it one by one noticing how each name makes you feel. Look for patterns here and notice the positive and the negative feelings. What is it that makes you feel this way about each one? Are there holes in your relationship that you could fill with more reconnection? What things can you let go of? Do you need to learn more about working more effectively alongside that person? Where are you most confident? Is it time to fix a damaged relationship? What parts do you need to spend the most energy on and pour your A+ efforts into? Which parts of the relationships should get your B+ efforts so that you are not going all in on everything. B+ effort is still a pass. Find common patterns and trends and think about how you might be able to improve that area or relationship or which type of effort and energy should go into that. Relationships matter so this is definitely an area for me that caused a lot of anxiety and stress. Once I went through and chose where to put my energy rather than trying to please everyone, it all became soooooo much better for us all. Our relationships with our colleagues have a huge impact for how we feel about how we lead and how we come to work every day. Choose 1-3 people whom you might need to change your relationship with whether by repairing, limiting, or empowering it. Do the gut check in this area, even if it is uncomfortable. Trust me, it is worth it!
Look at what professional development you spend most of your time on and think about whether it is a waste of time or worth it. Don’t get lost in the latest trend. Listen to what your teachers are saying they need and do that. Do a gut check on your professional learning plan. If it is not doing anything for your community, that could also be a source of frustration and overwhelm for you. Go through each initiative and look at how it makes you feel and how you notice it makes your community feel. Be careful, because good work is often very hard work. So don’t get rid of it just because it is hard. But rather look at the purpose for doing it and whether or not it fulfills the needs of teachers. If it doesn’t, it may just not be worth the time and energy. Think, why am I choosing this as a priority for the community I lead? What results will we get in the end if we do the work? How will I know we are making progress and how can I use that evidence to teach others? How can I break this down step by step so I can teach it to others? What are 1-3 actions we could take as a community to tackle this priority? If you can’t answer these questions or they are not giving you the answers you want, then your gut is telling you that you are not spending your time in the right area.
Go through your to do list and look at your workload and what fills the day. What types of feelings are you feeling and which part of your work gets the most traction. That part that gets you the most traction gets your A+ effort. Go through your to do list and notice how it makes you feel. Think, how would you feel if you accomplished that task? The ones that make you feel like you got the most done and the most traction for relationships and progress are the ones that you schedule in during your prime times. Look at places you could delegate and start delegating more for support. That alone will make your gut feel so much better!
Look at the space that you work in. I am talking digital and physical space. Is it cluttered and hard to find anything? Clutter can make anyone feel overwhelmed and not being able to find anything is a time waster and so frustrating. Look at your areas and make a plan to set up a system to organize.
Next, let’s look at your circle of mentors and friends that you look to to help you through the harder seasons. Go through each one and ensure that they are there for the right reasons, to listen, to inspire, and to give you some tough love when you need it. We all feel overwhelmed, tired, restless, at times in our lives. Heck, life is not easy for anyone. The only thing that I can think of to get me out of this hard season is to go to the people who surround me….my circle. That might be friends, therapists, family, community, loved ones who have passed, etc. But the point is every person in your circle must be there for the right reason. These are the people who will lift you up and fill your soul. They make you feel like what you are going through matters and that you are seen and heard. Share your gut check plan with them and that will help too. They give you strength and are your solace. So…look deep into your circle, find solace there and spend a lot of time there. They are the ones riding the bus called life with you ….not just the limo rides. When you are with them, think about how your heart feels and then make space for them whenever you can. They are the key to helping you handle all the things and all the emotions and, the best part….they can also give you the tough love when it is needed. Take a deep breath and notice your circle and go there and reconnect whenever you can. That is what will help get you through the harder seasons. That is the key to staying in the game. Don’t forget…they need you too. Click here for a free guide that shows you exactly who and how to invite people to your table.
After working through each of these areas, start to make a plan. For each of the areas, develop 1 action you can do to start to improve it. So for me, in the area of professional development, I realized I was piling on way too much for teachers that they had checked out long ago. I realized I was putting in hours of work for a community who was simply to overwhelmed and tired to listen. I did the gut check in that area and developed one top priority (how to include students in assessment for learning) for the entire year. I set up 3 actions that I would teach them throughout the year and set deadlines for measuring evidence and progress. I gave them a roadmap of how I would support them and promised to only focus on this top priority for professional learning. The results were incredible. Learning improved, relationships got stronger between me and other teachers, new experts and leaders came to the surface, I worked smarter not harder, and I became a much more confident and less stressed leader. All thanks to taking the time to listen to myself and others and do a gut check.
So there you have it, a step by step plan on how to do a leadership gut check! In this post, I walked you through how to uncover what is really bothering you by guiding you to some key areas that are usually the culprits of stirring up that negative haze. I also taught you to develop one action to start to address the area and drum up an action plan to get you feeling better and less overwhelmed.
Here are your action steps to get started on your own gut check. Look into each of these areas and figure out what is the root of your discomfort. Develop 1-2 actions that you could do to address it and then start to implement that action plan. Share with us all on our private facebook called Principals and Leadership! We would love to hear about how you took control through the gut check and it will help us as well! Here’s to the healthy guts!
Gonzalez, Jennifer. “Find Your Marigold;The One Essential Rule for New Teachers.” Cult of Pedagogy, 29 Aug. 2013, http://www.cultofpedagogy.com/marigolds/.
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