Patient or Proactive?

I have a goal!  It is a big one and I have several active processes in place to help me achieve this goal.  I continue to do what is within my circle of control in order to find success.  There are also some dynamics of this goal that involve other people.  So sometimes, the ball is not on my side of the court and the situation asks me to wait on things to progress naturally.

This is when the principle of patience comes into play.  I am extremely excited about achieving my goal!  Honestly, I can't wait!  I feel like a kid at 6am on Christmas morning!  But I must be patient!

Sometimes it takes time to get what you want.  When you really want something to happen, it always seems to take too much time.  So the question becomes, a matter of two principles.  Should I be patient or should I be proactive?  Should I wait or should I work?

Sometimes, patience is proactive!

The best compliment for an educator

Yesterday, I ran into a parent from my old campus.  We were both attending a forum for improving early childhood education.  We talked about her two, fantastic children.  One is in middle school now and the other is still in elementary.  The younger one loves his teacher and is quite proud of his leadership on campus.  Of course, every one is a leader at that campus, thanks to some incredibly dedicated and talented teachers and The Leader in Me!  She told me that her daughter was an excellent middle school student, making all A's and excelling in band, but she missed her old school.

Then she told me what I consider to be one of the best compliments I have ever received, "It is clear that your school was all about relationships, yet the expectations for excellent academics was equally amazing!"

This was music to my ears!  I have always believed that people come first.  Make sure you take care of their hearts and their minds will follow.  Yet I also know that learning is the reason every school exists.  Academics are paramount.  By no means was I perfect in my efforts.  Most assuredly, I made many mistakes along the way.   It is still one of my burning questions, "How do we ensure that the little people we get for seven hours each day leave as caring human beings with as much smarts as we can get in their brains?"

School is not only meant for filling brains and creating a growth mindset, it is also meant to create little humans who genuinely care for the people and the world around them.  I loved hearing that we did both!  I still say all the credit goes to the fantastic teachers and staff that made it happen, but it was nice to be included in the best compliment an educator can hear!

Suspend Judgment and Enable Curiosity

Elementary school teachers are the ultimate action researchers.  They constantly monitor the subjects in their laboratories for optimum learning, then tweak or change variables when needed.  They also find times when they need to seek the opinion of a fellow researcher, so they ask another teacher for ideas that might address a specific barrier to a child's learning.

Some of the most important conversations that teachers have are to answer the question, "What do we do for the kids who struggle to learn this?"

After many years of involvement with these discussions, I have seen a wide range of responses to the ideas that get thrown on the table in efforts to help struggling students.  Most of the time, teachers are willing to listen to as many strategies as possible, then choose one or two.  Naturally, the strategies that are typically chosen are the ones that feel most comfortable to each teacher.  Each teacher chooses the ones that seems most doable.  If three teachers hear fifteen different ideas, they may choose three completely different strategies, based on their own personal preference.

This has me wondering...when we hear ideas during a brainstorming session, do we make our judgments immediately?  As the ideas hit the table, do our experiences cause us to keep or discard ideas too quickly?  When brainstorming, what if we were better able to suspend judgment and enable curiosity?

Two Steps Forward

Last year, around this time, I was gearing up for my big New Year's Resolution.  I was determined to eat better, lose a few pounds and make exercise a habit again!  I know...I shared this resolution with about 200 million other people in this country!  I resolved to start this on January 2nd because there is always leftover pie on January 1st!

So on January 2nd, I really worked hard to make it happen.  I started off great!  Through January and February, I ate more vegetables and less bread.  I stopped going back for a second helping at every meal.  I started going on some long walks and even ran a bit.  I did push-ups and pull-ups and other exercises that can easily be done at home and in the office.  By the end of February, I had lost about 20 pounds and I was feeling good!  I had established a few new habits that were working for me!

On February 28th, a friend asked me if I could play for his indoor soccer team because they were missing a few players.  I eagerly agreed and played pretty well.  It was a blast!  With about three minutes left in the game, I was chasing down a ball that was heading towards our goal, I flipped the ball against the wall to my right, then cut left.  Unfortunately, my knee cut right, and POP.

I tore my ACL.  I knew it.  I limped off the field, and grabbed some ice.  A few days later, the doc confirmed my injury and scheduled surgery for March 20th.  What a downer!  For the first time in quite a few years, I had made a resolution that actually stuck!  It stuck because I chose a few easy habits that I could actually maintain.  The question became, would I be able to keep up with my new routines through the six month recovery period?

Post surgery included  massive back pain and a nasty hematoma under one of my incisions.  Six months turned into eight months.  A few months into rehab, I felt like I had failed to maintain my new habits.  I wasn't focused on the veggies as much and there was really no way to get my exercise with a bum knee.

What's the point?

Looking back now, I realize that I didn't exactly fail.  I may have missed days (or weeks) but the general habits are still there.  Missing one day or week does not mean that I destroyed my resolution.  It does not mean I broke the good habit and I need to start from scratch.  It doesn't mean that I need to wait until the next January first to begin again.  A habit is not broken so easily, especially if my resolve to keep it is strong!  "Two steps forward, one step back" is still progress!

I Predict...

When faced with a tough decision, what are the questions you ask yourself?  Do you play out the potential scenarios?  Do you weigh the potential benefits against the potential detriments?  Among all the questions, do you ever actually ask yourself, "Will this make me happier?"

When faced with a tough decision, we all have different thought processes that come into play.  Robert Biswas-Deiner says, "We make a lot of our decisions based on predictive future happiness."  While I don't think this is necessarily new information for me, I know it is the first time it has been presented to me so clearly.

When faced with a tough decision, I try to take my time, consider all the factors and options, gather the opinions of others, then choose.  Now, I am going to ask myself one more question, "Am I giving my future happiness too much emphasis as I decide?"

It is hard to imagine purposely making a decision that does not eventually make me happier.  I'd like to think that I won't make a decision out of fear that the choice will actually lead to less happiness.  Sure, there will be times when I must muddle through the thunderstorms in order to find the end of the rainbow, but isn't it worth it?

Choose Bravely!

When you take a risk and try something new, you are exercising your freedom.  When you avoid the risk, you are still exercising your freedom.  Your choice to do nothing new is still your choice, given to you by your own freedom.

Whether you take the risk or do nothing, you own the choice and the outcome.  Choose bravely!