🌿 Monday Thoughts: Return to With Rhythm

Hello Reader!

The best thing you can do right now is check your pace.

Your first week(s) of school are electric, aren't they?

New faces, fresh energy, the careful and tentative magic of a community that doesn't yet know itself. There is something poetic about it… the possibility of a beginning, the sense that this year could be different, the way students and educators size each other up with equal parts hope and uncertainty.

And it's also exhausting!

The First Weeks’ Wrong Pace

The first week(s) of school tend to have us running on adrenaline. Everyone is "on"! Performing presence, performing enthusiasm, performing professionalism in ways that aren't sustainable for long.

We are not meaning to sound insincere. This is just what high-stakes beginnings do to us. They bring out our most over-functioning selves.

The risk is that we establish patterns in the first week that we can't maintain for thirty more. We answer every email immediately. We stay two hours late every day. We say yes to everything. We run at a pace that feels energizing right now and devastating by October. We are all guilty of it!

The most sustainable thing any of us can do during the first weeks is not run as fast as we can.

Pacing is critical!

What the Upcoming Rhythm Looks Like

Rhythm is different from routine. Routine is the structure of what you do. Rhythm is the sustainable tempo at which you do it.

Rhythm in the coming weeks look like:

• Leaving at a reasonable time, even when the to-do list isn't finished (because it never will be!)
• Building in time for stillness each day, even for five minutes
• Protecting as many evenings as you can from school work, not because you don't care, but because you do care and you need to be here for the long run
• Checking in with yourself weekly: Is this pace something I can keep for ten more months?

If the answer is no, that's information. Adjusting now will be easier than adjusting in week ten.

The Pace You Set Now Is the Pace You'll Keep

Students take their cues from you. So do colleagues. So, in a quiet way, does your own nervous system.

The pace you establish in the first weeks of school becomes the implicit expectation for the rest of the year: for others and for yourself. Setting a sustainable pace from the beginning is not lack of effort. It is actually the most strategic thing you can do for your long-term effectiveness, begin as you mean to go on.

Reflection for you, or your staff and colleagues:

What is one rhythm, one sustainable tempo or practice, you want to establish now weeks that you'll still be able to maintain in February?

Let us know! We love hearing from you!

Yours,

​​​​​

P.S. Don't miss out on tomorrow's email... we talk about two hour deadlines!