SBLs are used to processing a lot of information at high speed on multiple topics. In this article, Education Executive’s Laura Williams tells you how to strip things back, shut things down and find the space you need to focus on you
This month, with the weather getting brighter, we’ve been trying to look ahead and book some mini breaks to blow away the cobwebs of winter. Around this time last year, we went to Ireland and toured Wexford, Cork, Killarney and Enniskerry taking in some lovely sights and eating lots of delicious food. Literally, that’s all we did! Drive, walk, look, eat, drink and sleep. Bliss!
Every day, the only decisions we had to make were: What do we want to do? Where do we want to go? Where shall we eat? What next? There was no washing, no cleaning, no ‘what’s for tea?’, no appointments to make, no deadlines to keep, no expectations of any kind.
Just… what do I want to do right now?
I know that’s what holidays are for; time to strip all that noise out and enjoy just being for a while…but it got me thinking about how our day-to-day lives are driven by so many demands. Demands from other people, demands on our time, demands on our output… demands that perhaps don’t serve us and can and should be cut off so that we can increase our own bandwidth.
Our own wants and needs can get so drowned out by all the noise going on around us that sometimes, for longs periods, nothing of what we do is about us. Then we look up, tired and exhausted and realise that while everyone else is ok, we’re feeling well and truly burnt out.
One of my favourite quotes is by Yogi Berra – ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else.’
The very nature of the SBL role is so relentless, so intense, so pressured, that it’s easy to forget about the big picture – our own big picture.
Where are you going?
Where do you want to go? (And that might not be where you’re currently heading!)
How are you going to get there?
How can you reduce the noise and demands around you to get some space to figure it out?
I know it feels like things are weighing heavy right now and the climb uphill feels that bit steeper, but what can you shed to lighten your load? What can you say no to, what can you delegate or delay, what can you do to protect yourself and your time to not only set but focus on your own priorities?
Also, half-term is coming up so if you haven’t already – get some time off booked!
Whether it’s a few days away or just a day to yourself at home, give yourself something to look forward to where the biggest decision you’ll have to make is ‘what do I want to do?’
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