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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.
Confidence Killers for Principals and How to Overcome Them
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[00:00:00] In today's episode, we're talking about confidence killers and how to overcome them. That's all coming up next on the Principal's handbook.
Speaker: 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. I.
Welcome everyone to the podcast. Today we are talking about confidence killers and how to overcome them. I am going to share three different confidence [00:01:00] killers that I see principals have and how to overcome them.
But I wanna first start by talking about what confidence is. So a lot of times people think confidence is the absence of fear, and that is not true at all. Confidence is really about doing something. When you're unsure, you do it anyways. It's about taking a leap and just knowing that you'll figure it out along the way.
So it's not necessarily that you go into a situation thinking that you're going to know what's going to happen . It's knowing that you can go into any situation and you'll learn and figure it out.
It's not necessarily that you have the skills or you know every step and you have certainty. There's so many things as a principal that we do, that we've never handled before. I always think about the principal I worked with when I was an assistant principal. She had 20 plus years as a principal, and I would ask her about a situation we handled and she'd say.
I've never dealt with that before. Right. That's confidence. She knew that she just had the skillset to do it, even though she's [00:02:00] never done it before. So that's true confidence. She knew she would figure it out because of her experiences and just being able to figure out situations or she figured we'll learn as we go.
So that is really what I want you to think about. Confidence. A lot of times we think it's. So concrete and that we have to know everything. And I just want you to think about the role of a principal. There's so many unknowns, there's so much uncertainty. Things happen all the time that we're like, okay, here's a new situation.
I have to figure this out. And the more that you can go into it, just knowing that you'll be able to figure it out and to silence that self-doubt, the better off you're going to be. Because the opposite of confidence is self-doubt. It's having constant self-doubt and doubting that you'll be able to figure it out.
So today I wanna talk about three different confidence killers that I see a lot of principals have, how they affect your leadership and what to do to overcome them. So we're going to go right into them. So the first confidence [00:03:00] killer I see that principals have is comparison. And this is so easy to have with social media, right?
You go on TikTok or Instagram. Facebook, whatever, social media, and you see principals posting highlights of their school. They're doing great things in their school. , Another place I saw this a lot was I would go to principal PLCs or professional meetings where we would share out, and sometimes I just felt like, oh my gosh, everybody else has it all together.
And it's so easy to compare yourself. But what I always like to remind principals is there's really no comparison in the role of a principal. I have, , been in two different buildings as a principal now, and the roles are totally different. The supports are very different. The districts are very different.
Everything is so different in every building. You could be an assistant principal at one building and a principal in another building and have very similar roles. Or you could be a principal without an assistant, and it looks very different than somebody who's a principal in a larger [00:04:00] school, but has two or three assistant principals.
The role looks different depending on where you are, what resources you have, and the demographics of your students, and so. You really just have to get yourself out of that comparison game, and you have to remind yourself of the thought. I always like to talk about the thought causing it is that every building looks different, every principal role looks different, and not getting caught up in the thought of, oh my gosh, everybody else has it together.
And I don't know what I'm talking about. Okay, so really thinking about where is this comparison coming from and how is it impacting your leadership? What areas are you comparing? Are you comparing other buildings, , discipline? Are you comparing maybe initiatives they have going on in their building?
Are you comparing things that their teachers do? Again, you just have to step back and take some time to reflect on your own, building your own role. Look at where you are and think about the amount of progress you make. You can only compare [00:05:00] yourself to yourself. I always like to compare myself to my, self as a leader.
Where have I grown? Where have I seen myself really improve in my leadership over the years? Because that's the only thing I can compare. And I can say being in a different district has helped me grow a lot. I've had to think differently. I have less support, and so I have to make sure that.
I'm continuing to learn even with my experience as a principal. So with comparison, what I want you to do to stop it is reflect on how much you've grown as a leader, even if you're a brand new principal. Okay. From day one to 30 days later, how much have you grown? I can remember my first day as an ap, not knowing what I was doing.
You know, when it's like, here's your office, okay. Get to work, and you're thinking, what should I be working on? Right? As a teacher, you knew exactly what to do as an ap, you're waiting for direction from everybody. And so, um, how much have you grown in just 30 days? If you've been doing it for a couple years, how much have you grown in those [00:06:00] couple of years?
So really take time to reflect on that and think about your own growth. So you stop comparing yourself to others. The other thing I want you to think about. Is, what thoughts do you have related to comparison and how can you flip that thought? So if you have the thought, everybody else has it together, except for me, how can you change that thought?
, Maybe it's, I'm doing the best that I can with the resources I have, or maybe it's I'm taking things slow and steady in my building so that we can go fast later. What is that thought that you need to have? Because as a new principal. I had comparison all the time comparing myself honestly to podcasts and what people are doing and what I'm hearing podcasters do.
And every time I listened to a podcast episode, I wanted to go in my building and implement something new. And what I learned in my superintendent pointed it out to me is when I am learning so much and having to implement. Right away. He's like, that's a sign of low confidence.
You're not confident in your abilities [00:07:00] that you're doing the right things in your building. And he was right. I was listening to all these things, all this input and thinking, Ooh, that's what I should be doing in my building. But it wasn't what was right for my building at that time. So I want you to just.
Stop and ask yourself, , where is your building at? And have thoughts that are positive about yourself as a leader. That's going to help with comparisons so much. The second confidence killer I see is . overthinking. , Overthinking negative thoughts, thought stacking. I laugh.
I just heard a coach talking about getting delusional when we're stressed and thought stacking and really overthinking, and we get in this cycle of, oh my gosh. This is gonna happen and this is going to happen, and , it's just a negative spiral, , we've all been there. , Also, I would, as a new principal, make a disciplined decision.
Go home, overthink it, , I did it wrong. I should have done something different, or somebody would question me on something, and then I would start overthinking my decision, my conversation. I should have said this. I shouldn't have said that. And a lot of [00:08:00] shoulds coming out. , I would think about everything and it was really about getting me to shut my brain off, and a lot of times what I had to do was I just had to disconnect from school.
Okay, so for overthinking, my biggest tip is disconnecting from school. So for me, it was taking email off my phone because what would happen is I would handle a discipline situation, and then if a parent was mad, I would check my email, get that email, read it, and then overthink it all night. Or now voicemails in my email, I could listen to a voicemail, overthink that voicemail all night.
So when I learned to really compartmentalize and disconnect when I'm not at school, I need to be at home and be present with my family. It really helped that overthinking. Another thing I do, which sounds so silly, but every time I start to overthink or I have a thought that spirals, I'm just like, Nope.
Not doing it, and I shut myself down. So by saying, Nope, not doing it, or, Nope, I'm not having that thought. I'm disrupting the [00:09:00] thought. And so every time I go to think that thought, I just think, Nope, I'm going to be present at home. And it really helps me focus being on the present. It's sounds silly, it's not the easiest thing to do, but it does work if you do it over and over because your brain.
Defaults to the negative. It wants to protect you. So you know it's thinking, okay, I gotta think about all the things that can go wrong so it can protect you for tomorrow. And what I've learned is just to disrupt that thought pattern, right? We want to get into the logical thinking part of our brain, the prefrontal cortex.
So to do that, it's interrupting those thought patterns. Go for a walk, go do a workout. Go talk to a friend. Find things that are going to get you to stop overthinking, to stop that thought loop that just keeps going and going and going. Okay? So it really is flipping the thought, disconnecting from school and just letting yourself wind down in other ways.
We have to have time away from those thought. And if you're really [00:10:00] struggling with this, this is where coaching can be helpful because we focus one-on-one on what is the thought that's getting you stuck. , If you're constantly, , rehearsing a thought, and maybe it's a thought of self-doubt of I didn't do this right, I didn't do this right, and you just keep beating yourself up.
You've got to stop that thought loop. And so the biggest thing is to distract yourself by doing other things and disconnecting from school or just stopping the thought by saying, Nope, I'm not going there tonight. I'm done ruminating. I'm not having this thought. , Those are all really helpful things that help me with overthinking.
The third confidence killer I see for principals is avoiding discomfort. So you doubt yourself maybe having a hard conversation or you doubt yourself, , implementing a new initiative because you think teachers are going to be upset about it. Versus really getting underneath the surface to why this feels uncomfortable and getting comfortable being uncomfortable.
. I laugh because Autumn Calabrese and my workouts, I work out on body always says that get comfortable with being uncomfortable. [00:11:00] And the thing about that is it goes in every area of your life. Confidence is not about feeling comfortable all the time. It's about being able to put yourself in those.
Places that you are uncomfortable.
It's letting yourself not want to do it, but you do it anyways. I think about all the parts of leadership that were uncomfortable for me, that I stepped outta my comfort zone that aren't a big deal anymore. . I became a principal because I wanted to be a strong instructional leader. I love instructional leadership.
I love leading teams, all of the things that principals get to do. However, there's so many other things we get to do as principals, there's HR situations and having hard conversations with staff. There's discipline with students. , There's, having hard conversations about evaluations.
It's, there's dealing with conflict in teams. It's not all easy, right? It sure. If it was easy, I wanna say it would be more fun, but. In the end, you wouldn't be growing as a leader because what I've realized and learned over time is every time [00:12:00] I put myself outside of my comfort zone, I continue to grow. So if you can just have the mindset that I'm going to make mistakes, I'm going to put myself outside of my comfort zone, it's not going to be perfect, and stop avoiding the discomfort, things will get better for you as a leader, you are going to feel more confident.
Because you just get used to putting yourself in uncomfortable situations that you don't know the answer to, but you're going to try anyways and do your best. That to me is what truly builds confidence. If every situation I went into I felt completely sure and confident in, I would've really stunned my growth as a leader.
So as a leader, we want to make sure that we're constantly putting ourselves in different situations. Where we're not sure, and we're gonna continue to grow and learn. So make sure that you're finding those areas. , So what I would recommend for you is to take some time and to reflect on what parts of leadership is uncomfortable for you.
Where are the areas of leadership that you [00:13:00] need to step outside of your comfort zone? And really feel that discomfort to continue to grow yourself, but also to grow your building. Because when you have those hard conversations with teachers, staff members, with kids, with parents, that's where everybody grows.
That's where the growth happens in the building overall. So where can you step outside of your comfort zone to help growth and actually help you build confidence overall? Alright, so those are our three confidence killers that we're overcoming. We're overcoming comparison. Overthinking and avoiding discomfort.
And if you work on these three and, just focus on putting yourself in new situations and trusting that you have the ability to figure it out. You don't have to have all of the answers right now. I promise you. You will start to feel more confident right away.
And one thing I have that I'm super excited about is I created a confidence scorecard. So if you think that you might not have confidence or if you relate to these confidence killers. Go to principal [00:14:00] freebies.com or click the link in the show notes and take that confidence scorecard.
I would be interested in finding out what your confidence score is so that you can figure out how to improve your confidence and what areas do you need to step outside of your comfort zone to feel more confident? So again, check out that Confident Scorecard.
It's completely free@principalfreebies.com or by clicking the link in the show notes. Alright, I hope you implement some of these things. I hope you have a great week, and I will see you on the podcast next time.