Skip to main content

Attitude is Everything



What is the difference between people who are stagnant versus people who are growing? What is the difference between people who accomplish goals and people who are too afraid to even set them?

In observing teachers, leaders, students, and staff members in education over the last 15 years, I've noticed that people with a positive attitude get significantly further; further in professional achievements, further in building relationships, further in overall personal satisfaction.  


Positive people are ones who others are naturally attracted to.  They make you feel better by just being around them.  You leave them with hope and renewed determination.  On the other hand, negative people leave you feeling down, depressed, and hopeless.  Which would you rather be?  Which are you?

As Henry Ford said, "Whether you think you can, or think you can't, you're right."

The most successful teams I've seen are those that are made up of a mix of positive people and practical people.  They don't, however, put up with excessive negativity and complaining.  They understand that kind of behavior is toxic to team dynamics.  If your team is stuck in this rut, I'd like to suggest creating a list of norms together. Your team would review these norms before every meeting and gently steer people away from unwanted behavior by bringing attention back to the norms when needed.  Examples of norms are:  stay focused on current topic, be solution oriented, no put downs, and active participation by all.

I hope that in my interactions you all, you would consider my attitude to be a positive one.  I try very hard, and will continue to try to model seeing the bright side of things and having a "can do" attitude. I attempt to embody this quote by Bruce Lee, "You have choice, you are master of your attitude.  Choose the positive, the constructive.  Optimism is a faith that leads to success."

Until next time... let your light shine!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Digital Leadership - Chapter 11: Discovering Opportunity

I just joined the Castleberry ISD team as ELA Director a week and a few days ago, so I’m a little behind in the Digital Leadership game.  I’m going to dive right in and absorb everything I can.  Unfortunately, in my last positions and districts all things technology were mostly buzz words with no real training about how to use it best.  That being said, I am thankful to start learning how to really be involved in digital leadership and am excited about the opportunity to learn with my colleagues. My first task is to read chapter 11 of Digital Leadership by Eric Sheninger and blog about it.   This is my first blog, so be kind to me!   The title of the chapter is “Discovering Opportunity” and the first thing I did was flip through to see what the subtitles.   I found things like, “strategic partnerships”, “university partnerships”, “intraschool partnerships”, and “corporate/community partnerships”. Immediately I made a connection to the communit...
3 comments
Read more

Teaching the Writer vs Teaching the Composition

I have always felt very strongly about teaching students skills that they will actually use in the real world and helping them to develop into a wonderfully well-rounded person.  Now that I'm a mom of a two year old, my feelings about that have intensified. In teaching young students, my number one goal is creating a literate, thinking person; one who can read and write for a variety of purposes, including enjoyment.  Somehow, in our endeavors to reach certain state and national standards we have lost sight of that. Although we have testing standards we have to reach, that must remain the secondary goal for us as we plan instruction.  We must first foster a love for reading and writing and develop deep comprehension and thinking in each.  After that is established, we can show our students to how the concepts and strategies we have taught them will translate into a test.  We can teach them the "test genre", but only after we have established a solid fou...
Post a Comment
Read more

3 Important Aspects of Independent Reading

In Elementary classes this year, we have made Read to Self (Independent Reading) a priority.  We know from decades of research that one of the simplest and most effective way to increase reading skills is to increase the amount of time students spend reading.  We have no control of how much our students read at home, but we are able to give them opportunities to read at school. In grades Kindergarten through 5th grade, students are building stamina in independent reading.  By the time students are in the middle of third grade, we hope to have them really engaged in independent reading for 20 minutes per day.  I hope that in Middle School and High School we can find creative ways to carve out independent reading time as well. Time Matters  Check this graphic out to see the correlation between the minutes a student reads and his/her achievement on standardized tests:                         ...
2 comments
Read more