Uncovering Good

The end of the year has been filled with celebrations, and I can’t help but look at the people I get to work with every day and be filled with pride and gratitude for their unique contributions and the meaningful impact they make.

I’ve mentioned this in too many posts to count, but it’s amazing what happens to our hearts and minds when we feel seen, appreciated, and like our unique contributions are making a positive difference.

We celebrate people when they retire

We celebrate people when they join our team.

We celebrate people when they graduate.

We celebrate people at the end of school years and often at the start too.

And what about this messy middle space where the days are long and the work is hard?

Perhaps that when we need celebrations the most, and yet it’s often when celebrations are least likely to occur.

According to Shawn Achor’s research, “Our brains at positive are 31% more productive than they are at negative, neutral, or stressed.” 31% is significant. And yet, the negatives are alluring. The negatives can be loud in our heads and heavy in our hearts. The negatives often feel urgent and complicated and overwhelming. Before we know it, it’s easy to believe that the negatives are the norm. It’s easy to be hit by the brut force of the negatives and to tap out emotionally. As a means of survival, some of find ourselves moving through the motions of our work with muted emotions because there is just too much that can feel out of our control or in need of improvement at one time.

But there is magic in the positives. I’m not saying we ignore that which is negative. I’m merely saying that we must also fix our minds to that which is going well because when I look around so much is going very well.

My good friend, Kristi Otten, is hoping to spend less time in exit interviews and more time in “stay” interviews next school year. What makes people stay, and how do we learn and grow from that?

We spend a lot of time talking about what is not going right and why. But we could learn just as much if not more if we focused on what is going right and why. What were the conditions, decisions, and moves that made that possible? Might we apply some of that to other work?

I’m not interested in being toxic and ignoring hard truths. I’m merely interested in being just as invested in celebrating and learning from what is going right.

As we move into what I hope is a relaxing and less intensely scheduled summer for many of us, ask yourself what went right. Ask yourself who helped make it so. And let’s nurture the people and conditions that give us hope for tomorrow.

Because hope for tomorrow is like the air we breathe. We must have it every day in our schools if we are going to continue doing this legacy work.