Above all, challenge yourself (Cecile Springer)

Photo by Alicia Christin Gerald on Unsplash

Cecile Springer's full quote:

Above all, challenge yourself. You may well surprise yourself at what strengths you have, what you can accomplish.

My working life has been dominated by the need to challenge myself. Because I needed to move locations to meet those next challenges, it meant some collateral impact on my family that I do regret.

Serendipitously, in 1983 my path led from Auckland to New Plymouth. All of my initial job applications in 1982 had been to schools in Auckland because of my mother's health condition, and none were successful. Eventually, that lack of success meant widening my reach to include all of New Zealand. New Plymouth picked me, and I had to pick New Plymouth.

While there seismic events (marriage, a baby, my mother's death) eventually led me back to Auckland. By so doing, a pattern was established.

I have accomplished a lot via the challenges I've met along my path, but I sometimes wonder 'what if I'd stayed in New Plymouth and met challenges there for the last 40 odd years'. Cecile stayed in Pittsburgh all her life (she passed away last year) and managed it admirably.

Food for thought.

Expect problems and eat them for breakfast (Alfred A Montapert)

Photo by Karla Hernandez on Unsplash

My job is to solve interesting problems.

Today it was to juggle all the various threads of information about our graduation ceremony (to celebrate the successes of last year's senior students) into a format - a script, that I could understand and use tomorrow.

Time pressures add a layer of complexity to that problem as well.

Plus, I can't do this alone and so waiting for information to come and continually checking my own understanding and that of others can be tricky. Worthwhile. But tricky.

The other problem, of course, is also juggling all the other competing needs and demands of the day and, being a Thursday - report writing day, there are quite a few.

That was today. There will be a fresh set of problems to solve tomorrow.

In the mist dark figures move and twist (Iron Maiden)

Photo by Harman Abiwardani on Unsplash

Currently, a friend of mine is looking the beast in the eye.

My advice? Listen to Dan Rockwell on the subject. I think he's spot on:

• Create four options before choosing one path forward.
• Believe in your ability to learn, grow, and adapt.
• Remember times when you rose up and faced big challenges in the past.
• Respond to your fear of losing by developing strategies and taking aggressive action.  
• Think more about taking action than doing everything perfectly.
• Hang with men and women of valor. Listen to people with battle scars. Doers are better than dreamers when it comes to looking the beast in the eye.
• Worry more about the next play and less about winning.

Feel the fear and do it anyway. Don't overthink it. Just do it.

Something like that.

It’s so hot, looks like you have three beaks crow (Captain Beefheart)

Meh to 'challenges'.

Challenge is such an overworked word in educational circles - most times it's used as a synonym for 'problem': as in 'she's a challenging student' or 'we will be facing a few challenges next year' or ' implementing vertical deaning in such a short time will certainly be a challenge'.

It came into vogue to eliminate the negative connotations with 'problem', but as a weasel word it has just shifted the 'challenge' sideways - it also has negativity attached to it.

I think we need to reclaim the word and use it in a different, more positive way. 

After all, aren't we talking about daring ourselves to embrace something different or difficult?

Is there even a single word for that?

How about 'opportunity'? As in 'she's a teaching opportunity' or 'we will have some real opportunities for improving learning next year' or 'implementing vertical deaning in such a short time will certainly be a great opportunity'.

For challenges read opportunities - they bring out our best when they:

Inspire humility.

Motivate preparation.

Drive connection.

Fuel growth.

[I got those four from Dan Rockwell's Leadership Freak blog - I think they're perfect for that last vertical deaning thing, don't you?]

An opportunity provides a more straight forward pathway to innovation and I'm big on pathways and innovations.