One Room at a Time

July is stressing some of us out, ha. While the start of the school year is an exciting time, it can also be overwhelming. New class lists, a new school year, new faces, or new roles all together can make even the most optimistic educators feel a little shaky.

I get it. I am her. She is me. I am starting in a new school district, in a new role, and going into a new school year. I’m having REALLY weird dreams, and there have been times when my husband talks to me, and I don’t hear a word because I’m too busy moving from room to room inside my mind palace. You read that right. My mind palace.

I’m going to pause for a moment to take a deep breath.

Shew, ok, I’m back.

Pair all of this with the heaviness of the world right now, it can be a lot. I want us all to feel calm, capable, and generally at peace. So, how? I’ve had to start getting strategic because I cannot continue to rely solely on deep breaths, bags of potato chips, Instagram memes, and retail therapy. The last three have been a roaring good time but will not do me any favors in the long-term.

When I wrote Legacy of Learning, I wrote a book that I personally needed. I have to keep reminding myself of this. And the reminders I need the most right now come from my chapter title, “Mosquito Moves.” The concept of mosquito moves is inspired by a quote from the Dalai Lama, “If you think you’re too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.”

When the world feels heavy, our to-do lists seem endless, and our learning curves feel steep, it’s time to think small. What is one small move I can commit to right now that will make a meaningful impact on what I’m trying to achieve here? Because as my friend, Brian Martin says, “Little by little, a little becomes a lot.”

For me, there are many things both big and small to learn. I’m still learning how to get to certain school buildings or how to use the printers. I am a baby deer learning how to walk on new legs. It can be overwhelming. I’m going to make mistakes. I’m going to struggle and “miss” things that people will think I should know.

So, what small moves can I make right now? I mean, besides learning how to print from my computer, of course.

Small moves to grow relationships.

Because if we don’t have each other, and I mean really have each other, we have nothing.

So, I’m meeting with as many people as I can this summer. I’m genuinely enjoying learning about them as human beings. I love learning about work for which they feel really proud. I love asking them how I might support them this year or what advice they might have for me. I know my friend, Sean Gaillard, is doing the same with staff through what he calls “Connected Conversations.”

You would be amazed at how much I’ve learned already through these little moments. The more I listen, the more I learn not only about the people but about the work and our school district. These conversations bring me closer and closer to clarity and a path forward. These conversations are wayfinding and casually goal-oriented conversations. I have the willpower, but I cannot be successful on willpower alone. We create hope for ourselves and others through goals, pathways, and agency.

So, when we are feeling the bad kind of stress, you know the kind that feels like it might take us down versus the kind we can reframe as excitement, we are likely low on hope. Hope is the belief that tomorrow can be better than today, and we are the ones who can make it so. According to Charles Snyder, we create hope when we have clear goals, pathways to reaching those goals, and we have agency, essentially the belief that we can do hard things.

Thus, when we experience bad stress, we are likely lacking clarity of purpose (goals), clear pathways to success, or we lack agency. Lack of clarity on goals can lead to bad stress because we all want to be successful, but we can’t hit a target we can’t see. Lack of clear and manageable pathways can also lead to bad stress.

It’s the manageable part for me. As Taylor Swift would say, “It’s me. I’m the problem, it’s me.” I’ve been unrealistic about what’s personally possible right now. My pathways have been filled with too much.

Want to know how I figured that out? Simply listening to principals and members of our district team. None of us is as smart as all of us. Through listening and processing, I’ve been able to simplify.

The work doesn’t have to be complicated to be positively impactful.

So, I’m going to stick with my mosquito moves. Simply focus on building relationships with people and listening to them. Nothing bad can come from that.

Listening helps me find that next right step to take. A path forward. Listening helps me find hope.

And I think that’s what we all need right now. A little hope.

As Peter Block says in his book Community: The Structure of Belonging, “How do you change the world? One room at a time. Which room? The one you’re in.”

It’s going to work out. It almost always does. So, let’s love ourselves and each other through the process of growing and evolving. One mosquito move at a time. One conversation at a time. One room at a time.