For most educators across the country, the school year has come to a close and summer is finally here. Or as Alice Cooper would say, Schools out for summer!
A fantastic season to rest and reset, summer break is also the perfect opportunity for you, our educators, to spend a little time investing in yourself. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should be filling your entire break with educational seminars or leadership workshops — we think you should enjoy this time off. You deserve a moment to let yourself decompress and unwind.
But what it could mean is that you dedicate a little time each week to reflect on the school year that’s passed. By learning from your mental inventory of highs and lows throughout the year, you may be able to make future school years even more impactful for you and your class.
The work you and all educators do is truly significant. And it takes a lot of focused effort! So now that the school year is over, give yourself some time to let the air out. In other words: release, rest and reset.
Once you’ve been able to decompress from the semester passed, look back and reflect on the year as a whole. Where did you succeed? Where could you have done better? What about last year brought you joy? What about last year brought you stress? If you can mentally inventory the highs and lows of the year prior, you can use that inventory to make wiser choices in the school year ahead and hopefully finish up next Spring feeling less depleted and more fulfilled.
Most educators get into the field because of one thing: passion. They are passionate about teaching their students and passionate about helping them succeed. But it can be easy to lose that passion when roadblocks stand in the way of your greatness. Without promise of success or fulfillment, teaching and leading the next generation can feel hard, heavy, or joyless.
As an educator, you inspire the next generation. You help your students discover their passion and then show them how to use that passion to create positive change in their community (and eventually, the world at large).
But if you, as their leader, lack the inspiration to show them the way, it can be challenging for them to find their way to the motivation they’re seeking. Both you and your students deserve to close out the school year feeling like a million bucks. You should feel like you inspired them to be their best, and they should feel like they were challenged and empowered to truly grow — and succeed.
If you take some time this summer to investigate what lights you up and what pins you down (in both your personal life and your professional life) you’ll be able to identify what we call your “Joy Blockers” and “Joy Builders.” By doing so, you’ll be able to transform yourself into the kind of leader that inspires their class and leaves a lasting impact.
In his newest book, Take Charge of You: How Self-Coaching Can Transform Your Life and Career, author David Novak focuses on the feeling of joy as a key ingredient in your personal and professional fulfillment. He believes that joy marks the difference between doing something because you have to (things you complain about and procrastinate until the very last minute) and doing something because you want to (things you want to do because it makes you feel alive and happy and joyful). To that end, Joy Builders are activities or practices that make you feel completely alive and happy, whereas Joy Blockers are those that drain your energy and make you feel empty or unfulfilled.
As a teacher, there are plenty of daily tasks that likely fall into the category of Joy Blocker: doling out disappointingly low grades, disciplining unruly students, or assigning projects that are met with a full-throated groan from your class. None of those things light your internal fire or are particularly inspiring.
But! Focusing more time and energy on Joy Builders consistently proves to be a positive way to combat those Joy Blockers. By focusing on the parts of your job that bring you joy (meaningfully connecting with your students, watching the lightbulb turn on in their brains when a concept finally clicks, or seeing them step into a leadership role in a project you’ve assigned) you’ll be able to improve the climate inside your classroom. And you’ll raise your own vibration outside of school, too!
Teachers find joy and satisfaction in inspiring their students and watching them succeed. But without the right tools to get them there, that pathway to joy can end up feeling like a road littered with Joy Blockers.
Think you might be able to dedicate a little time this summer to discovering what specifically brings you joy at school, and what robs you of it? Completing this simple exercise and maintaining awareness around the results could have a significant impact on your 2023-2024 school year…and beyond!
Our Self-Coaching Guide will help you identify your Joy Blockers and Joy Builders – AND it will help you orient yourself more around the things that really light you up.
We encourage you to work through the Self Coaching Guide, then grab a copy of David’s latest book, Take Charge of You: How Self-Coaching Can Transform Your Life and Career. Nothing wrong with a little summer reading that may transform the way you live your life entirely. Cheers to that!