TL;DR:

• Do you count the days to the weekend?
• Embrace each and every day, not just the weekend.
• Schedule fun during the week; don’t save it all for the weekend!
• Has your “why” changed? Check in with yourself and re-evaluate why you do what you do.
• Monitor your energy levels.

Building Momentum During Your Week: Waiting for the Weekend

Picture this: It’s Monday morning. You pull into the school parking lot. You check the mirror to make sure you look put together (it’s Monday morning after all). You put your lanyard on with your badge. You walk into your classroom, look at your schedule, and the next thought is…I can’t wait for the weekend. 

This scene isn’t all that difficult for me to picture, because I used to live it.  Day in and day out, this was my morning every day arriving to work. I spent each moment counting down to the weekends. I craved that time. I put all my energy into waiting for those two special days each week.  But no matter how much I looked forward to the weekends, they never ended up fulfilling me in the way that I needed. 

Riding the Merry-Go-Round

This is what I refer to as living on the merry-go-round wheel of life. You do different things each day, but all the while, you are simply going up and down without actually going anywhere. Everything is the same, and each day becomes a groundhog’s version of the day (or the week before).  I don’t know about you, but this is not how I envision living my life. Yet, it was my reality for so many years.

So you may be wondering, what changed? How did I hop off the merry-go-round and start to experience the whole park? I took control of the momentum I was building each week. And here’s how I did it: 

I stopped living for the weekend. 

And instead, I started to embrace each day. Now, it’s important to note that this took time. Books such as The Power of Now by Eckart Tolle and The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer helped me to understand the reason being present is essential. Once I had a better understanding of what being present meant, and why it was important, I started to put it into practice. I paid attention to the thoughts I was having and I started to change those thoughts when I found myself focusing on the future instead of the present moment. I kept a post-it on my desk at work that said, “focus on this moment,” which helped to re-center me back if and when my thoughts started to drift to the upcoming weekend.

One other action I took to help me live in the present is I started to schedule fun events during the week. So often we plan things for self-care, or just for fun on the weekends. But why not schedule a dinner out with your friends on a Tuesday? Why not grab a coffee on a Thursday? We get to choose these activities and we get to choose when we do them. When I stopped living for the weekend, I gained five days back to truly live my life which helped to keep my energy and momentum moving during each week. 

I re-defined my WHY.

We often hear about the importance of knowing our why, but for me, it was more important that I give myself permission to honor that my why had changed. For so long, I held onto my initial why, the why that led me into education. The problem with that though is that five years in, eight years in, and ten years in, I wasn’t the same educator that I was when I first started. My why had shifted and as I found myself holding onto my old why. I felt stuck with no ability to move forward. My momentum had literally stopped because I was living in the past.

Once I gave myself permission to honor how my why had changed, I felt renewed. I felt alive again. I felt my purpose and passion guiding the way. And I firmly believe that with purpose and passion at the forefront, your momentum will guide you without hesitation.

I committed to energy check-ins each day.

If you desire to have more energy, to keep your momentum going, it’s essential that you know where your energy levels are during the day. As educators, we are so used to assessing our students. We use summative and formative assessments throughout our weeks to check for understanding, mastery, or areas that need to be targeted. Yet, I don’t believe we do the same things for ourselves. By checking in with our energy during the week, we can see how we are feeling in real-time. We can make adjustments to our day, identify what habits may need to be changed, and prioritize the aligned action we can take to ensure our momentum is moving in the direction we desire most. 

It gets to be Simple & Easy!

Building your momentum doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, like so many things, I believe it should be simple and easy. If it’s not, guess what? We won’t do it! In order to change the actions we take each day (i.e. our behavior), the new behaviors need to be quicker, simpler, and more efficient at meeting our needs. Once we identify the actions we are ready to take, we can put them into practice.

Remember, so much of this work is a daily practice. It’s not a one-and-done. It’s something we get the opportunity to practice and refine each and every day. The commitment we make to ourselves to stay present, honor each moment, and live intentionally will help us to create momentum that will guide us through each week. Start small, keep it simple, and pick one way YOU will build your momentum this week. It’s time to make it happen. Ready, set, let’s GO! 

About Lindsay Titus

Lindsay Titus is a K-12 Behavior Specialist with a license in behavior analysis. As a Board Certified Behavior Analyst, Lindsay coaches and trains educators on the study of behavior and how to implement evidence-based behavior principles in simple and easy ways! With experience as a classroom special education teacher, and behavior specialist in public schools, residential placement, and private settings, Lindsay enjoys working with all educators looking to reignite their passion for education, connect with all students, and conquer challenging behavior in any classroom setting.