"Trust The Process"

"The Process"

April and May bring forth a lot of emotion within our schools for many educators. Our college graduates are seeking their first teaching position. For many reasons (personal, budget, etc.) teachers may be seeking another position at other schools. Others educators, including school leaders, may be pursuing opportunities to take on expanded leadership roles. 

I know from experience that April and May can bring a lot of personal uncertainty. Self doubt can creep into your mind this time of year as you "trust the process". Having experienced this, lived it and learned from it, I'd like to offer some personal advice to those of you feeling some professional and personal uncertainty at this time. 

Upon completing my principal internship a few years ago I applied to over 100 different job openings in the Denver Metro area. It wasn't until August that summer where I was fortunate to have the opportunity to serve in a leadership capacity at a great school in my community. Needless to say, March-July were extremely stressful months that year on me and on my family. Going through that situation taught me a lot about myself and how to deal to failure, adversity and ambiguity. Having lived through it and come out of it - I am a better person and professional because of the experience of that summer. 

This was one of John Wooden's favorite short poems. It defines the summer experience for me. 

When I look back, it seems to me,

 That all the grief that had to be,

 Left me when the pain was o’er,
Stronger than I was before.


Wrongfully, I viewed myself that summer as a failure. I failed to embrace failure as a part of the path to success. You are not a failure if your position was cut due to budget. You are not a failure if you applied to a position and weren't called in for an interview. You are not a failure if you interview for a role and do not land the position. YOU ARE NOT A FAILURE! Never give up on your hopes, your dreams, and yourself -- EVER! 

My advice is to weed the self doubt and replace it with positive thoughts and positive self-talk. To achieve your dreams you must embrace adversity and make failure a regular part of your life. As Jimmy Casas says in "Culturize" "no one person is responsible for your success or failure but you, and no one is responsible for your morale but you."  Whatever your situation is right now, OWN IT. Learn from it, grow from it. Every successful person is someone who failed, yet never regarded themselves as a failure. Let your positive attitude, not circumstances or past failures determine how you view yourself. Disappointment is inevitable. Discouragement is a choice. Use disappointment and failure to fuel your future success. Employ setbacks as learning tools. The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of failure. Accept failure as the price of success today and keep striving forward.

One of my favorite authors Jon Gordon shared this advice about failing forward: 
  • Where you are now is not where you are going to be. 
  • You don't have to be perfect to start. Just start
  • Don't be afraid to fail. 
  • Sometimes you have to lose a goal to find your destiny
  • You are here for a reason. You have a puporse and you are meant to live it and share it.
  • You don't have to be great. You just have to have a desire to be your best and bring out the best in others.
  • Ignore the critics. Just show up every day and do the work.
  • Stay positive. 
  • If you believe your best days are ahead of you, they are. The best for you is yet to come. 

Abraham Lincoln is one of my favorite leaders and a person I admire. He's someone I've studied extensively and learned a great deal from. Just look at the list of "failures" in Lincoln's life. Lincoln's life might be the definition of perseverance. 

1831: Failed in business
1838: Defeated for Speaker
1840: Defeated for Elector
1843: Defeated for Congress
1846: Elected to Congress
1848: Defeated for Congress
1855: Defeated for Senate
1856: Defeated for Vice President
1860: Elected President

Present day, take a look at Tom Brady. 198 other players were drafted ahead of Tom Brady, including 6 quarterbacks. His scouting report said 'poor build, skinny, lacks great physical stature and strength, lacks mobility and ability to avoid the rush, lacks a really strong arm, can't drive the ball downfield, does not throw a really tight spiral, system-type player who can get exposed if forced to ad-lib, gets knocked down easily."

You are the one who decides if people are right or wrong about how they evaluate you.

Your ACTION will take you where you want to go in your life. Diamond Dallas Page often says "life is 10% what happens to you and 90% of how you react to you to it." Reflect on that quote as you encounter situations over the next few weeks. How are you choosing to react to how things unfold?

Whatever you are experiencing now in your personal and professional life - TRUST IN YOURSELF and TRUST IN THE PROCESS. Be ALL IN!

You are going to come out of whatever you are experiencing a better educator, a better leader, and a better person.

CJ



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TEAM: Together Everyone Achieves More

Image
TEAM Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. Good morning. It's been a while since my last blog entry. All of my writing this summer has been dedicated to the two graduate courses I took this summer on Multicultural Issues and leading for the Transformation of Student Task systemically at the school level. TEAM is a word that's been on my mind lately and I wanted to spend some time this morning sharing my thoughts around it.  As schools return for the 2018-19 school year we all have dreams. Those dreams, hopes, and aspirations innately are connected to your North Star (vision/purpose) that drives your organization. A question often asked is how? How is the vision achieved? What is the path to get there? No successful organization, particularly within the Education setting, ever fulfilled a vision due to the work of one person. One is to small a number to achieve greatness. That is such an important truth
Read more

Changing Student Task (Why and How)

Image
Transforming Task (Why and How) One of the topics of recent discussion on the "Jeffco Generations" Facebook page is shifting student "task". Task is where the student gets the chance to engage, practice something, create, or solve a problem. Task is the experience that is part of the learning process. Without task, what you get essentially is a Sunday sermon with a teacher standing a delivering information to students.  The first question that needs to be answered is WHY? Why do we NEED to change the student "task"?  We've all heard the doom and gloom condemnation from education "reformers" across the country, so I'll spare regurgitating their rhetoric. Instead, let's look at some not often mentioned data points.  The image below is a Gallup Student Poll (2015) of almost one million U.S. students from 3,300 schools across 46 states. There is a consistent decrease in levels of engagement as students get older, ultimate
Read more

Let Go Of Past Success

Image
There is a line in an old Geto Boys song that said “what you done did in the past don’t excite me.” Reflect on that line from the late Bushwick Bill. Look deeply at whatever it is you do in life professionally. Are you resting on your laurels? Are you hanging your hat on past glory and accomplishments? Are you still operating and leading like you did a year ago? Five years ago? Ten? Twenty? The phrase “That’s the way we’ve always done it” will not serve you well in the COVID-19 world. Amir Thompson, better known to us as Questlove wrote recently on his Instagram Page “You CAN’T conduct Pre-Covid business model in a Post-Covid times.” This is so true - especially as it relates to Education. Too often, especially in education, continuing to do what always has been done produces what typically is produced. The world in itself is full of average. On the mountain of average, people don’t want to accept or even share risk. They want to be protected from it. On this mountain resides
Read more