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Positive Breakthroughs in Coaching You Might Be Missing, ep. 217

Chrissy Beltran sitting on a couch with a laptop on her legs. These words are on the top "Positive Breakthroughs in Coaching You Might Be Missing".

This episode is sponsored by Kind Cotton


We’re back with Season 6 of the podcast, and I’m so excited!

At the end of last season, I sent out a survey asking you what you want me to cover on the show. I read everything and got a lot of valuable information from all of you. I’ve been busy planning episodes that will meet the needs you have right now!

We’re going to kick off Season 6 with a new series about loving your work with a good coaching mindset. It’s a topic we’ve talked about before, but this time, we’re going to look at it through the lens of how we can use our coaching mindset to help us love our work, because, let’s face it, sometimes it’s hard to love it.

So in this series, we’re going to think about our work in a different way, with a different type of mindset that will carry us throughout the year. I know you’re going to love these episodes, and I’m thrilled to share them with you.

Positive Breakthroughs in Coaching You Might Be Missing

In today’s episode, we’re talking all about positive breakthroughs in coaching that you might be missing. As instructional coaches, we are expected to get a lot done. It’s a heavy burden! We deal with so much that sometimes we don’t see all the good stuff happening around us. We want big changes fast, but that’s not really how growth happens. We’re not going to get a complete turnaround in a short amount of time.

When I started coaching, I worked at a school that needed to make a lot of changes to grow. While there were things happening every day, I didn’t always see the small changes, because I was so caught up in seeing what still needed to change. I was looking for big things. What I realized over time was that we’re not going to see those big things right away. I needed to look for the slow, steady things that signaled we were heading in the right direction.

Coaching Wins That You Might Overlook

In this episode, we’re looking at things to consider that are actually positive breakthroughs from your coaching work. These are things you might be missing because you’re looking only for the big stuff.

The first positive breakthrough you might be missing is when teachers ask you questions. Even if it sounds like a negative in the moment, it’s giving you the opportunity to see inside their brain and understand what’s keeping them from trying something. If we can partner with them to work through and solve it, then maybe they will try it out.

Another win you might be missing is when teachers show up consistently to meetings. They’re not “forgetting” about them or showing up unprepared. If they’re showing up on time and with the stuff they need to do the work, that’s a win! The first step to getting people to be productive at meetings is getting them to show up!

The next positive breakthrough you might be overlooking is more subtle. I want you to listen to your teachers talk about the work they’re doing as they’re planning, reviewing data, and going through PD. Listen to the words and academic vocabulary they’re using when talking to each other. If they are aligning their vocabulary to talk about teaching and learning, that’s a victory! Communication is one of the biggest challenges when getting teachers to work together. If they are speaking in a common language, celebrate!

The last breakthrough I’m going to share is when teachers are happy to try new things. When teachers are excited to try something out, it means they’re probably going to try it in their classrooms, they might talk about it with a partner, and you can have a follow-up conversation about how it went. If someone is willing to try something out, don’t dismiss it. Instead, use it as your opportunity to turn it into coaching work. Let them know you’re there for them!

Acknowledging Positive Breakthroughs in Coaching

Instructional coaches often get really down on themselves about things that didn’t go well. We need to reframe these “failures” as opportunities to learn and grow. It’s a chance for us to change our brains. We can think about the opportunity we now have to change our response and change the way our coaching works. Ask yourself, what’s the opportunity?

For example, maybe you modeled a lesson and it didn’t go so well. Instead of beating yourself up, reframe it. You showed up and presented the lesson. You did it! Now you can reflect and make the next time better. It’s an opportunity to improve and you cannot make it better unless you try it first.

When a teacher comes and tells you they’re upset with you, it stinks. It’s happened to me and it wasn’t fun. I felt pretty terrible. No one likes to hear that someone is angry with them. But the good thing is, they told you. They are giving you the chance to fix it.

Another opportunity is when teachers ask, “What do you do here?”. This may feel like a negative but you can turn it around and create clarity around your role.

The last one I’ll share is when teachers complain that PLCs are pointless. It can feel harsh to hear this especially if you put a lot of time into your PLCs. But the opportunity you have is to ask for their input on how to make them more effective.

Instead of feeling terrible and beating yourself up, ask yourself: what opportunities do I have to make this better? All of these complaints are an opportunity to bring people in by listening, supporting, clarifying, and making things work better. These are opportunities to reflect and grow. I hope you can take this and use it to reframe your coaching work.

Finding Joy in Your Personal and Professional Life

I recently came across an IG post from Professor Marina Cooley. What she does is interview people about their hobbies, then she goes and learns how to do it. I really love it because it prioritizes and legitimizes having a hobby.

Humans need hobbies. We need to do things we like. We can find value and joy in our work but we need to do things for ourselves. As a busy coach, I know it can be hard to find the time, but find a hobby and prioritize it. If you have something you enjoy in your personal life, you won’t feel like your work life is sucking all the life out of you.

My hobby is cross stitch. It’s something I enjoy but haven’t always made time for. Recently I’ve been doing it more and I really enjoy the time I spend on it. I’m even making myself a gift!

This season, I’m going to be asking all of my guests to tell us their hobbies. I want to introduce coaches to different things they can try. So be sure to join me for that!

And make sure you listen to this episode so you can hear all about positive breakthroughs in coaching that you might be missing. You can listen to this episode using the player below, or wherever you get your podcast. Check it out now.

Topics and Questions Discussed in Episode 217 – Positive Breakthroughs in Coaching You Might Be Missing

  • Challenges and obstacles in coaching work
  • Positive breakthroughs in coaching you might be missing
  • Recognizing and celebrating small wins
  • Reframing “failures” as opportunities to learn and grow
  • Encouraging teachers to try new things
  • Developing a positive coaching mindset
  • Finding hobbies that bring you joy

This episode is sponsored by Kind Cotton. Kind Cotton donates books to kids with the proceeds from every purchase.

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Podcast produced by Fernie Ceniceros

Positive Breakthroughs in Coaching You Might Be Missing, ep. 217, Instructional Coaching with Ms. B Podcast

Chrissy Beltran 00:01
Hey, Coach, I can’t wait to share this amazing business with you. Kind cotton is a small clothing company started by a former kindergarten teacher and her husband to help increase children’s access to books. For every item purchased, they donate a book to a child. To date, they have donated over 174,000 books. All of their items are unique, and you’ll find so many T shirts, hoodies and fun, meaningful accessories too. They make great gifts. I purchased the inclusive books tote bag as a Christmas present, and my friend loved it. Head to kind cotton.com and check out their website full of beautiful, kind messages for yourself or for a friend.

Chrissy Beltran 00:41
Welcome to instructional coaching with MS B, where we believe that every teacher deserves a coach, and every coach does too. I’m Chrissy Beltran, an elementary teacher who became a coach, and I had to create my own coaching program that worked now. I teach coaches how to design their coaching programs, build a school wide action plan and use differentiated strategies to support teachers. Plus, I’ve got a special spot in my heart for literacy coaches. Now let’s dig into the episode.

Chrissy Beltran 01:05
Hey coach, and welcome to episode 217, this is the start of season six of instructional coaching with Miss B. I has been doing this for a long time, and if you’ve been around since the beginning, thank you. And if you’re new, thank you. If you join me somewhere in between, thank you too, because I love to share about instructional coaching with people who are trying to do the hard work of coaching, and I believe this season is going to be so good, I have sent out the survey. I got the information. I read everything that you guys are asking questions about, and I’m planning the episodes that are going to meet the needs that you’re having right now, and most of them are needs that coaches have had since the dawn of coaching. So I’m really excited to plan these special episodes for you this season based on your feedback and the areas you’d like to grow in, and I just know that these are going to hit home and answer your coaching questions the first you know, I do. I love to do my little mini series on the podcast. I started doing that a few seasons ago, and I just love it. It helps me plan the episodes better, but I think it also helps us dig into ideas in different ways and from different lenses, right? So the one we’re talking about today, we’re starting the series about loving your work with a strong coaching mindset. And I’ve talked about coaching mindset in the past. I’ve had some guests to speak about it, but I think that the the lens that I want to use to look at this topic over the next four episodes that in you know, this month is going to be all about this topic is how we can use our coaching mindset to help us love our work, because it’s hard to love our work sometimes, right? We we face so many challenges. We face so many obstacles. We deal with people who aren’t excited about us and don’t want us around and don’t hesitate to let us know that we are asked to do impossible things, we are carrying the burden sometimes of feeling like our work is so important because it is, and it’s so urgent because it is. It’s about kids and their lives that they’re going to be able to build or not. And we feel all of the weight of this, right? We feel we carry all of this. And so how can we think about our work in a different way, with a different kind of mindset that will carry us throughout the year? So I’m really excited to share all of these episodes that I have. I have really good topics planned. Next week. I have a guest to talk about developing a Positive Coaching mindset. We’re going to dig into setting some good goals that we can feel positive about and and and actually work towards accomplishing them. So we feel good about it, and we’re going to have a fun episode that I am super excited to share with you all about Ted lasso. And if you do not, if you’ve not watched Ted lasso, that’s okay. You don’t have to have watched it to get a lot out of this episode, because that man is a coaching, leadership gold mine. So no, he’s not a real person. If you watch a show, he’s not a real person. It’s a TV show, but you’re gonna love it.

Chrissy Beltran 04:07
So today’s episode is about positive breakthroughs in coaching that you might be missing. And I wanted to share about this because I realized that as coaches like I said, we carry all this burden. We carry all the weight sometimes, and we are dealing with so many things that sometimes we don’t see the good stuff. We are looking for 180 we are looking for a complete turnaround, and we’re not going to get a complete turnaround in a short amount of time. It’s not going to happen for us, because that’s not reality. That’s not how change happens. That’s not how growth happens, that’s not how people learn. And so as we are trying to work with people, we are helping them learn things, we are helping them grow. We are helping them try something different. And of course, they’re not excited about it all the time, and then we can get disenchanted. We look at test scores, we don’t see the improvement. We look at the behavior management, we’re like, oh, it’s we’re still doing this. We’re still sending kids into the hall. We’re still, you know, isolating kids. We’re like, what are we doing? And we see all the things that might seem like what we’re doing is not working. I worked at a school when I started out as coach that a lot of change needed to happen, and there were a lot of things in place that were not great for kids, and then also were not great for teachers. It kind of kept them from learning and trying new things. And so watching that change, while there were things happening constantly every day, I didn’t always see it, because I was so caught up in we’re still doing this, we’re still doing that, and I wasn’t looking for the small things. I was looking for the big things. And we’re not going to see those big things right away. So then what do we do? What do we look at to realize what’s really happening? What information can tell us that we’re making a difference, even if it seems very slow, we know Slow and steady wins a race, okay, but we need to know that we’re headed in the right direction, right? So I have a few factors that I want you to consider that I’m going to share about in the episode today that are actually positive breakthroughs for your coaching work that you might be missing. You’re overlooking these small things because you’re looking for the big things. Okay, the first one might seem sometimes it actually feels like the opposite. It feels like it’s not a good thing, right? But when teachers ask you questions, it’s actually a good thing. If a teacher, instead of saying, No, I’m not doing that, pauses and says, But what about this? But what about that? What about this? They are showing you the inside of their brain. They’re saying this is what’s keeping me from trying, that I am afraid of this thing. I am worried it’s not going to work. I am worried that I am not equipped to handle it or to do it in the way that it needs to be done. What if all these what ifs are what’s in my brain? They’re my hurdle. They’re keeping me back. I am sharing them with you. If you can help me work through them, maybe I can try this thing. A teacher asking you a question, even if it sounds like a negative thing in that moment, it’s giving you the opportunity to see inside their brain. You are looking into whatever hurdles they are sharing, and you can go, Ah, now I Okay, you’re right. What about this? We don’t have this. What are we going to do? I can help you figure that out. I can be a partner and work alongside you and help you solve this problem. I couldn’t do it if I didn’t know what was going on in there. So thank you for sharing that with me. That is something that you might be overlooking, because it can actually feel like

Chrissy Beltran 07:41
icky, right? Whenever a teacher asks you those kinds of questions, another thing that’s actually really positive that you might see as a positive, you might not realize how big of a deal it is. Is it when teachers ask you questions sincerely, because they want to know, they just want to know. They want to know what they’re supposed to do about certain situations they are unsure about certain directives or how to make something happen. When a teacher is asking you a question, celebrate. They have come to you. You have been deemed as somebody who can help them figure it out, and that is awesome. So if a teacher asks you a question, don’t go, Ugh. One more thing I have to figure out. Don’t go, Ugh. They’re just complaining about everything. Oh, they just criticize all no stop and say, Yes, I did it. They came to me, good job on you making yourself a person that they believe they can go to the second thing that I’m going to share with you, it’s one of the most frustrating things for me, when teachers lose documents? Okay? Drive me bonkers. So if teachers are not losing as many documents, it’s a win. Why do teachers lose stuff? Well, some people are super disorganized, right? But the truth of the matter is, they lose it because they don’t think it’s important you or maybe they’re just overwhelmed with too much stuff, that could be another thing, right? But either way, if, whether they’re overwhelmed with too much stuff, or they just don’t think it’s important, that thing that you’re giving them is not a huge priority, right? If they’re losing it, it’s because it was not the most precious thing with in the midst of all the things that they have. It was not the number one thing you need to worry about. So it’s not important. It’s not taking up brain space. It’s not going to take up their organizational space either, if teachers are not losing those documents that you’ve provided for them. And I know what that’s like, because I used to have to save everything to make sure, because I knew somebody was going to come back and ask me for another copy. If they’re not doing that as much good for you, that’s a win. That means that they are actually valuing something enough to hold on to it. Are they using it? I don’t know. Baby steps. Baby step people, if they are not losing it, that is a win. They invested some kind of energy into keeping it in a spot where they will know where it is. And that is a win. Yeah. So here’s another one you might not notice because it’s just considered it’s just like the norm, right? Teachers are not showing up late to meetings as often. They’re not forgetting meetings. I’m doing air quotes. If you are listening to the podcast, teachers are forgetting me. Sometimes they forget, sometimes they really don’t, and they’re not showing up unprepared. If they are showing up closer to on time, if they are showing up with the stuff that they need to do the work of that meeting, and if they are actually remembering and showing up to the meeting, that’s a win. Whenever you are trying to set up new systems, such as, let’s say, weekly PLC meetings, or something that teachers have not actually done before and haven’t been held accountable for it is a bear. It is a slow process, and teachers. The first step to getting people to be productive at meetings is to get them to show up. You are building the habit of people showing up. You can make the most out of the meetings over time, but at first, you gotta get them in the room. If you are getting people in that room and they are bringing what they’re supposed to bring, that’s a win. Chalk one up guys. That is half the battle. The work you do in the meeting can grow, but it can’t grow if they don’t show up. So if you’re getting people to show up to things good for you. If you had three people show up for a voluntary PD, three people, that’s three teachers, think about how many kids they have in their classroom and how many kids they will have in their classroom every year to the end of their careers. That’s a lot of kids you could have impacted with that one PD opportunity. So three people showed up and you wanted 20. I get it. It’s frustrating. It’s a bummer. You can offer that PD another time or through another another method of offer, right of whether you do a virtual something or record something and send it out. But if you had people show up in person, that is a win, even if it was didn’t feel like that many people, even if it’s the ones that are always on board with everything awesome, they’re on board with you. You don’t want those people to turn you away. If the people who are always on board with everything. Are turning you away. You got problems, right? If people are showing up, good for you. It’s a win. This one is a little bit more subtle, and you might not have noticed it because it it happens so gradually. But I want you to listen to your teachers talk about the work they’re doing. Listen to them talk about what they’re doing as they’re planning together, as they’re looking at data, as they’re going through PD. Listen to the verbiage and academic vocabulary they’re using if your teachers, over time, are aligning their vocabulary to talk about teaching and learning, and that includes academic vocabulary kids need to know, and also teacher talk right if they are aligning these things, that is a win. One of the biggest challenges that a school faces whenever they start getting teachers together to do work together, but really have not before, is communicating. They do not communicate teachers who have been on their own to do their own thing for a long time, they don’t talk to each other. They don’t use the same words, because they literally don’t even know what words the other person would use to call something. One of the first stories that I one of the stories that I tell a lot, is my first PLC meeting that I ever did with one grade level. We were all talking about lesson planning. That was what the purpose of that meeting was. Was kind of identifying the components that were components that we’re going to go in our plans, and figuring out what, what each one was going to look like. And one teacher goes, I don’t know what words, what’s word study? I don’t know what that is. What what do we what is that like spelling? Or what is that? That question told me a lot, right? That they did not have one word to call how we read word like decoding. They didn’t have a category for that specific kind of work, for phonemic awareness and phonological awareness and phonics. They didn’t have anywhere for that to go. And the teacher just thought was about spelling and not also about decoding skills, right? Not just encoding the decoding. And so I was like, okay, so we need to backtrack and kind of figure out what’s going to go in this block of the day, because teachers are unsure about about teaching kids to read words. This is up for elementary but they still need to learn how to read words, right? I mean this, we’re seeing morphology in this time they were they did not have access to that word, to that phrase. And so that told me a lot. Over time, teachers became more comfortable with what could go in different components of their day, and they were using the language to talk about their lesson plans, the kinds of work that they were doing. Where would this belong? How do we integrate things like that? And at first, that wasn’t in place. So that was a huge win. Once I started to see teachers using the language of teaching to talk with each other about their work, and teachers using academic vocabulary to talk about their work. One of the things that we see a lot, and I’ve said it before, use your context clues. Use your context clues. And kids are looking at teachers going, I don’t know what that is. Or what that means, or how to even do what you’re telling me to do. Whenever we have teachers using words that maybe they don’t know what they mean or they’re not accurate, then that’s that’s an issue. Over time, you will start to see that improve as you’re providing PLC meetings that are purposeful and help teachers learn new content, as you are giving teachers an opportunity to talk and hopefully write about their work as well during professional development. That is a win. If you’re seeing teachers using that aligned vocabulary to talk about teaching and learning, that’s a win. So I want you to listen to that really. Listen to your teachers. The last one I’m going to share, before we talk about different kind of piece, is the teachers are happier to try things out

Chrissy Beltran 15:41
teachers who don’t want to try things out are not some of them are not afraid to tell you they’re not going to try it. Some of them hide that they’re not going to try it. They pretend they’re going to try it, then they don’t. But when teachers are excited to try something out that you know, you got them guys, if you have one teacher who’s like, oh my gosh, that’s so cool, you have got them where you want them. You’ve got them right there, in your clutches, in your grasp, because they are ready. If somebody is happy to try something out, then that means a few things. One, they’re probably going to try it out in their classroom. Two, they might talk about it with a partner. Three, you could ask him how it went and follow up and have a conversation. And that is coaching. So if somebody is happy to try something out, don’t dismiss that. Use that as your opportunity to turn that into future coaching work. If anybody says, Oh, that’s cool, or oh, that’s neat, or I never saw that before, go for it. That’s your opportunity to say, I’m I’m here for you. Can I come by? Can we plan this together? I cannot wait to do this with you. Bring your positive energy to that teacher, because they are, they also have positive energy. And together, you can do some cool stuff. That is a great opportunity. Don’t ignore even your most positive teachers being positive about something. They are the place for you to get your foot on the door if you’re stuck. So let’s talk about the next thing that we can do to acknowledge kind of positive breakthroughs in our coaching. We have to reframe failures as opportunities and that, I mean, I don’t want to call things failures, right? Because that’s so that’s like a period at the end of the sentence. But in this case, we can perceive these things as failures, and instead of reframing them as opportunities, we can get really down on ourselves and and really start to beat ourselves up about things that didn’t go well. So instead of doing that, I want you to look at these things that we maybe have looked at as failures and say, what’s the opportunity here? Ask yourself. I want that to be your own personal question that you ask yourself throughout the year, what’s the opportunity? What’s the opportunity here? There’s an opportunity here. I have to find it. If we can find opportunities, we can keep moving forward. So the first one that I have is an example, but maybe your first model lesson didn’t go well. You went to the classroom. It wasn’t so good. Wasn’t so good. You struggled to figure out behavior and classroom management in somebody else’s classroom. Raise your hand if that’s true for you, because, you know, my hands up. Okay, I struggled with that at first. Having to deal with somebody else’s behavior system or lack thereof was a real challenge for me. Maybe the kids did not respond to you. Teaching to me is not something you can do in 15 minutes. It’s you built this relationship and this way of communicating over time. So it’s weird to go into somebody’s room and just blast out a lesson, right? Maybe the teacher didn’t pay much attention. Maybe they had critique for you that’s happened to me once. Maybe they had something else that they thought was more important to be doing, such as grading all of those things. They can feel really daunting, and you can feel like a failure, right? But I want you to reframe it one you modeled the lesson good for you. You have one in your belt. The first time we do something, it’s not going to be great, it’s okay. That first lesson teaches you what to do next. So the opportunity that you have now is okay. I did a lesson now I have the opportunity to make it better. So I can really refine a process that helps me work with other teachers, or this one, you know, next time it’s an opportunity to make it better. You cannot make it better unless you try it first. With kids, we talk all the time about how they’re like, Well, I don’t know what to start with. I don’t have a good beginning. I don’t have this write something down. I can help you revise something. I can’t help you revise nothing. Once you try it, even if it doesn’t go well, you can make it better. That’s your opportunity. Another example is maybe a teacher tells you that they’re upset with you. Somebody comes to your room and tells you that they’re not happy with you. That stinks. I haven’t happened to me once I’ve shared about that on the podcast. It’s icky feeling. It is not fun. Makes you feel pretty terrible, really. I mean, none of nobody will. Like to hear that somebody’s angry at us, let alone a teacher we’ve been trying to help. But the good thing about this is they told you they didn’t just talk about you. And I know sometimes it’s like, can’t you just complain about me and not bring it to my attention? Because then I can ignore it. I get that. But if they are coming to you with a problem, they are giving you an opportunity to fix it. If you don’t hear from them, you have no opportunity to fix it. So take that as an opportunity. What’s the opportunity here? I can make it better. I can fix it. I can work with a teacher. I can figure out something that will hopefully improve our relationship. It’s an opportunity, even though it feels like a Mickey win. Another example is when some of your classroom data is lagging behind, right? We see our data, we’re like, okay, these four rooms, yes, yes, yes, these two rooms are still falling behind. What is going on? Right? That’s frustrating. It’s daunting. You’re like, I already did all this work to get these people here, and these people are not on board. What’s what’s the problem? The opportunity there is that you do have some classrooms that are doing well now you can focus on the ones that need you the most, and you can take some of those strengths that are going on in those classrooms that are doing well and have those teachers share with the ones who haven’t figured that piece out yet. It’s an opportunity to build collaboration. Now, teachers, looking at that data, won’t see it that way. They’re going to feel badly about their test scores. They’re going to feel like, Oh, what is I can’t believe my kids didn’t do well. You know, your kids did well, and it can be kind of resentful, but if we can work on the culture and change it to make it into something that is collaborative, we could say, Okay, your kids did well in this area. Can you show me what you did? You as a coach, you have the opportunity to do that. Every person in our school has something to share. If we can figure out what it is and get them to talk about it. It’s an opportunity to help teachers help each other and build team. Another opportunity that sounds like a really negative thing is when a teacher says, What do you do here? You like my voice. What do you do here? What do you do here anyway? That’s horrible. Somebody does that, but people do that, right? What do you do? I only had one person ask me that one time, and she knew what I did. She was trying to be a little bit snotty, okay? And so sometimes it can catch us off guard, right? We’re like, it’s just cheese. But it doesn’t help to be offended. The best thing we can do with people who are like, trying to be kind of snotty and say, what do you do here? Is to say, is to kind of take it and laugh loud, the way I look at it, this might not be great. I am laughing at the futile attempt to make me feel badly about my work. My work speaks to itself. So it’s funny that you think that would hurt my feelings. It doesn’t hurt my feelings. I am fine, and so that kind of makes me chuckle. It’s kind of like when somebody cuts you off on the street, and then they get right in front of you, and then they look at you, it’s like, what do you think you’re accomplishing in this moment? Do you feel better now? Okay, you don’t have to respond to it right in that kind of way, but what you do have is an opportunity to create clarity around your role. You can tell them, what do you do here? Oh, I will tell you what I do here. You know what I would love to work with you? Actually, I work with teachers, and you can be one of them, and you can see up close what I do. You have the opportunity to create clarity around your role, because whether they’re being sincere and asking what you do here, or they’re being snotty and asking what you do here, you’ve got an opportunity. There’s a motivation there that they’re asking you, right? You have an opportunity to clear that up. The last one I’m going to share about is one that I hear from a lot of coaches, which is teachers complain about PLC is being pointless. Pointless. PLC? Oh, that was pointless. What would what was even the point of that, right? And that, again, if you put a lot of effort into your PLC, it can feel harsh to hear that sort of thing, but the opportunity that you have is that you can now ask for their input on how to make them more effective. Now, obviously, sometimes you get feedback like, Well, can I make my copies? That’s what it would be. What’s what would be helpful to me? No, you cannot make your copies because the purpose of PLC is still the purpose, regardless of what you would like it to be, right? We are working together as a team to make teaching and learning better at this school. Making copies is a lovely thing that I get you would want to do, but that’s not going to achieve our purpose. So what can we do to make teaching and learning better together. How can we do that in our PLC? What are some adjustments we could make? Is there something that you would like to walk away with? It would be helpful to you? What are the problems that you’re having? What challenges are you having? Setting out a survey to ask about teachers, to us about teachers, about their PLC meetings. Is it not you’re taking advantage of that opportunity? A complaint became. An opportunity, if we can change our brains and think about what opportunity do I have here, instead of this person just gets my goat every time, and they do. We all have them. But if we can change our response to these things and think about the opportunity that we have instead of the sucker punch that we’re feeling in our stomach, we can change the way our coaching works, and we can bring these people in to our coaching, because that’s our job. They don’t just show up and they’re like, I’m in. I got it. I see what you’re trying to do here. I love it. Most people don’t do that. Some do. Most don’t. We have to bring them in. So all of these complaints. They’re an opportunity to bring people in by listening, by supporting, by clarifying and by making things work better. So those are the opportunities that we have. I hope that you can take this and kind of use it to reframe the work that you’re doing right now, because I get it’s daunting.

Chrissy Beltran 25:58
We’re hitting that we’re in the middle of that second semester like we’re pushing in there, and this time of year is, I feel like the fun part of the year is over every year, that’s what I used to say. Now, is that about is that a good, positive coaching mindset? It is not. It is not. But that was how I felt about it. So I had to be my own fun, because the fun stuff is over, right? The concerts are over. The you know, a lot of the crafts are over. The fun things you get to see. You know, we are hitting the real deal right here, and we are digging in and starting to do intervention in Saturday school and test camps and all of that stuff. So you have to be your own fun. You have to change your mindset and say, What opportunities do I have to make this great? And I know you can do it. One thing I’m doing to help you out, and it’s also to help me out, I came across a an Instagram account a while back where this person was interviewing people about their hobbies. Okay? And I was like, Well, that’s pretty cool, because for years, if you ask me what my hobby was, I was like, and I don’t do it anymore, basically, because I was, you know, Mama, little kids, busy, busy, busy. But I came across it’s her name is Marina Cooley, and her Instagram account is at prof Marina Cooley, and what she does is she interviews people about their hobbies and talks about like, what do you do? What’s your hobby? Teach me how to do it. And then she goes and learn how to do it. And it was like the coolest idea, because it created, it prioritized and made legitimate having a hobby. Because humans need hobbies. We need to do things we like to do. We can find value in our work. We can find joy in our work. We can love our jobs. But we need to make a hobby for ourselves, and sometimes it’s not the easiest place in your life to do that. So for a long time, my hobby was basically listening to audiobooks, which I did while I was doing dishes and cleaning and whatever, driving somewhere. But if you can find the space, make the space to prioritize doing something you enjoy, it can bring you so much more happiness in your life. And if you love your personal life, you are more likely to be happy in your work life, because you won’t feel like your work life is taking all the joy from you sucking all the life out of you, if you have positive things happening at home and at work, oh, you can be happy and content with what you’ve got. So what I’m going to do for every guest episode of the podcast is I’m going to ask them about what their hobbies are. My I’m making it my mission. It’s a side hustle, for sure, but it is important to me to introduce coaches to different things that they can do. Because people do cool stuff, people do pottery, people do kickboxing, people do crossword puzzles. People make things. People make a lot of say, I’m a maker. I’m a maker. I can’t not make stuff. Maybe you’re like that too, crafty people. You’re my people. I like to make things. And so my hobby that I have gotten back into with a vengeance, man I have come back, is cross stitching. And cross stitching, if you know what it is, ignore my terrible description. If you don’t know what it is, cross stitching is basically, when you have a piece of fabric, it’s got little holes in it, and then you use thread, it’s colorful thread, to make little, tiny x’s on the fabric. And those x’s are in a pattern to make a picture. Okay, so I, I used to do cross stitching when I was a kid. My mom taught me how to do it. I enjoyed it, and then I kind of dropped it, and then I did it a little bit more when my first was, you know, finally, getting a little bit older, I did a little bit more there, and then I had a second baby, and then now my youngest is three and a half. They’re pretty good sleepers. Thank God. Why did why would I say that out loud? I’ve changed it now, and I can do this every night pretty much. And so every night I make cross stitch things, and I love it, and I’ve made presents, and I’m going to make one for myself. I’m determined I never. Have done that, I’m going to do it, and I am really finding the joy in that hobby that I lost. So anyway, I know this is about coaching, but it is about being a human and loving your job. Because if you can love your life, you can love your job too. So I encourage you to find a hobby, something you do for yourself, that you like to do. It doesn’t have to make you money. Hobbies don’t make you money. Hobbies are fun. Hobbies give you joy while you’re doing them. And nobody can tell you it’s a dumb hobby, because it’s what gives you joy when you’re doing it. So I encourage you to listen to these episodes this season, to hear about all the different hobbies that people have, and when they don’t have a hobby, know that they’re probably in that place of life where sometimes it can be tricky to find the time, but I encourage you to find the time.

Chrissy Beltran 30:43
So couple things. I do have a really cool mini course that is for free. If you want to grab it, it’s buzzing with Miss b.com/jump start. And if you are having sort of an identity crisis right now about your coaching work, you’re like, why am I here? What am I doing? Is this the right place for me? Or what am I going to focus on? I feel like I’m just spinning my wheels, if you’re feeling like those things, I want you to grab it buzzing with ms b.com/jump start. It helps you refine your purpose, your goals, your personal statement, all of these things that are going to help you focus your work this year to become a really great coach and make change happen at your school. And if we know why we’re doing we have a purpose. People with a purpose, they’re happier. So if you have a purpose for your work, you’ll feel better about it. So check out that mini course. I know you’ll love it. You can also grab the startup course at buzzing with ms b.com/startup if you’re a new coach, this is a great course if you started mid year. It’ll walk you through what you need to do the first 20 days of your your coaching. It’s okay if you already started. You can come back to these things to really set yourself up for success the rest of the year and next year.

Chrissy Beltran 31:44
Next episode, I am talking with my guest, Todd Whitaker about developing a Positive Coaching mindset. And he’s a positive guy. He talks about how happy coaches view their work, what leadership can look like. I’m really excited to share that interview with you, and until then, happy coaching!

Chrissy Beltran 32:05
Now that you’ve got so much to think about, head over to buzzing with Miss b.com to grab some free downloads, become a VIB and check out the podcast show notes. Happy coaching!

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