Posted on by hildaweisburg

Walk Away and Get More Done

School librarianship has always been a demanding job. We work with the entire school community, keep current on the latest technology and its potential impact on our teaching, and manage the library environment. The last alone can be daunting with people dropping in while you are leading a class, creating bulletin boards and displays, getting books back on the shelves, sending notices to students, and writing reports to the principal. Just reading this list is exhausting, and it doesn’t include the pressure from book banners and the negative political climate.

You need to be the Energizer Bunny to get it all done. And therein lies the problem. How many of you don’t take a break? How can you when it feels like there is no time? You probably even eat lunch at your desk, if you do eat lunch, and jump up whenever someone needs you. You come in early. Stay late.

But an exhausted leader doesn’t plan well and is not truly efficient. As Larry Robertson says in his SmartBrief article, Want to be a better leader? Walk away, you need to take a break. Easy to say, but how do you do it and get everything done? Here are his thoughts along with my usual additions.

The power of walking away – According to Robertson, and my own experience, walking away allows you to see more. When you are so focused on doing what’s next, you lose that broader perspective. It’s the reason I always recommend making a point of entering your library (and the building) one day a week as though it were the first time you walked in. How does it look? When you are concentrating only what you have to do first or on the library, you can miss what is happening in your school. Stepping back allows you to see the bigger picture.

Misunderstanding what walking away means – It doesn’t mean abandoning what you are working on, it means clearing your brain. You are planning to create a new genre category and are frustrated by the logistics of it. You are getting up to speed with a new technology and are stuck. Do something else. The break clears your brain and gives you new impetus to get the task done. Walking away can also be more literally true. Sometimes your job, and particularly the administration can be draining the life from your passion. When I had a superintendent announce her retirement, I knew that my difficult principal was going to become a bigger problem. I defined what I would need in a new place, travel, library environment, school culture, and successfully job hunted. The move opened new opportunities that more than made up for my loss of tenure.

The simple practice any leader can develop – Robertson says go to lunch. As I mentioned, many of you are eating at your desk. You aren’t proving anything by being chained to your desk – or library. He also recommends going for a walk. That’s a practice that keeps me energized. My eyes stretch when I am not so narrowly focused on a screen. I get to breathe fresh air. I speak to different people along the way, and. I return with more energy and a better frame of mind.

Working without a break doesn’t work. Finding ways to stretch your body and mind by stepping back from what you’re doing both during the day and when you’re away from work. This gives you an opportunity to recenter and bring your positive mindset back with you. Then your whole body becomes more welcoming to others and better able to plot any new directions. You have become a better leader by simply walking away.

And now, I am going for a walk.

Posted on by hildaweisburg

Your Inner Voice Is Speaking Out Loud

Do you talk to yourself? Probably. Most people do whether we realize it or not. While these silent talks are about a lot of things, much of our inner conversations are about ourselves. So, here’s the important question: Do you speak kindly or harshly?

The truth is we are far more insulting of ourselves than we ever would be with anyone else. This would be bad enough if our internal diatribe remained silent, but we are unknowingly broadcasting these thoughts in our interactions with others. And the messages we are sending out keep us from reaching our full potential as leaders.

Suzy Burke, Ryan Berman, and Rhett Power deal with this common syndrome in their article, 5 Proven Self-Talk Strategies to Strengthen Leadership. In their opening, the authors state: “Leading others starts with self-leadership.” It always starts with you. You are the face of the library. Others take in the messages you send and, from there, they decide if you are sure of your goals and know how to get there. Yu are telling them, intentionally or not, whether they should trust you.  And trust is the foundation of relationship, which in turn leads to the cooperation/collaboration and advocacy you need.

Here are their five strategies along with my tweaks which makes their business focus more appropriate for us:

  1. Self-talk is the hidden saboteur of leadership. In the authors terms, we are involved in worry-wars on many levels and almost constantly. The current Worry War is, for most of us, the societal/political one which has turned the librarians and libraries into prime targets. Additional wars involve budget and staff cuts along with personal ones including financial stresses, family relationships, responsibilities, and whatever else is going on in your life. When any one of these areas show up, your self-critic starts talking and the negative talk adds to the worry.
  2. Every leader has a monster. Many of us, me included, see how talented, skilled, and resourceful other librarians are. We compare and see ourselves as falling short of them. But that comparison is a monster lying in wait. The authors say, “That voice doesn’t just shape your day, it shapes everything.” It shows up in how you hear, what you believe of yourself and how you respond. You do not want to leave this “monster” in charge of your work.
  3. Your mindset isn’t fixed. As lifelong learners, we understand this. Many of us have successfully changed a negative mindset into a positive one. The authors acknowledge that since you will never keep the negative mindset away forever, they offer a three step approach to make the need shift: Catch – Identify when a monster is taking over. Your anxiety is one way to recognize its presence; Confront – Challenge you mindset with facts. For me, it’s when the word “never” is in my thoughts:, Change – Now reframe the thought with a more positive, truthful one.
  4. There is more than one type of monster. – Just what you needed to hear.  According to the authors we must deal with these five monsters:
    • Catastrophizer -This is going to be a disaster.
    • Always Righter – This needs to be perfect, and I’m never going to get it right.
    • Mind Reader –  I know how you are going to react to this situation.
    • Over-generalizer  – This didn’t work, and it’s all downhill from there.
    • Should-er – I should have known better. And now of course, it’s too late.

      The more practice we have spotting each of these monsters within ourselves, the better we get at not letting them be the ones to lead.
  5. Self-talk can be your leadership plutonium. – When you know how to reverse (or lower the decibel level) of negative self-talk, you power up your leadership. While we are talking to ourselves, our bodies are sending out the message of our thoughts. Our face, arms, and tone of voice combine to tell the world what we are thinking—and what monster is in charge. This is why that earlier quote, “Leading others starts with self-leadership” is so important to remember.

Leaders keep growing and learning new skills. Have you seen yourself here? If so, this can be an important lesson for you to incorporate into your leadership. Your interactions students, teachers, administrators, and others you interact with will be more productive as a result. And you might just find yourself feeling better overall!

Posted on by hildaweisburg

Tools to Take Control of Your Life

Does it sometimes feel as though every day something new is coming at you? You are not alone. This world seems faster changing than ever. With that, each day the news brings information of a new threat or a technology that is likely to affect the library. And in the midst of this you worry if you’ve missed something key. Not surprisingly, turmoil is bad for your health, your relationships, and your ability to best serve your students, teachers, and administrators. It’s time to take back control of your life.

In his blog post, The #1 reason people fail at their life plan, Donzel Leggett says many people now “feel like life is happening to them rather than being shaped by them.”  Legget talks about “the cycle of no destiny control.”  He goes on to write how when we feel in control, we’re able to move with purpose including setting goals and having a forward-looking mindset. But with this distraction and stress heavy world, this is hard to manage.

Leggett discusses three reactions to feeling as though you have no control. His concepts along with my comments, may give you some clarity about how to move forward:

  • The Flywheel Hamster – You may be feeling like that proverbial hamster, your wheels spinning but getting nowhere. Your plans lack direction. Much like the Beatles song “Nowhere Man” you are “Making all his (your) Nowhere plans for nobody.” When your plan doesn’t work the way you wanted it, you revise it. And the cycle repeats. What is needed is a plan with clear goals and confidence in your abilities.
  • The Floating Dandelion – Leggett describes this as creating no-risk plans because risk implies the possibility of failure. We have no room for that. Take a hard look at your Vision and Mission. What are you doing to make them a reality? Start there and craft a plan with a true goal, action steps to attain it, and a reasonable time to accomplish it. Include both formative and summative assessments.
  • The Head-in-the-Sand Ostrich – When you believe nothing you do will change anything significant, and besides you are a target, so keep your head down. As Leggett says, “Like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand, they miss the fact that the world is moving on without them,” Believing that if you do that, maybe they won’t notice you.  That’s a recipe for disaster. You are a leader. Leaders know where they want to go next and how to get there. In reality, that approach is guaranteed to get you eliminated.  And since you are so quiet, no one will even notice you are gone.

Legget concludes by reminding us that transformation is the way out. Change your mindset. Once again, check your Vision and Mission. You have been successful in the past. There is no reason you can’t be successful again. Re-energize yourself. Take care of yourself. Go for walks or whatever you need to feel yourself as powerful and committed as you were.  You are a leader, now lead yourself.

The maxim “Know Thyself” was inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. And, as I say in my forthcoming book, The Involved School Librarian, the first community you need to interact with is yourself. Know yourself, both strengths and weaknesses, and use them as you lead in your school community and elsewhere.

Posted on by hildaweisburg

Quieting Your Inner Critic

It’s a new school year. Were you eager to get back or were you worried? How is it going so far? What’s that voice in your head saying?

If you are a first-year school librarian there is so much uncertainty. Of course, this is true if here you are in a new district or have been moved to a different level. Even if you are in the same school and have been for several years, there is much to concern you. The job has always required a lot of responsibilities in many areas and the political climate around the world has caused more stress.

And uncertainty breeds self-doubt.

So it’s no wonder that your inner critic might be talking loudly and often to you. How can we quiet this noise in our heads that can derail our actions and our mindsets? John Millen, CEO of the Reputation Group, a leadership communication company, offers sound advice in his blog post, 5 Ways to Control Negative Self-Talk.

First, Millen explains what that voice really is and its cost.

The silent saboteur – That’s what it is. It’s an insidious voice, whispering things you would never say to a friend. It erodes your confidence and alters your behavior. Millen states: Negative self-talk is one of the most overlooked obstacles to success. It quietly erodes your confidence, damages your relationships, and undermines your ability to lead. You become less confident in your ability to do what you know what you can. The costs, with my comments, are as follows:

  • Imposter syndrome: You minimize your strengths, only seeing how other people do it better.
  • Fear of speaking up: You don’t suggest ideas to teachers fearing it won’t go well, and they will think you are inept.
  • Perfectionism: You keep delaying putting new ideas into practice because you are afraid if it’s not perfect it will fail.
  • Burnout: The pressure and continuous self-doubt take a toll. You hate going to work each day. You slog through, counting the hours till it’s time to leave.

To turn this around, here are Millen’s five ways to get control of your inner critic, again with my comments.

1. Name the voice – Know who is talking to you. Two of Millen’s names are “The Heckler” and “The Judge”. Choose one that works for you. Pick your favorite villain from a book, especially one where the hero defeats the villain.

2. Ask: Would I say this to someone else? – You know that answer. Of course not. What would you say to a friend who said that? What would you say to that friend instead?

3. Reframe the message – Watch out for absolutes like “I never” or “I always.” It’s not about being perfect (see above). Ask what you learned from it. That means you are growing.

4. Keep a thought journal – Those of you who are journalers can get behind this idea. Noticing the thought is a way from separating yourself from the emotions triggered by the thought. Seeing what you said and then recognizing where it’s not true will help silence your Heckler.

5. Practice self-compassion – Give yourself a break. It was a super busy day. You had a bad night’s sleep. This is part of self-care. We are all human. Remember – what would that good friend say to you.

Will this make your inner critic disappear. Sadly, no. But you can mute it when you recognize it for what is and implement these ideas for halting it. You are a leader and people are rightfully counting on you. Your inner critic is wrong. You are doing a great job. Make it a good year.

Posted on by hildaweisburg

Small Changes Can Bring Big Results

Too much to do. So little time to do it all. Does that sound familiar? What we don’t need is another lengthy time-management system. So how about a small one?

In her blog article,The Power of Micro Habits: How Small Changes Drive Big Success in the Workplace, Mary Kelly recommends 10 routines to power your workday. (You might want to create routines for your personal life as well.) Several of these resonated with me so much, I will be adding to my routines.

Here are her 10, along with my usual adaptations and comments for our education world.

  1. Start the Day with a Clear Plan – In the words of Yogi Berra, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” Kelly asks you to take five minutes to identify your top three priorities for the day. For me, that means putting stars next to the tasks on my to-do list. I also have things I do on certain days, like which day of the week I write this blog.
  2. Use the Two-Minute Rule – Complete any task needing less than two minutes before doing anything else. Kelly suggests email for this. I do that while my morning tea is steeping. This way, before you begin, you have already accomplished something that needed to be done while still leaving plenty of time for the priority tasks. If email is a gateway for you to open more things, find another starter.
  3. Take a 60-Second Brain Break –Kelly recommends doing this every hour. Pausing, closing your eyes, listening to a white noise app even for a short as a minute can “reduce stress, improve focus and books creativity.”
  4. Stand Up and Stretch Every Hour –Physical activity is good for your muscles and improves your focus and concentration. If you can walk, great, but even a short stretch has lasting benefits. This is something I am adding to my day.
  5. Use the ‘One-Touch’ Rule for Emails – Another one to add to my routine. Kelly has four “D’s” to use with email. “Do it, delay it (that means schedule it to handle when you have more time or all of the information you need), delete it, or delegate it.” The last may not be an option, but look for ways to use the other. Whenever you handle a piece of email two or more times, you are losing valuable time.
  6. Acknowledge Others Every Day – There is nothing so meaningful as an honest compliment. Find ways to acknowledge students, teachers and others in your life. I sent an email yesterday to my landscaper complimenting his people on the great job they did trimming overgrown trees and bushes. I asked him to pass it along to the crew who did it. He was so pleased to hear it. When you do this at work, you build connections and advocacy.
  7. Hydrate Regularly – This one surprised me. Kelly says to take a sip of water at least every 30 minutes. Even slight dehydration lowers your productivity and can be hard to notice. I don’t do this, but I will try.
  8. Set a Shutdown Ritual at the End of the Day – Clean up your desk. Make sure the library is ready for everyone tomorrow. You want to be able to start your day ready to go, not finishing up yesterday. It will also be a mood boost when you arrive in the morning.
  9. Limit Social Media to Set Breaks – They call it “doom scrolling” for a reason. Try to stay off your phone. There’s nothing there that can’t wait. Kelly suggests designating no more than two times a day to browse so you don’t interrupt your workflow. And even then, be careful of getting lost down that rabbit hole.
  10. Write Down One Work Win Each Day – It’s so easy to forget all that you accomplish. Don’t limit yourself to just one. You get a lot done every day. I keep a Success Journal by my computer. I will be recording that I wrote my weekly blog.

If you need a little extra help, Kelly offers a Productivity Sheet you can download. In reviewing these ten, you can see how these routines might help you maintain a more positive mindset. And, when you have a positive mindset your students and colleagues feel it and benefit from it. You are a better leader as a result.

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From Adversity to Success

Life is tough, and nothing suggests that it’s going to be getting easier in the immediate future. Between personal and professional fears, being able to slog through the days is a real challenge. But you don’t want to drag your way through them. You want to shine and make your program seen for the value it brings to the entire school community.

If you can’t shake off the weight of stress, continuing the way you are will only lead to overwhelm and burnout. You need a plan. Dr. Christian Marcolli has one. In his article “Setting the Gold Standard: What CEOs Can Learn from an Olympic Champion” he outlines five steps to get you back on track for success. We need to “adapt to adversity” because we cannot avoid or outrun it. To do this, Marcolli recommends we:

  1. Rigorously manage your energy to build up a strong foundation for sustained high performance – You are not the energizer bunny. You can’t keep going at full speed. You need to develop your resiliency. Part of this can be done by setting and managing priorities. Be honest with yourself. What must be done? What must be done now?  Identify what can be dropped, deferred, or shared with someone.
  2.  Think through a robust strategy that will lead to success – Keep your goals front and center. Review your Mission and Vision. Develop a strategic plan complete with action steps, timeline, and assessments as you go along and at the completion. With a plan in motion your energy will be focused rather than diffused.
  3. Work on creating a winning mindset – Find ways to nurture your desire to live your Mission statement. This will allow you to tap into a positive mindset that will give you the boost you need, even when the results aren’t (yet) what you want. When things feel hard, remind yourself of past successes.
  4. Be ready to adapt to changes and setbacks – Fighting change, expected and unexpected, is a waste of energy. It happens. Know how you best bounce back. Leaders recognize setbacks happen but know how to create the path for going forward. Look to your strategic plan to take the next best step forward.
  5. Visualize success – This is a common technique for athletes. It’s not something we think to do. Think about the end result. Imagine yourself getting there – what will it look like? What will it feel like? Hold on to that feeling and do what it takes to live into it. If you’re a visual person, consider creating vision board. Or, if you prefer, make a list of the feelings you are hoping to have, the results you are looking forward to seeing. As an extra benefit, the process of constructing these and envisioning the end will lift you up and improve your mindset.

This quote from Barbara De Angelis serves as a good reminder, “We don’t develop courage by being happy every day. We develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.” Leaders always need courage. The path forward is continually filled with obstacles to overcome.

Tough times require tough leaders. With a clear plan and vision, no matter what else changes, you will get to your goal and enjoy a well-earned success.

Posted on by hildaweisburg

Feel Well – Do Well

The old expression “Make time to smell the roses” is about slowing down to enjoy what’s around us. It is also, in fact, a prescription for improving your mindset and your productivity. Much has been written about the importance of self-care and its effect on how you feel about yourself.

Have you noticed when you go outside, your body posture undergoes a slight change? Your shoulders go back, and your vision seems to expand as you leave the confines of indoors and screen viewing. These outward physical changes are the manifestation of the chemical changes going on in our bodies. The effects of the chemicals our bodies produce can be negative or positive. Having too many episodes of negative chemicals flooding out bodies can affect our short- and long-range health.

Not surprisingly, the converse is equally true. In her article Fuel Well-Being to Transform Your Leadership (email sign up required), Marlene Chism discusses different positive body chemicals and how we can produce them. She goes on to show how producing these chemicals regularly boosts the quality of our work.

It is wonderful to know that the following chemicals are within your power to produce:

Serotonin- keeps you calm and in a positive mood. It helps you as a leader by keeping you from mood swings and acting impulsively. You make better choices and stay focused. You produce Serotonin when you:

  • Exercise regularly – Choose something you like so you will do it. Incorporate it into your regular routine and enjoy the many benefits.
  • Practice gratitude – This can be a simple addition to include in your routines. It helps to maintain a daily record, digital or print, of what you are grateful for, but even taking a moment in your day can benefit your serotonin levels.
  • Walk in nature – Get out. Find a place to get outdoors, breathe fresh air and, hopefully, grass and trees. If this is a challenge because you live in a city, look for a park you can go to.
  • Get sunlight – Another challenge for workers with long commutes or during the short daylight hours (and cold!) of winter. Do the best you can when you can.
  • Eat serotonin-rich foods such as turkey, eggs, seeds and nuts – Yes, even your diet can support this. No wonder these are considered healthy foods.

Dopamine – The feel-good neurotransmitter. Low dopamine leads to a lack of motivation and tiredness. Feeling overwhelmed and easily distracted can be caused by low dopamine levels. When you have a good balance of dopamine, your creativity increases, and you have a sense of positive achievement. All so necessary for leaders in stressful times. You produce Dopamine when you:

  • Eat Omega-3 foods like fish – Once again, eating healthy is beneficial in more ways than you knew.
  • Exercise regularly – A double reward for exercising – dopamine in addition to serotonin. Your exercise needn’t be for very long. Consistency is what is important.
  • Get enough sleep – Always a challenge in our over-filled days. Treat yourself as you do your children by developing a bedtime routine. Read yourself a story.
  • Listen to music – What music fills you up. Maybe lullabies can be part of your bedtime routine. Shift to music instead of news on your car radio, or at home. Or, after news…. This will give you that dopamine boost.  
  • Set and achieve small goals– Robert Collier said, “Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day and day out. Reaching small goals makes you feel successful. Poof —dopamine! When the goal seems out of sight, it feels unattainable and hard to sustain. See the small steps as the big win they are.

Oxytocin – Chism calls it the “bonding chemical.” It helps in making connections, feeling empathy, and building trust which are all essential for building relationships. You produce Oxytocin when you:

  • Spend time with friends – The importance of this explains why the isolation we experienced during the pandemic was so damaging to many.
  • Express appreciation – Say thank you and mean it. Send a text or email. Even better, send a handwritten message, being specific.
  • Get a massage – A great reason to treat yourself. You can be good to yourself and build your leadership bonding chemical at the same time.
  • Listening – We have recognized the importance of active listening. It’s hard for many of us. Practice it when you spend time with friends.
  • Share a meal – Go out for a meal with friends and include serotonin- and dopamine-rich foods to eat.

Knowing the importance of these chemicals in your body and how you can produce them can give new impetus to you and your leadership skills. It’s fun to think that being a great leader is a matter of chemistry – and feeling good.

Posted on by hildaweisburg

Look For What You Can Control & Change

As much as we’d like it not to be the case, there is frequently more we can’t control than we can. And what we can’t control seems to be on the increase. You may be feeling frustrated by a declining or nonexistent budget. Or tired of having more tasks added and less time to do what you know is important. There are many things out of our control, but we are in control of how we react to them.

All these challenges are real, but you can work with them and make them better. Like turning thrift store or yard sale finds into treasures, you can take what you have and with a few additions — and a mindset shift, always key— transform it into something beautiful.

In her article, Not happy with your career? Get scrappy, Julie Winkle Giulioni explains how you can change negatives into positives and make your job a better fit for your Vision and Mission. She defines “scrappy” as “using what’s available and within a person’s sphere of influence, enriching their current roles, getting creative, and wringing every ounce of development from routine activity.” By being scrappy, you can make the small changes that result in turning the job into more of what you want it to be and gain control in challenging situations.

Giulioni recommends the following four techniques:

  • Practice with Purpose – Reflect on what you do as part of your job. How can that be improved? For example, maybe you want to update your collection in a specific area, but you have no budget for it.  Giulioni suggests these three steps:

Set an “Intention” – In this case, it might be to explore funding sources used by other librarians. Maybe looking in thrift stores or at www.paperbackbookswap.com for inventory.

Plan – Find ways to use your Professional Learning Network (PLN) to find out what others have found successful. You can ask them what advice they have for making their pitch have an impact.

Reflect – Just like we look for essential questions in the lessons we present, check to see if you notice the questions you didn’t have answered, the ones you couldn’t know about. Then, the next time, you can do a better job in refining queries to your PLN.

  • Seek Out an Opportunity Zone – Professional Development (PD) may not be giving teachers and others in your community everything they need. For example, you may be concerned about how to use AI and ways it might currently be misused. To help, you might explore the issue, again using your PLN, and prepare a one-page infographic you can submit to your principal. Call shortly after you have given it to them and ask to discuss some way to deal with AI, recognizing both its positives and negatives. See if there’s a way to present what you’ve learned to others.
  • Optimize Your Extracurriculars –Use what you do outside of productively. You might work on an advocacy committee with your school library association. If that seems a bit beyond you, see what help you can give the person who is handling advocacy. And look to see where your other interests intersect with ways you want to grow your program. As you cook, you may think of ways to bring in new ingredients to your work. As you garden, you may realize the importance of patience and creating a rich soil.
  • Soak It Up – Become a conscious observer. See who gets heard and watch how they do it. Notice who is liked and who isn’t. Can you tell what about them brings out those reactions in others? By doing this, you are creating your own PD. You will find yourself adapting better to situations and being noticed for the right reasons. It will be not only a career but a life lesson.

Of all the things we can control, the most important is our outlook. Change your mindset. Take a pro-active approach to turning your job back into one where you look forward to going to work. Being scrappy will bring you more benefits – and make you a better leader.

Posted on by hildaweisburg

Mind Your Mindset

Our brains are wonderful—until they are not. The brain’s most important function is survival and to do that, it looks for danger. But even though there is no longer a lion at the mouth of the cave, it’s still searching for what’s wrong. The result of this is – we find problems and places to worry all the time. This onslaught of negative (and not always true) thoughts lower our mood and add to the stress we are already feeling.

It takes work to noticed when your mind is lying to you and reframe your thoughts to a more a positive mindset. You won’t be able to do this continuously, but awareness is the first step to making a change. In a very long blog post, George Vanourek explains the Power of Reframing to Change Our Outlook. Considering the length of the post, I am focusing on what I consider his key points as to what causes all those negative mindsets and how we can manage them.

First, we need to look at what comes up and how our brains react. Negative mindsets are caused by cognitive distortions resulting in “flawed or irrational thinking.” These result in:

  • Assuming the worst – For example, when your principal asks to see you and you immediately believe they are going to cut your budget and eliminate the new program you started.
  • Discounting the positive – While focusing on all the negative reasons for the call, you dismiss that your principal had complimented the new program and the way the library has been invaluable to the school community.
  • Catastrophizing – You might then find yourself jumping to the conclusion that they are going to eliminate librarians despite what has been said about you and your program.
  • Overgeneralizing – This is what always happens. You knew it was too good to last. Just when you think you have it right, it all goes to pieces and things are worse than before.
  • Emotional reasoning – This is when you shift from how you are feeling at the moment to a judgement about yourself. “It was so stupid when I neglected a key direction for students and had to backtrack to fix it. I am so stupid!”

Obviously, this negative self-talk causes you more stress, erodes your self-confidence, and affects your performance. Among the nine techniques Vanourek suggests to counter this negativity, my favorites are:

  • Context reframing – Change how you look at the issue. Instead of feeling you are stupid, consider the benefits students get from seeing you acknowledge an error and move on from there.
  • Stop taking things personally – If a student complains that the book you recommended was terrible, that may not have anything to do with your ability to choose books for your students.  They could have had a bad day and are mad at things in general, or they might not have been clear about what they liked. Maybe there was something triggering in the book that you couldn’t have known because the student doesn’t talk about. This is where context reframing comes in again. Use this as an opportunity to discuss the student’s interests and see what you can do next.
  • Multi-dimensional view – Where we focus makes all the difference in what we are able to see. Look for ways to get a wider perspective instead of the narrow one in which you are viewing the problem. Ask yourself: What has made you so upset? What perspective changes this feeling? What previous experiences are affecting your thoughts? What can you learn from this moment? And remember the bigger picture – your Why, your Mission, and Vison. See where you are furthering them, no matter the stress of the moment.

If you put your hand in front of your face that’s all you see. Move your hand further away, and you not only see your hand, but everything else as well. Your hand (the stress of the moment) becomes only part of the view.  You can’t stop things from going wrong or the stresses that life brings, but you can be aware of and control your reactions. Keep watching for your negative self-talk and then look for ways to shift your mindset. There is always a more positive way to frame the situation and when you do, new solutions are more likely to appear.

Posted on by hildaweisburg

Love The Life You Live

Do you love your life? Only on special occasions? You are not alone. Many people count the days to their retirement even when it’s years away, and it’s not a healthy way to live. When we are not seeing the positives in our life, we are easily stressed. In addition, our negative perspective affects how we see events and people. Studies have proven our mental and physical heath are affected by our emotions.

Mindset is powerful. You know that from your experiences with students, teachers and administrators. We discuss it in SEL (Social and Emotional Learning) and possibly in Professional Development groups you belong to. A negative mindset hampers your Emotional Intelligence.  

In a post about the central tenants of his book, The Earned Life: Lose Regret, Choose Fulfillment, Marshall Goldsmith offers this 5-step approach to re-examining your life and coming to love it:

  1. Align your aspirations, ambitions, and actions—Just as you have a Vision for your library, you need one for your life. Why are you doing all this? Why are you working so hard? Goldsmith says to ask yourself what you are trying to achieve. What is your big goal? In a way, this is like your Mission statement. Follow that up with ideas and plans of how to get there. In essence, you are creating a strategic plan to have the life you really want. Goldsmith cautions against basing success on the quantity of your achievements. That leads to the overwork many of us are prone to – and the exhaustion that accompanies it. Hustle culture doesn’t work. Focus instead on the doing rather than the totality (the end result) –relishing the learning that is part of the journey.
  • Eat the Marshmallow – Referring to the experiment where children were asked to decide if they want one marshmallow now or wait until later and get two, Goldsmith asks what if you are asked to delay further for three? How much gratification should you delay? Waiting for an ultimate reward can suck the joy out of everyday accomplishments. Delight can and should be incorporated into your every day. You don’t need to wait until you earn it because of some big event. Use the good dishes. Buy the thing you want so much.
  • The “New Me” Paradigm—We need to remove the “when” from our life view. Deciding that happiness will come only when a certain event or achievement is reached keeps you from enjoying the now. Goldsmith notes that there is no correlation between achievement and happiness. You don’t need to be better, thinner, more financially secure, or any other version of a “better” you to embrace being happy now.
  • Credibility Must Be Earned Twice – I have never seen the idea put this way before, but it is vital for school librarians to recognize. According to Goldsmith, for people to trust you, you have to be competent at what you do, and you are. But that isn’t enough. Your work must also be recognized. And that is where we sometimes miss the mark–and miss out on happiness. The lack of recognition for our work is a big factor in not loving our lives. The answer is to market yourself so that what you’re doing is noticed by your core audience. If that feels too hard, start by promoting your program. As Goldsmith says, “If good work really spoke for itself, no company would need a marketing function.”
  • The LPR – This is your Life Plan Review, a daily reflection of how you are doing. Goldsmith did it with a group, but you can do it alone. I keep a Success Journal near where I work to track my daily accomplishments so I can see what I’ve done in a day, rather than only focus on what still needs to be done. If you’re only looking forward, you cannot take joy in what is happening now.

You have so much in your life that is good and so much you’ve accomplished. True, there are challenges and problems, but if you look closely, you can see how much is right with your world. Take time to see all the good choices you’ve made, the wonderful people in your life, the opportunities you have. Start loving the life you live–or keep waiting for more marshmallows.