Overcoming Obstacles: Strategies for Bouncing Back

Welcome to your Morning Boost, your daily shot of educational leadership wisdom from AWB Education. We'll explore the latest trends, share practical strategies, and inspire you to reach new heights. Stay to the end of the show for more information on our services. Now Here is your Morning Boost. Hello, welcome back, it's your Morning Boost. My name is Adam Bush. I'm your host. Thanks for joining us again today. We've been talking all week about how to support struggling teachers and been talking about a few different tips or ideas or things that you can consider. So now the question is what do you do when it doesn't work? When we're stuck? What do we do? It happens to all of us. I mean we can read strategies, I can go from book after book after book and try another strategy, and sometimes we just get stuck it doesn't work. So here's some ideas on what you can do in your efforts just they're not yielding the desired results. The first thing we need to do is we need to stop, need to pause, reflect a little bit, take a break from what we are doing. Sometimes stepping away from a problem can provide the fresh perspective that we need and maybe we're just too far down into the weeds, and what we think is going to work just doesn't, and now we get frustrated. On top of that, Maybe even just a few minutes of meditation help us calm our mind, reduce stress a little bit, writing down what it is that we've been talking about, some thoughts and feelings. A lot of times when I'm trying to work through things, even I'm thinking about podcasting right here, and I have some great ideas, but I don't write them down, and a few minutes later, my old brain's like, what was that idea? What was I talking about? Same thing here? When we're trying to come up with ways to support staff members and support teachers, it's hard. We get a lot of ideas, we have a lot of things going on. Journal that stuff. Write down your thoughts, write down those feelings anytime, get a chance to have a little pad off to the side of your desk when you pop into the office, jot down that idea real quick, so when it's time, you'll have that there for you to come back to the next time. Then now, once we've had that chance to pause and rethink, now let's think about our approach question your assumptions a little bit. Did you have an underline assumption about the situation. Did you really honestly know for an individual teacher or maybe it's as your staff as a whole. Do you really understand what it is that you're trying to solve. Do you understand the situation? You might need to seek some feedback, you know, do you have a trusted friend, a mentor, or a colleague that can come in and give you a little bit of an outside perspective, bounce those ideas off them. That outside source can maybe just help you change your perspective, reframe that situation. There could be a silver lining or a positive outcome in there. Maybe it wasn't the one we thought it was going to be, but there is one there, and it's still one that we can build off of. Practice some gratitude, focus on what we're grateful for rather than what's not working. Again, the silver lining piece. There probably is something there that is going to have an impact. If we're putting these these efforts into increasing staff morale or increasing teachers support, there's going to be a positive impact somewhere. Might not have been the impact we were really looking for initially, but it's still a positive impact. It's something we can still grow upon. While we look for those silver linings, it also is okay for us to actually look at how we failed. I mean Henry Ford's quote, failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. It's a great quote. He speaks the truth here. It's an opportunity for growth. That's not necessarily literally a failure. It's just it didn't work the first time, and that's okay. But if we learn to learn from those failures and use those as an opportunity to grow, we're going to continue to see the positive impact that we're looking for. Another thing to think about is just take some action. It might be very very small, small steps lead to significant progress. We know that breaking down some large goals into smaller, more achievable steps will help us take some action and then acknowledge the fact that we're progressing by taking those small steps, and acknowledge that and reward yourself a little bit on that. Again, small steps, big progress, that's okay. We have to start somewhere. Seek some support, Go talk to somebody, share your feelings with a friend, share it with family members or a therapist. Maybe it's a support group, connect with some others. There's other people facing similar challenges. It could be a leader at the next district, could be a leader with within your district, or maybe you need to reach out and seek some consultive support. There's a lot of us in that business right now that are able to come and give you a fresh perspective. Little shameless plug for AWB Education, we are happy to help partner with you on giving you another little boost and what you need. Either way, it's okay. It's okay to feel frustrated or discouraged. It's not going to always work. The key piece here is to persevere and keep finding new ways to approach that situation. Take a step back, reassess your approach. By doing so and seeking some support, you can overcome those challenges. You can achieve those goals and help support those staff members this week. Have a great Friday, go lead your team and don't forget you are doing the job that only a few can do. You have been listening to your morning boost from AWB Education. You can learn more about our services and find resources by visiting AWB education dot org. Please leave a rating and review to help us spread our message. Otherwise, go have a positive impact on our futures as you do the job on a few can do. We got this