Some Lessons I Have Learned This Year…

First of all, happy holidays and happy new year. I hope you are getting some rest and some quality family time in this year. You earned it, (perhaps, more so than you ever have) and most of all…you deserve it. These holidays, I checked out of social media, my school (as much as you can), and my digital course business for about a week. I really needed to shut my brain off for awhile and recharge so that I could relight my passion and purpose. It worked and I feel powered up again, and also so thankful for the time, community, and family that I have to help me do just that.

This week of rest really made me reflect on the past year and the lessons I have learned. I wanted to share them with you and hope that they resonate with you too and help you to make 2022 an even better year.

It has been a rough year. I think it has for a lot of us with all that has been going on in our world. There is a lot of doom and gloom out there! I really felt it this year more than other years and so I looked at what might have been getting to me… beyond the world stuff. I went straight to the only thing that I could control and that was my own mindset. I had a lot of struggles and I decided that I didn’t want to waste those struggles. They were there for a reason, to make me stronger and to teach me a lesson. But only if I was listening and intentionally reflective about what those lessons were. Otherwise, I would miss the lesson inside of the struggle. However, don’t get me wrong, I still hate the struggle! When I struggle, I tend to go back to old habits and old ways of thinking. I let the mindset creepers back in to try to take over and send me back to my old ways. I tend to live in the past when things were easier (which they really weren’t…they just had different struggles). I let the struggle make me feel like I have taken a step back when really the road just got muddier and so I had to take on more grit.

The first lesson I learned, was that I can’t let go of the healthy habits I worked so hard to build and to stop reverting to the past. For example, I would look at things pre-pandemic and think that things came easier to me or there wasn’t as many problems. I would think about how I didn’t have to always make plan A, B, C. and D in case there was a positive Covid case. I would live in the bliss of not having to implement protocols for masking or sanitizing. I would think about how I could go to the gym whenever I wanted and not have to book in. Thinking about all of these things made me feel worse. It made me wallow a bit more and therefore it added to my stress and exhaustion. Then….I would head to the pantry and choose comfort food, turn on the TV and go down that rabbit hole of Netflix for way too long. I would make excuses not to go to the gym because the time wasn’t right and so I would skip it instead of moving my body at home. It only ended up in a vicious cycle of bad decisions, regret, and piling on more excuses which only added to my stress and never made anything better.

The lesson for me, is that looking to the past does not serve me and making excuses for the present does not serve me either. Instead, I need to just keep moving forward and be present, as present as possible. Mary Engelbreit has this great saying. She says, “Don’t look back. You’re not going that way.” And I love that. So..don’t look back. You’re not going that way.  There is also that other saying, (I can’t find who wrote it but it certainly wasn’t me), it says, “You are not lost…you are here.” It reminded me to stop looking to get out of things to go back to the times when it was easier, but rather to put my blinders on, head down, and to keep moving forward taking care of the present rather than looking back to the past. My mindset is where it all had to start for me. Even though things may have been easier in the past does not mean that I am going backwards. It just means that times have changed and so I must too by staying close to the habits that will get me through and checking my mindset. I also have to remember that they are seasons that will pass and so I carry the lessons with me.

Also, lesson 2…give yourself grace.. but make sure you do it with a plan in place. You do hard work, my friend, so please don’t think that you have to do it alone. I knew things were getting harder for me and usually I tended to be too hard on myself. I would beat myself up over it. That self talk that I was constantly giving to myself wasn’t helping either because it wasn’t positive. I also tended to use the excuses to avoid things and that did not serve me either. Those problems didn’t go away and so I had to stop with the excuses and tackle them with a plan. So I decided to give myself grace, with a plan to back it up. For example, I knew my mindset needed some rebooting and shifting so I spent more time with a therapist and my leadership community to help me. I hated going to a therapist and so I used to avoid it or find excuses. Now, I realize that I will never feel like going (kind of like exercise) but it will always help me. So I give myself a few moments of grace and then… I book the appointment and go. I also head straight towards my leadership community of mentors to talk out my struggles and make a plan. They hold me accountable and set me straight on a path to clarity. I also have a free facebook group called Principals and Leadership that can be a great place for you to start with a community!

Another way that I am giving myself grace with a plan is with my digital course business. I am realizing that sometimes I don’t need to hit it so hard but that I should give myself some time and space to find the creativity that I have been trying to force out of myself. I’m giving myself time to be more creative and more strategic because I need a little bit more time. I need a little bit more space that I have in the past. That’s okay. But I’m very clear about what I need and what I want, and I’m making that happen, no matter if it feels a little bit more rockier than normal.  I realized now that there will always be seasons of hard and seasons that come a little easier to us. Instead of fighting them, I am giving myself the grace to move through them with a plan rather than fighting it every step of the way and avoiding it completely. It helps to lean into that season and know that it will pass as well.

Third lesson, look at the big rocks as well as the pebbles in between. In other words, find the lessons and the life that happened through the hard moments. So for me, because of all the covid protocols and lockdowns, I realized a dream of mine and I started my own digital course business for school leaders. I am also in the process of founding a membership for school leader mamas that is all about leading in business, life, and parenthood. I never would have found these pebbles of passion if I had only focused on the big rocks of figuring out how to lead a school through a pandemic. The other day, because I am choosing to focus on the present and taking a break, I had an amazing day (despite the fact that one of my family members was sick and so we couldn’t do what we had originally planned). We played a board game and spent time just hanging out together and it was one of the best days of the entire year. It was a pebble day, not a big rock day but it mattered and it counts. So try not to focus on all of the big rock hard moments but look for the pebble days as well. All of the seasons will happen (light and dark seasons), that is a guarantee, so try to be present and move through them, remembering the little pebbles along the way that aren’t so bad.

This past year, I came out of it with a lot of growth but I also came out with some lessons that I am going to learn from for the next year. I listen to a lot of podcast episodes and you know one of my favorites is Amy Porterfield’s Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast. She came up with this idea and it hit home with me so I really want to share it with you. She says that she is going to remind herself that some of the things that didn’t work as planned this year actually will turn into huge successes in her future because she feels compelled to change things and work on things and be creative to manifest different things in her life. For me, there has been some stuff that hasn’t felt right for me this year and so I am going to look at that and why it didn’t feel good or right and then I am going to make a plan to get that success or feeling that I am looking for.

Amy goes on to urge you to ask yourself, “what do you want?” And then…take it to the next step….to ask yourself when things don’t feel right, “what do you want and what to you have to do to get it?” (Porterfield, 2021). So for me, I want a thriving school culture where everyone wants to be there and learns from each other. What will I do to get what I want? Well, I want to have systems in place to help them solve problems, automate things, and coach each other to get the result they want. I want students and teachers to feel safe and happy. And so…I developed a course to set up systems for all those things. It is called School Administrator’s Academy (doors open for enrolment in January). I also want to grow my own business that follows my passion and purpose for helping school leaders all around the world. And so now, I know what I have to do….I am in the process of starting up a membership for leader mamas to join all around the world to connect, network, and find clarity, passion, balance, and purpose in their lives professionally and personally (stay tuned for that). So if I get clear about what I want, the next question I want to ask myself is, “All right, so what do I need to do?” because as Amy says, when you get into action, action creates clarity. I realize now that I do have to feel my feelings. I have to be present in all the seasons, the light and the dark ones. I need to acknowledge it. But then Amy says, you also need to allow yourself to say, “Okay. So what do I want, and how am I going to get it?” and then get into motion. And when I’m in motion, the depression and the anxiety tend to melt away. When I get into motion, when I get focused, when I get clear about what I want, things just feel better (Porterfield, 2021).

I believe we are leaders for a reason…because we know how to get what we want and we know how to inspire others to get what they want. We have everything we need inside of us, we just have to figure out the best ways to tap into that rather than beat it down. And yea, it has been a dark season for me… but it wasn’t a lost cause. Stuff is still happening…because I chose to make it happen rather than hide from it and I still have a lot of grit in me to keep rising. And so do you, my friend.

Let’s recap those lessons so hopefully they can help you as much as they have helped me. Lesson one, stop reverting to the past and start living in the present by developing and adding those healthy habits back into your life. You know…those healthy habits that you never feel like doing but feel amazing after they are done. Yea, do those, and cling to them for dear life. They will change everything. Lesson two, give yourself grace and then make a plan. Feel all the feelings but then take the next step. And then…take another. Lesson three, find the lesson in the dark seasons and acknowledge the little pebbles of light that also happened. Realize that just because things are hard, doesn’t mean that you suck or that you went backwards. Look for the lesson and learn from it instead of beating yourself up.

Ok, my friend, you’ve got a plan now. What will you do to get what you really want? You have so much greatness and you have everything you need inside of you. So…check that mindset, add in those healthy habits, make a plan, and start implementing. Feel all the feels and know how amazing you are. I wish you the best year ever!

Don’t forget to join our private facebook community called Principals and Leadership! I also have a free download that gives you a start up and shut down system to your day to add more productivity and efficiency to your days!

Porterfield, Amy. “My Birthday Episode.” Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast, 2021.