Let's not be so hasty to let the old year pass

A new year is coming up fast and it is a time that many look to as a fresh start and a time to make resolutions for the coming twelve months. As the song says "fast away the old year passes". 

Before you cast the old year aside though can I suggest that you take some time to first count your blessings... and if you have had a tough year, and I know a few people who have,  I am thinking that you are reading this post and have access to the internet in some way so you might just have a couple of things to be grateful for as a starter. 

Consider this: 

Found in several places but this one I sourced from:
http://www.speakupforchange.ca/why-you-are-so-lucky/

The main reason why I suggest you count your blessings first is that you will be much less likely to toss out the really good stuff you already have as you focus on the next big thing you want to be, do or have in your life. 

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to do a gratitude audit for the last 12 months or so:  

• Have I been of service to others at some stage? 
• Have I taken care of myself in some way? 
• Have I achieved anything significant for me? 
• Have I used my skills and talents in some way? (and before you say I don't have any, I believe we all do, just some of us don't recognise them yet) 
• Have I learnt something new? 
• Have I fostered positive relationships with some of the people around me? 
• Have I had any fun times? What were they? 
• Have I had any adventures? 
• Have I overcome any challenges? 
• Have I had opportunities to celebrate the success of others? 

I hope that you have come up with a few things to be grateful for and identified some of the great things about your life that you want to keep. Too often we forget to celebrate the good as it happens and taking some time to reflect with our minds and hearts tuned to gratitude can make a big difference to our whole well being. I hope that you spend more time focused on gratitude going forward so you get to experience the joy that it brings. 

This approach also helps you work out what it is that you really do want in your life. 

Ask yourself: 

• Do you want more of the same? Great stuff- keep adding to your gratitude list and stay focused on creating more of the same. 
• Who are the people that you care about and love? If you are able to, how will you stay connected with them? 
• Is there something you want to change? If so why do you want to do that? What will it look like if you make that change? (it is important to have a clear vision of the end point you are aiming for) 
• Do you want to learn something new? 
• How will you use your skills and talents this year? 
• How will you be of service to others? 
• Is there a way you could contribute to your community this year? 
• What adventures would you love to have? 
• How will you create positive relationships with those around you? 
• Do you want to stretch yourself? If so, in what way and why? 
• How will you ensure that you are as healthy as you can be? 

Once you know what you want things to look like and you know why you want to go there then you can work how you will get there and take the first step to seeing your vision coming alive. 

And the crazy thing is that you don't have to wait for a new year to focus on the good you already have or the path you want to take going forward... you can do this anytime and anywhere! The birds do not start singing a new song just because it is the first of the year nor do the mountains shift that day so feel gratitude now and dream as well. 

A personal story to illustrate: 

Last year I made some pretty clear goals going forward in about October. I had an ultimatum put to me that forced me to make a choice (much of my thinking was centred around the vision of the future I had been fostering for a little while prior to this to be fair). The things I wanted for the new adventure that I was to take were: 

• Most importantly it was to have more time with my family and enjoy doing some things around our home- I have loved spending time with our little man this year, we have gone to playcentre together and had a lot of fun. It has also been great to remodel our kitchen using recycled materials and make it a much more useful space for preparing our food 
• Take 3 months off to get my body back in balance and just enjoy a slower pace of life (I had saved up my annual leave for some time to enable me to do this)- it was great and gave me clear headspace to start blogging and do some study for fun as well as walk daily and go swimming and enjoy our kiwi summer with my family 
• Start my own business- yup, done that and have had some great opportunities to explore and play with using my skills in different settings including public speaking, writing resources for schools, and also doing adult workplace assessments
• Growing my own vegetables- we started that this season and it has been fabulous, to those of you who follow this blog you will have already read about this new passion of mine... and I am loving enjoying the fruits of our labours immensely! 
• Teach an average of two days week- this has happened in the last half of this year and I have really enjoyed teaching students from 5-17 years old, next year I will be teaching 2 days a week in a job share role which is fantastic
• Have my own chickens so we can eat our own eggs- we are on the way there, I got a little put off the idea by the fact that some people found chickens to be rather vicious with each other but have done some more research and we have plans to build our coop in the coming month or so... and the chickens will be a late Christmas gift once we get the coop ready for them
• I have always wanted to write despite feeling a little inadequate as a writer- I have had opportunities to play and learn (this blog is one way) and am learning more about this at the moment as I explore another project, it is exciting 

It hasn't always been easy, there are always ups and downs and I have had to take a few risks, but that strong vision of what I was hoping things would look like has helped me get back on course when the chips have been down. I also spoke with other people about this vision so they were able to support me and at times hold me accountable if needed. I am hugely grateful for the opportunities that I have had so far and the dreams that have been fulfilled as well as those that are ongoing and the dreams to come! 

I hope that your dreams come true in the best ways too. 

And while you are at it ALWAYS remember you are incredibly powerful because you do have choices... 

  

Could you be happier at work if you worked like a volunteer?

Be happier at work by working like a volunteer. 

You might have heard the statement that to get more out of your job you should work like you own the company and perhaps that is true. I have been reflecting a little lately and think that working with a volunteer mindset is a good way to get more enjoyment from your work. 

Here are three simple reasons: 

• Volunteers choose to work there 

This is a big shift in thinking... rather than having to go to work (insert groan here) if we approach this as a choice that we make then we are more empowered. Volunteers choose to give what they can because they want to and they care. 

If we give what we can rather than just what we are 'paid to do' or 'what is in our job description' or even because 'the outcome is part of my professional development plan' then we get to stretch ourselves, show the best of ourselves and, if this is what you want, create a positive name for our selves.  

• Volunteers work because they believe in their organisation 

Volunteers usually believe in the organisations they choose to give their time and energy to. If your organisation has a organisational culture statement, stated values or philosophy then get to know them and understand what this looks like and feels like in action. Embrace and exude those parts of the philosophy that knit with your values. 

The volunteers I have seen often share their volunteer work with as much if not more passion and enthusiasm than their day jobs so imagine the positivity you can create adopting this attitude about your work. 

• Volunteers feel good in their work because they are contributing to something worthwhile

This is how volunteers stick with it even when the work they are doing is hard, time consuming or unpleasant. When I am cleaning the toilets at our local playcentre (a family/whanau led early childhood setting) I don't really mind as I know that it helps create the healthy, safe environment that we want for our children. 

Again if we find a way to feel like we are contributing to something outside of ourselves that has worth then even the mundane, difficult or unpleasant tasks will be easier to bear. 

Now this might all sound like a fairy tale version of the cut throat work environments some of us may work in. I know that there are challenges including employers that take advantage, difficult colleagues, unreasonable bosses, annoying clients to name a few (and this isn't even touching on the mechanical/technical frustrations we may be faced with) but this approach is working with a mindset that is about you and not necessarily the other people around you. If this approach doesn't work in your workplace then I urge you to volunteer in your community so you can experience the benefits of this perspective if nothing else. 

I guess perhaps this is also a call to change the culture of our workplaces too... imagine if we all worked like this, if we all gave what we were able to because it felt good to contribute, because we wanted to? Imagine as employers and managers if you embraced this mindset with your staff, offering them greater freedom in exchange for increased productivity perhaps. The other day I read a little article about Richard Branson with interest about offering employees unlimited vacation time, this kind of knits with the volunteer approach that I have been speaking about.  

There is a caveat here about working like a volunteer and that is managing your time so you maintain a balanced lifestyle. This is more about thinking how we spend our time and valuing all those things that are important to us. All ideas to think about I guess. 

Image from: http://blog.trophies2go.com/recognizing-volunteers/

If you succeed and no-one sees you have you still succeeded...?

I read this quote the other day from Bradley J Sugars and as I have been teaching I have been thinking more and more about it... 

       A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more                                   than an hour of praise after success 

This has got me thinking about praise and success hence this question, if a person succeeds and there's no-one to praise them have they still succeeded? 

I guess firstly it is about how we define success. This is always an interesting conversation... what does success mean to you. I know some people who by many counts would be seen as successful and yet they don't see it themselves or feel that they haven't quite attained what they should have. Part of this might be that these people are committed goal setters and once they achieve one goal they already have their eyes on the next one? I also wonder if it is that success is really a personal thing and that it evolves and changes as our lives do. 

Success is defined as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose with synonyms like victory and triumph. 

I am all for celebrating the successes in our lives. Last year I had finally completed my PostGrad teaching qualification, I had been chipping away at it for a number of years whilst full time working, travelling a lot and having our little boy. When I finished I was hugely relieved and although I was studying by distance I chose to go to graduation... this was a moment for me, a public place where I had a private celebration of something significant for me personally.  

However, if we are only looking at the big victories at the end of a venture then we miss the opportunity to celebrate the learning from the journey. And sometimes when you are working through things encouragement is really helpful, I know it was for me as I was under pressure with my study and thinking of giving up. 

And this brings me to the question I asked earlier... do we always need someone praising us to know we have succeeded? It usually feels good to have people notice when we do something well but if we only feel success when others notice then we have created quite a difficult life for ourselves as our personal measure of success is externally defined not internally. We are relying on others for our sense of self worth. 

One of my pet bug bears as a teacher is when the children come to me and ask "have I finished yet?" My response is usually something like "I don't know, have you?" A question like this is indicative of a couple of things: 

1. they don't know why they are doing the work or what the expectations for the work are 
2. they don't know what they are capable of or what their best effort looks like
3. they have become dependent on others to define when their work is 'good enough'

I would prefer that they were coming to me asking "this is what I have done so far, I am not sure what a next step could be, can you help me?" or "I am feeling stuck, can I talk with you about this?"
This then opens an opportunity for me to provide support and encouragement and empower them to have ownership over their own efforts. 

We need to identify ways to help our students without debilitating their development of self management. Some of this comes back to what we do as teachers- making sure we are explicit about our expectations, that we co-construct learning outcomes or rubrics so they can self monitor with clear guidelines that are meaningful for them. A lot of this comes back to understanding our learners and what motivates them and then helping them to understand their own needs, interests and growing talents. We also need to help them identify when personal best is important and when it is OK to slacken off... we all have times when we give a little less than we could, perhaps we are tired, under stress, feeling sad or unwell, or just not interested in a particular topic at that particular time, but if we operated like this all the time our talents would still be hidden under their bushels and we wouldn't get much done. So we manage our time and energy, our students need to be able to learn to do this too, in fact I would like to think the people I work with will be better at it than I am so I can learn from them!  

And they need to experience failure along with success, it is an important part of developing a growth mindset, learning that the journey is important and valuing the learning along the way. If we tie our self esteem to success and victory alone then we are exposing ourselves to unnecessary vulnerability, especially if our measure of success is based on the reactions of others. Karen Boyes has written an excellent blog about embracing failure in learning that discusses this in depth and provides great food for thought as well as some useful tips to support learners in embracing failure. 

Here are just a few questions I am asking myself at the moment so I thought I would share them here too.

• What does success look like for you? 
• Do you celebrate your successes? If so how? How long does the good feeling last? 
• Do you ever celebrate failures? If so how? 
• Is there a difference better encouragement and praise? If so what is it? 

Links: 

Why is learning so scary- Karen Boyes- http://www.karentuiboyes.com/2014/09/why-is-learning-so-scary/

What would you do for a sticker- an earlier post- http://teach-learn-lead.blogspot.co.nz/2014/07/what-would-you-do-for-sticker-some.html