New Year, New You, New Perspective

It’s 2019, and you know what that means… A whole bunch of people talking about a whole bunch of changes they plan on doing. So many people decide that on January 1st its a perfect time to make drastic changes and change the world *insert sarcasm.

I personally don’t like to make New Year’s resolutions, I find that they tend to be a little trendy and full of a lot of hope with not a lot of purposeful thought put into them. What I do like to do is to sit down and think about the past few months and evaluate if I’m happy with where I’m at. This could be done professionally or personally. I don’t always do this in a formal manner, it’s not always on paper or on a computer sometimes is just in the notes app on my phone or in my head. It’s also important to note that I reflect on everything every few months, not just in January. When I was in the classroom I found that I coincidently always took time to reflect in August (before the school year) December (during winter break) and June (at the end of the school year.). These are milestones in our calendar as teachers and provide optimal time to reflect on your teaching, teaching practices and work/life balance.

FRIST:

Review the last few months. This could be since beginning the school year or just December. What worked? What didn’t? Did you have a good overall life balance? What was your biggest area struggle? What was your biggest challenge? Take into deep consideration your overall happiness, happiness of your family, loved ones, friends and if your teacher were your students happy? If the answer is yes to all these and I think it’s pretty safe to say you’re doing something right. If you were hesitant or the answer was no on some of these then consider what changes you can make to make the year just a little bit better.

NEXT:

What do you need more of? What do you need less of? What do you need? After reflecting on the last few months you must determine what you need. Maybe you need more of something or less of something or just something different. But whatever it is, you need to determine what you need. If you keep floating by with just being “okay” you are not going to get the most out of your teacher self. If you sit and reflect on the last few months and you just look at the problems or the challenges you can feel overwhelmed. Pinpoint that one thing you need most, and don’t forget it.

LAST:

How are you going to get what you need? How are you going to achieve your goals? Are you going to advocate for yourself? Do you need a better schedule yourself? Do you need to change your expectations? Do you need to say “no” more? Do you need to say “yes” more? Do you need help? Whatever it is, make an action plan. If you need to be more prepared for your students, consider making a monthly lesson plan. If you need better classroom management, consider setting up a new behavior system. If you need to be better organized, consider a new file system. Just because it’s already January, it doesn’t mean changes can’t be made in your classroom. Just because it’s January should not be an excuse! You have HALF the year left to make your classroom the best little home for your kiddos.

My word of the year is intentional. After reflecting on my 2018 it became pretty apparent what I need for 2019. I need to be intentional with my time, my commitments and my goals. My life has shifted drastically with the addition of Tucker, and one thing is for sure, I don’t want to waste any of my time with him while he’s still little. I want to be intentional with him, my family and my business.