Passion.

Parking spots are rare to find, the quad is filled with activity… and I find myself getting less work done due to all the student workers stopping by my desk.  Fall is HERE.   I could not be more excited for this school year to begin for many reasons.  For our staff, this past year was a tough one.  It was truly one of the most challenging times in my career to date and even though I am well aware I will endure more of these (and maybe worse ones), I am happy to be moving forward.

This was a year filled with constant negativity and stress that I could not seem to get away from and that sometimes I myself had a part in creating.   I think I can speak for our whole staff when I say that we are excited to leave all of that behind and start fresh.  That is what I always loved about school, there was always an new semester, new year, new class, new opportunities to say “Okay, let’s make some changes and try again”.

I found myself many times this year wondering if  I was in the wrong profession, which is funny because I have loved this profession and it’s people from the moment I started.   But my job became more than just serving students.  It  became more about managing people, managing conflict, managing reports I didn’t understand, managing data I didn’t understand and managing my overflowing email inbox and constant needs of others around me.  For a girl who doesn’t like to drink much, I have gone through my fair share of wine bottles these last 12 months.   I feel as though I let others down this year, not on purpose…but because I had trouble balancing all these priorities that were so new to me.  Some call this the crux of middle management.

I just recently read a book called “The Seed”,  by Jon Gordon and I happened to read it at the EXACT time in my life that I needed it.  Don’t you love it when that happens?  The premise of the book is that, often times when we are faced with challenges, resistance, or maybe when we don’t feel the fire any more in our job…our first instinct is to leave, change jobs…clearly we would be happier somewhere else right?  Sometimes that might be the case, but in other times we give up too soon.  We give up when things get tough and we give up when we are about to face things that will help us GROW in our lives, careers and relationships.

We look for happiness, purpose and passion in other places and forget that it lives inside of us!  Accessible at all times!  I have not been feeling the passion this year within my job because I LET it die, but I have the power to bring it back.  I  have the power to get excited for all these new roles I get to play and I have to remember that all these roles DO ultimately service the students whom I care so much about.  All these years when I wished so bad I could be at a level to make decisions and make a bigger impact on the students we serve and here I am in that position…and I am complaining that it is too hard?!  Shame on me.

I have had some really hard lessons in the past months.   And in the midst of learning these lessons I had thoughts like…

“I can’t take this anymore”

“I am not cut out to be a leader”

“It must be this place”

“I would be better off somewhere else”

“Maybe I can go work at Starbucks instead”

I am glad I let those thoughts pass.  Because I know our growing process is not always pretty, we won’t always like it, but sometimes we just have to push through it to the end.   And let me tell you,  doing some reflecting, reading that book and then coming back and spending the last few weeks with my new team of Spartan Ambassadors (one of my FAVORITE parts of my job) has given me the extra boost I needed to bring that passion back.  I am lucky to work at such a wonderful school with so many opportunities and that I have the ability work closely with some of the coolest students in the world (no really look at them they are awesome).

Before you think you will be happier somewhere else, take a really deep look inside before you make that decision.  You just might have everything you need right in front of you and need a little re-igniting of your passion fire again.  Stay blessed in the mess 🙂