For the past few years, I have chosen “one little word” to guide me through the year, and for the most part, it’s been great. (But in full disclosure, last year I forgot my word! OOPS!) This year, I considered using an idea from my administrator, Jennifer Hogan, to choose three words to guide me; however, the more I tried to come up with three words, the more I kept coming back to just one.
Dedicate.
I have Adriene Mishler of Yoga with Adriene to thank for this word choice. Each year she creates a 30 day yoga series, and this year it is called dedicate. The more I thought about this word, the more I realized it was perfect for me and what I want to do this year.
Let me start by sharing the definition and synonyms.
I feel like 2018 was the year of “me”. I’m not complaining; I think it was much needed. But let’s just say that I didn’t devote much time/effort/money/etc. to anyone but me. I know that sounds completely selfish, but I think I just needed a reset. I needed to focus on Kristy. It was fabulous. I feel refreshed, happy, settled, and reinvigorated.
But, I can’t go on living in my own little world forever, so now I want to return my gaze outward. (Trust me, there will still be some ME time, I promise!).
I plan to write “Dedicate” on everything and here are some ways I hope it keeps me on track this year:
Personal Life
- Devote more time to writing (daily, hopefully–starting with the 30 Day Blogging Challenge with A.J. Juliani). I also want to work on updating my blog and trying to grow my audience, but that’s a lot of work. (Ha!)
- Give more money and time to helping charitable organizations.
- Commit more space on my plate to fruits and veggies (this will literally be SO HARD). I am a carb-oholic, but I’m sure there are some ways I can work in more fruits and veggies. It’s all about making and sticking to the commitment.
- Pledge to do yoga everyday. While I want to go to the gym more, I find that yoga helps me in more ways and if I start to feel stronger through yoga, I’ll probably actually want to go to the gym. Fingers crossed. Thankfully I have the Dedicate 30 Days of Yoga to get me started. (Seriously, if you haven’t done yoga with Adriene before, you absolutely need to. She is the BEST!!)
- Surrender LESS time to my phone, electronics, social media, etc. I’ve been off of FB since Thanksgiving and I haven’t logged into my teacher IG account since Christmas break started on 12/21. Honestly, I don’t miss either one. I might just stick to my personal IG and Twitter. Definitely less time wasted.
- Commit more time to my family (back home in Michigan) and my friends near and far. My best friend, Melissa, who lives in Chicago and I have started using Marco Polo. So, rather than talking once every couple weeks for 20-40 minutes, we leave video messages for each other every couple days. It has been great for keeping up!
- Pledge to read 52 books for personal growth and enjoyment this year. I LOVE to read (and share my favorite books) Last year I read 45 (not including PD books), so I’m upping my game just a little bit this year.
Professional Life
- Pledge to be a better listener. As an instructional coach, listening is key, but I am the kind of person who has so many dang thoughts and ideas bouncing around in my ideas while I listen to someone, that I’m often just listening, waiting for the chance to share what I’m thinking. UGH. That’s terrible and I sort of hate to admit it, but I am going to work on this.
- Commit to visiting more classrooms. This one is hard for me. I feel awkward and out of place when I visit classrooms, especially because teachers still don’t know what I do. But it has been helpful for me to gather ideas that I can share with other teachers when I see the good stuff happening in our classrooms.
- Devote more time to learning about instructional strategies that work in the math and science classrooms. While often times, instructional strategies easily cross content area lines, it would be beneficial if I knew more about what worked best in the classrooms I am least familiar with.
Okay, that is a lot. I guess part of this whole thing is that I need to surrender control a little bit. I have a lot of ideas, a lot of goals, a lot of plans, and then I get frustrated when they don’t work out, but how could they when there are SO MANY?
So, this year, I dedicate my time and energy to going with the flow and being happy with my best effort to meet all of my goals.
Happy New Year, friends!
