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Are you feeling swamped by the demands of being a principal? From juggling emails, calls, and decisions to boosting test scores and wading through endless paperwork, the pressure is real.
But imagine a scenario where you no longer feel this overwhelming stress. Picture yourself as a more resilient leader, concentrating on enhancing your school rather than merely coping with the daily tasks that currently consume your time.
I‘m Barb Flowers. Drawing upon my eight-year experience as an elementary principal, with a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and certification as a life coach, Along the way, I've mentored and coached school leaders, guiding them to change their mindset, set boundaries and focus on their own well-being while navigating their roles.
Each episode offers practical insights on time management, communication, overcoming overwhelm, boosting confidence, and fostering a positive mindset. We'll also discuss topics like working with stakeholders, implementing new initiatives, and managing discipline. Let's set boundaries, focus on well-being, and reignite your passion for being a principal. Welcome to "The Principal's Handbook."
I firmly believe that to be an impactful educator, you must first become a confident and well-rounded individual. Join us in this journey to empower and enhance your confidence as a school leader.
Finishing the School Year Strong When Everyone Is Tired — Including You
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Speaker: [00:00:00] In this episode, we're talking about finishing strong when everyone is tired, including you. That's all coming up next on The Principal's Handbook.
Speaker 2: Welcome to The Principal's Handbook, your go-to resource for principals looking to revamp their leadership approach and prioritize self-care. I'm Barb Flowers, a certified life coach with eight years of experience as an elementary principal. Tune in each week as we delve into strategies for boosting mental resilience, managing time effectively, and nurturing overall wellness.
From tackling daily challenges to maintaining a healthy work-life balance, we'll navigate the complexities of school leadership together. Join me in fostering your sense of purpose as a principal and reigniting your passion for the job. Welcome to a podcast where your wellbeing is the top priority.
Speaker: Welcome back to the podcast.
Today we're talking about finishing the year strong when everyone is tired, including you. The end of the school year can be hard to [00:01:00] finish strong because it can be emotionally and physically heavy for everyone.
I was just talking to a friend who said, "Are we always this tired at the end of the school year? I was going to bed last week at eight o'clock at night because I was just so exhausted." And yes, this is something that happens every year. For me, there's a lot of after-school events, more behaviors. Everybody's just more on edge with the end of the school year.
They're excited for summer, , but behaviors are increasing, and so it can just be a stressful time of the year. So yes, everyone is tired right now, and a lot of times it includes you as the school leader. But it's so important that we stay focused on being that leader that is showing up intentionally, making sure to show up in a way that we are leading the building and not checked out, where we are the ones that, , are just too tired to finish strong.
And so today, that's what I wanted to talk about is how do we finish strong, because it can be really difficult. And I just wanna [00:02:00] normalize that the end of the year often feels harder than we expect. So finishing strong, it doesn't mean that we're doing everything perfect. It just means we are intentionally leading strong, even when our energy is low.
As one of my favorite coaches, Brendon Burchard, says, "We have to come in and summon our best." He always says, "Summon your best self." So that's what we're doing at the end of the year. So let's start with talking about why the end of the year feels so hard. So first, there's so much decision fatigue because we have one foot in this school year, one foot in next school year.
And so for me, I think it's just that constant like thinking about staffing, and what do we need to get done before students are out of the building? We always have time in the summer to work on things, but the problem is I like to make decisions when I have teachers there to make decisions, and I don't wanna bother them once they leave school.
And so I feel like I have to get a lot done while I have staff and students in the building for the next school year. So there's a [00:03:00] lot of decision fatigue happening because I'm doing that while I'm also trying to lead very strong for the end of the year. , There's constant stimulation because there's a lot of activities.
Being in an elementary school, there's a lot of field trips, field day, fun things happening. We've been doing a lot of attendance initiatives, the ABC end-of-the-year countdown, a lot of fun things, but it's a lot. It can be overstimulating, and it can make you feel exhausted. , There's definitely an increase in behavior.
Students who haven't had behaviors all year Now are having behaviors. I have students who are running and becoming runners that were never runners before. So it, it takes a lot from you, and then the teachers are stressed about that, of course, and so you're supporting the teacher and the students.
Staff morale can dip because it's just stressful and everybody's tired. , If there's a lack of structure because the events increase, that can impact a lot of things. And so really you're just carrying all of this stress and all [00:04:00] of these different emotions from that time of year and just things adding up as the year goes on.
So a lot of times when people are tired, they think everything's falling apart, the school is chaos, I'm not good at this. But I really just want you to reframe and just know it's just the season you're in. It's the time of year, so you don't wanna let exhaustion change who you are as a leader or how you show up because tired leaders can easily become reactive leaders if you're not intentional.
So you wanna make sure that you are being intentional about how you're showing up every day, what identity you're choosing to take on, how you're summoning your best self. So some end of the year traps that can happen for principals, you could become short with staff. Maybe a staff member says something or does something and you go off on them, which is not normal for you, or you get snippy with them, and so you really wanna make sure that you're managing your own emotions.
Maybe you start to micromanage because you just want things [00:05:00] done a certain way. , You might start correcting behaviors from a place of emotion and become really harsh with kids because you're really doing it from a place of emotion and not from logical consequences. , You could start to lose consistency, become emotional with decision-making, or even what I see a lot at the end of the year from everybody is , ...
cat-catastrophizing, ,, small problems. , Making everything seem like a big deal or like a big problem that it's not. And so I think that happens a lot when we become tired, when we become emotional. You know? So we really have to be in check on where are we overwhelmed and how are we showing up.
So I want you to think about that. Where are you overwhelmed and how are you showing up? Because you wanna take on an identity of a principal who's not leading from exhaustion, but is leading from purpose, is leading from, the person that you want to be.
Show up as clear, confident, consistent. Who are [00:06:00] you as a leader and how do you wanna show up? And finishing the year with that same identity that you started the year. If you start the year with wanting to be confident, have those hard conversations, that's how you wanna finish the year. So Remember that the culture that you're creating with students, with teachers in May, in June, depending on how long you go, is just as important as the culture you create when we go back to school in August.
So I want you to think about what staff actually need right now from you. So as you show up and you think about who you wanna be as a leader, I want you to think about what does your staff need from you as a leader. A lot of times when I think about what the staff needs from me, , more than ever at the end of the year, , is clear communication.
There's so many events happening, so many details about the day that might not be normal, routines might be thrown off, fun events are happening, and so I need to be really clear about communicating what those events are and what's happening. They [00:07:00] also need for me to be calm and show up without, , having my emotions on my sleeve, right?
That's a huge one for staff, is they need the leader to show up being calm. They need the leader to be consistent and predictable. So all of a sudden, you don't wanna be somebody who's not consistent to who you were earlier in the year or predictable, and they don't know what they're going to get with a principal.
You want to be a principal who has priorities, and you're still sticking to those priorities. So the same goals that you've had all year, you're focused on those. Whatever teachers should be doing in their classroom instructionally, you still have those priorities and goals happening. For us, it's PBIS.
, That still has to be happening. We still have to be reinforcing, , expectations and behaviors. As a principal, you wanna make sure that you're being encouraging to your staff. They're tired, and so it's really important that you, like I said, summon your best self so you can be encouraging to help them get through the school year [00:08:00] too.
You wanna make sure that you're being visible, you're giving them support, and you're that emotional steadiness in leadership. You're not bringing the emotion, you're steadying the emotion throughout the building. So think about what that looks like for you, what your staff needs from you, and just take some time to really think about is that how you're actually showing up because people take on the emotional tone of the leader.
And so if you're showing up very emotionally and very checked out, that's how your staff's going to show up. So I really encourage you to summon your best self and think about how you're showing up each day.
The other thing that I think makes this so hard is, like I said, we as the leaders are tired too. So we're tired and teachers are tired, but we have to set the tone. So the important thing here as a leader that I think can be so difficult, but a skill that a lot of leaders have, is that energy management.
So really [00:09:00] managing your energy so that you're able to finish the year strong. I talked about earlier, there... When I am tired, I try to go to bed at 8:00 o'clock, and my kids are in a season, my own personal kids, where they have softball and baseball every night. And so sometimes I can't go to bed at 8:00 o'clock, but I am gonna go to bed as soon as we get home from games.
So there's a lot going on outside of school, but then I know that it's really important for me to sleep well during the week and to even get caught up on the weekend and have time to relax. Because you can't pour from an empty cup. You can't be, depleted and help others. Boundaries matter more at the end of the year because when you're tired, how you show up matters.
And so you really... , you have to think about we're human, right? And so you have to, , manage your energy, but that gets really difficult if you're not sleeping enough, if you're not eating well, if you're not moving your body. You know, And just taking care of yourself and your health.
It's really important to [00:10:00] help manage your energy. You don't overcomplicate decisions. Focus on the T cycle. Your thoughts create your emotions and your actions, so don't overthink. Catch those thoughts that are really negative about situations or if you're overcomplicating a decision, and just remember that your thoughts are going to, , lead to what your emotions and actions are.
And then build mini resets throughout your day. Take a minute to have lunch. Take a minute to just sit in your office. Not everything needs to be done right then. What are the things that you need to handle now and what are the things that can wait? And give yourself grace during this time. When you're trying to manage your energy and you're feeling stressed, you're feeling tired, you wanna give yourself some grace
and ask yourself, "Does this thing truly need my emotional energy right now?" So you wanna protect that. Does this thing truly need my emotional energy right now? And then again, protect your recovery after school by having boundaries. You don't wanna be replaying a conversation with a [00:11:00] teacher all night because Then you're not getting rest.
You're not actually disconnecting from school. So you want to focus on setting those boundaries, not only physically, but mentally. And then remember that not every issue needs you to fix it. Sometimes people are emotional at this time of year, and not every situation needs for you to fix it.
You have to decide what those situations are that maybe are coming from a place of emotion. A lot of times, I see this a lot with even parents, "Oh, my kid has been bullied all year," and you hear about it right at the end of the year or, " a teacher saying, "Oh, this student hasn't done anything all year," but you haven't been dealing with it all year, right?
It's just that emotion, it makes things a lot more exaggerated than they previously were. So I want you to just think about, , what opportunities are hidden in the end of the year. Even when it's hard, I want you to take this time to reflect. The end of the year is such a great time, and I always say this is what's [00:12:00] so great about education, is that we do get this end of the year to reflect and then reset for the beginning of next year.
So a couple weeks ago, I did an episode on reflecting for the end of the school year. So I encourage you, if you haven't listened to that episode, go back and listen and just take some time to journal and reflect on the school year. That's going to help you so much to actually see, , what celebrations you have.
What are the things that went well? When we're tired at the end of the year, when we're stressed, it's always good to go back to the positive. What are the great things that were happening? I was just talking to a principal who's dealing with a lot of hard things at the end of the year, and I just asked, "What are three wins that you can celebrate?"
And she had so many wins, right? We get caught up in what is really hard right now, but it's important when we are in those phases or seasons that we focus on what the things are that went really well and all of the hard work that we've accomplished this year. So as we end this [00:13:00] podcast episode, just remember, you don't have to sprint to the finish line.
It's a marathon. You wanna be intentional. You want to finish the year strong with what you started with, the goals that you started with, the things that you wanted to do with your staff. Your staff doesn't need you to be perfect in May. They just need you to be grounded and making sure that you're taking the emotion out of things, and you're taking care of yourself so you can show up to be the best version of yourself for your staff and students.
So I want you to think about, what would it look like to finish this year with clarity instead of being in this reactive survival mode? So take some time to think about that question. I hope that you finish the year strong. Just know that you got this, and I hope you join us on the podcast next time
[00:14:00]