#CelebrateMonday
January 14, 2019
I hope you all stayed safe and warm this weekend! While the snow can be such an inconvenience, snow like this creates the need to hunker down and slow down. Many of us in this line of work struggle to create that kind of time and space for ourselves - so it's very kind of mother nature to attempt to do that for us!
But sometimes, when we look back on what we have done so far, we get frustrated. And if we aren't careful, we can feel like we have failed to accomplish what we were hoping to accomplish.
This is because we allow ourselves to compare what we have actually been able to accomplish to the picture in our head of how it is supposed to be.
Oh my goodness I am SOOOOOOO guilty of this - like Clark Griswold in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation - who romanticizes a good ol' fashioned family Christmas. When approaching an event (could even just be the weekend) or a new school year, I create a picture in my mind of how it is going to go (I will admit that these pictures tend to be a bit romanticized). It is so incredibly rare that anything EVER lives up to the picture I have created in my mind, but I still have the nerve to be disappointed when things fall short of how they are "supposed to be."
We have to be so careful of holding tightly to that picture of how things are "supposed to be" - because when we hold on so tightly to that picture, we can end up in any number of "freak out" situations just like Clark (and while funny to us on the outside - not so funny to those in the moment!).
Don't let the vision of how things are "supposed to be" get in the way of what can be!
Don't lose sight of the goals and the vision you have - but do not let them define how successful your year has been! And remember that we always have the opportunity - every day, week, month, and year - to try again to achieve that picture of what is supposed to be.
To #CelebrateMonday today and all week long - don't focus on what was "supposed to be." Do yourself a favor and look back and see all that HAS BEEN! Celebrate all of the things that have been done for kids this year - those that were carefully planned and those that were totally unplanned!
This is important for us to do with our staff, too. They, too, had plans for the year that may not have worked out the way they envisioned - but they are still making great progress in ways they may not have planned!
Celebrate what has been and celebrate the opportunity to continue to work toward your goal (and that picture of how things are supposed to be); that will definitely help make this the best Monday of the week!
Cheers!