In this episode of the Counselor Chat, we are learning all about the Circle of Control, a fundamental concept that helps us differentiate between what we can and cannot influence in our lives.
Episode Highlights:
Understanding the Circle of Control:
- Overview of the Circle of Control and its relevance to both personal and professional life.
- Importance of acknowledging what is within our direct influence versus what we need to let go of.
Setting Boundaries:
- Practical tips on setting healthy boundaries with students, colleagues, and family to maintain work-life balance.
Time Management:
- Strategies for effective time management during the school day.
- Emphasizing the significance of prioritizing tasks and the empowerment of saying no.
Professional Development:
- Discussion on the importance of continued education and seeking professional growth opportunities.
Creating a Positive Environment:
- How to foster a positive atmosphere in both office and home settings.
- The impact of the physical and emotional environment on our professional output and personal well-being.
Relationship Building:
- Insights into building and nurturing relationships within the school and beyond.
Self-Care and Wellness:
- The significance of self-care and the eight dimensions of wellness.
Advocacy and Emotional Regulation:
- The role of school counselors in advocating for resources and policies.
- Techniques for managing personal emotions and seeking support when needed.
Accepting What We Can’t Control:
- Discussion on facing realities like policy changes, parental involvement, and student behavior that are beyond our control.
- Strategies to cope with and accept these limitations.
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Transcript
Carol: You're listening to the counselor chat podcast, a show for school counselors looking for easy to implement strategies, how to tips, collaboration, and a little spark of joy. I'm Carol Miller, your host. I'm a full time school counselor and the face behind counseling essentials. I'm all about creating simplified systems, data driven practices, and using creative approaches to engage students. If you're looking for a little inspiration to help you make a big impact on student growth and success in the right place, because we're better together. Ready to chat? Let's dive in.
Carol: Hi, everyone. It's Carol. Welcome back to another episode of Counselor chat. So glad that you're here with me today. And I thought we would spend some time talking about something. We talk to kids all the time about, but actually looking inwards at ourself. And what I'm talking about is the circle of control. How many times have you taught kids about the circle of control? You know, what they can control versus what they can't control and how they can incorporate it into their own lives. Well, although we help kids look at the circle of control, I think as school count as school counselors, we sometimes overlook it in our own lives. But really, it's essential for us to reflect on why and how we can apply this principle in our own lives. So are you ready to dive in now? The circle of control really reminds us that there are things that we have the power to influence and change, and there are things that are well beyond our control that, let's face it, we just have to learn to accept. So let's start by really looking at some examples that are things that fall into our control both at work and at home. The first one is really at setting boundaries. We can control our boundaries with students, colleagues, and even our own families to maintain healthy work life balance. You have the power and the control to not check your email on the weekends. You have the power to not put your school email on your phone. You are in control of who you give your phone number to and who you don't. And I know for me personally, I don't give my phone number to staff. I have a desk phone. And if they need to call me, they can call my desk phone because my phone is my personal property and I don't want to use that for work. I don't want it subpoenaed. I don't want to give my number to parents. I'm all in control of that. And that, for me, has set some really healthy boundaries. The next is, well, I want to go back to boundaries for a second. Phones are just one example of boundaries that we can set. We can set other boundaries in our lives, too, and that is leaving work on on time, leaving work and reminding ourselves to, hey, I'm done with work. I'm going to tune whatever happened in the day off and I'm going to focus on something else. So it's really about being mindful. It's also about maybe remembering to set that boundary of having lunch and eating. So we do have to set those boundaries. We also have control over our time and how we manage our time. During the school day, we get to prioritize our tasks and it's up to us to really manage our time and to schedule it effectively. We have to remember that there's only so many hours in the day and that we can only get so many things done and that it's okay if not everything on our to do list gets crossed off. I used to always have a ton of to do lists and now I'm just, what gets done gets done in the course of the day. And I look back and I think, yep, got that done. It feels good. So we have definitely, we have the power and the control over our time for a lot of us. We also have the control over our own schedules, so we can decide whether or not to schedule that lunch, how many groups that we're going to schedule in the course of the, of the day, the students that we're going to see. So we have control over that. We also have control over our professional development. Whether we attend, it's up to us to attend workshops or conferences or pursue some other graduate classes or education. And that's going to enhance our skills as a counselor. It could also help move us up on the pay scale if we are taking graduate level courses and we need so many credits to move up on the pay scale. And so we are in control of that. A few years ago, I really wanted to go to ASca and my school was not going to send me. They did not send people to any types of professional development. If you wanted to do professional development, that cost and that burden, that was up to you. And so I decided, hey, I really want to go. I think that will be really good for me. I think it'll energize me. And I made some sacrifices. I sold stuff online. I got rid of extra stuff that I didn't need. I was on ebay a lot. I had this set of dishes that I had inherited from my mom that I was like, I don't think I've ever taken them out of the box. And I sold them and a few other things and sweaters and things that I never wore. And I paid for a trip to Asca. And you know what? It was one of the best experiences that I ever had. It was well worth the sacrifices, the time and effort that I took to go and do it. We also are in control of creating a positive environment, whether it's our, our office space or our home environment. We can control that atmosphere by really fostering positivity and encouragement. We hang the posters up, we decorate, we make it what it is. We decide what kind of attitude we're going to bring to that space. And I think it's really important to think about how you want that space to feel, how you want that environment to reflect you. And so you have to go into it thinking, the energy I bring is going to be the energy that I receive back. You are also in control of building relationships. We have the ability to initiate and nurture really meaningful relationships with students, with parents, with colleagues, with our friends. There have been times where I know, especially when I was a newer parent, that I really lacked some friendships. So I made it a point of joining opportunities where I could meet other young moms and so that I would have things to do with my kids and that while the kids were playing, that I could have somebody to talk to. We are in control of that. We initiate that. We nurture those. And whether it's outside in our homes or if it's inside the school, it's really up to us to build the relationships that we want and to foster the relationships that we think are important. Another thing that we have control over is our self care practices. And I know I don't really like the word self care, but it really is the dimensions of wellness. I like to think of the eight dimensions of wellness and how we nurture each of those dimensions, whether it's our physical wellness or our mental wellness, our spiritual wellness, our environmental wellness. We need to really take care of that. Part of that for me has been really, I know for a period of my life. When I was first starting, and I started when I was a high school counselor, my husband and I actually thought, hey, we're going to have a family and I'm going to be really open and raw here. We had some problems in that department and I had to go to some fertility experts, and if you know anything about that, they are really expensive, especially when you have to try and try and try and try yet again. And so with that, it really took a huge hunk of our savings, plus we took out loans for that. We put ourselves in some major debt. Coupled with I then had. Once it started to work, I had three kids under two, which meant I couldn't use private daycare. And I had to bring them to a daycare center, which was a lot of money. And then when we looked at it, my husband and I said, hey, maybe one of us should stay home. And because I was so worried about not being able to get another job because the economy wasn't great and there weren't a lot of jobs for school counselors, my husband, who was an engineer, said, I'll stay home. We make about the same, so I'll stay home with the kids. And being that sole provider was, it was hard. And so we had to really practice some financial wellness to pay off the debt and to get ourselves in a good spot and to even really start thinking about one day we might want to retire, one day you might want to send our kids to school. And so we had to make even some other sacrifices to save some money and put it in, like the 529 plans and things like that. But those are things that we have control over. We also, my friends, have to, we have control over our advocacy. We can advocate for our resources, our support systems, and really policies that we think are going to benefit our students and our schools. We have control over using our voice to enact positive change. So we have control over that. And I said this a little bit earlier with professional development, but it also is true for professional growth. We have to look for opportunities for advancement if that's what we want. If we want to grow in our profession and we want to look at other opportunities, it's up to us to take on those roles. For me, that professional growth was getting involved in Nisca, the New York State School Counselor association, and taking on leadership roles there. I wanted to see what it was like. I wanted to help advance the profession, and I wanted to grow myself. And so sometimes we have to seek out and participate in those opportunities. We also are in control of our own emotional regulation. We have to practice strategies to manage our emotions as well. We need to seek support from supervisors or peer, especially support. When we are encountering some really challenging situations ourselves. And if the whole work life balance thing seems so overwhelming or maybe we've experienced some extreme grief or something else is going on in our lives, sometimes we have to seek support. We are in control of finding a counselor for ourselves. And so all of these things, my friends, we are in control of now there, although we are in control of all these things, it's equally important to acknowledge there are things that lie beyond our control, beyond our influence. The weather. We can't control the weather. A couple years ago, when the Erie Canal flooded and it flooded the building that I worked in, I didn't have control over that. And I didn't have control over the flooding being so severe that we had to close the building. And I didn't have control that I had to be moved to a different building with different kids and different people and not having my own space. So we can't control that. We also can't control budget cuts. And let's face it, we're going into some times where funding decisions made at a higher administration level can really impact the resources available to our schools. We don't have control over that. And sometimes we have to do the job we're hired for and not always the job we're trained to do. And I know that's tough to hear because we want to advocate for ourselves and not having the extra things, but sometimes with budget cuts, we got to make some sacrifices, too. And there's sometimes beyond our control. We also can't control our parental involvement. We can create these awesome parent engagement opportunities. We can call parents, we can invite them in. We can try to have parent teacher conference, we can hold the conferences, but we can't control the level of involvement that parents have in their kids education. We just can't control that. I know. I wish I could, but I have to remember it's out of my control. We also can't control student behavior. And while we can provide guidance and support, we can't control how students choose to behave or how they respond to interventions. So when the teachers are coming to us and they are so frustrated they're not doing what they're supposed to do, we can't control that. Sometimes we can provide the tools, but we can't choose how they will respond. And it's okay to remind ourselves that. And it's also okay to remind ourselves that sometimes this behavior in the classroom, it's not our behavior to intervene with. Maybe it's the teachers and maybe it's their problem to figure out how to solve. Sometimes they definitely do need help. When the kid is throwing chairs across the classroom, we might have to step in and intervene because we might have to bring kids out of the classroom while the one is trying to be safe. So we don't have control over everything, but we do have control over some things. Not everything is an emergency. And I always like to tell my teachers, too, that even in an emergency room, when you go to the hospital, you have to wait. There's only a couple things that get you directly to the head of the line. And if our kids aren't there, you know, if they're not at the head of the line, you might have to wait a few minutes. And it's okay if the kid is sobbing. Sometimes they need to sob first before we can talk. My friends, it is testing season. And the other thing that we have no control over is state testing policies. We don't have any control over testing mandates or policies that are determined at our state level. And while we can prepare kids or teachers can prepare students, we have no control over those requirements. I know that there are some states that say if the kids, if they don't pass a test, they can't move on to the next grade level, which I personally think is completely crazy, but that is out of our control. It just is. And we can't control things like global events. We couldn't control COVID, we can't control economic downturns, we can't control political conflicts and the effects that they might have on our schools and our community. We have limited control over these occurrences. We also have no control over our colleagues actions. We can influence collaboration, we can influence teamwork, but we can't control the actions or the decisions of our colleagues. We can give them all the great advice in the world. We can ask them what support they need, but we can't. We can't make them do it. We can't make them try. We can just let them know. And sometimes we have to be able to ask them, what do you really need from us? Do you really need us to see the kid? Do you really need us to intervene so we don't have control over them? We also, my friends, we don't have control over family dynamics. We don't know what. Or we may know what our students are facing at home, but we don't always know all the challenges that our kids are facing at home. And we can't fix them. We can't change those dynamics. We can't always change those circumstances. How many times have you called CPS and nothing, or you felt like nothing was really done? We can't always change that. We can support the kids, but we have to remember their parents or their parents. We have no control over that. We also. We can't control technology failures. So the Internet, whether it goes out or the school programming system isn't working for the day there's an outage in that, or you go to use the copier and there's no paper, or the copier is broken. And, you know, you need this sheet copied 25 times for the kids in your class. But we don't have any control over that, my friends. It is what it is. And sometimes our best laid plans, they have to change. And we also, last but not least, we can't change other people's opinions of us. And while we can strive to build positive relationships, we can't control how others perceive us or judge us. And I know that we want everyone to love us. We want our faculty to love us. We want our students to love us. We want our admin to think that we are the greatest things that ever walked the earth. Sometimes they just don't. Just like we don't like everyone, we don't get along with everyone. We can't expect everyone to love us as well. And so we just have to remember it is what it is. So if they don't like us, they don't like us, somebody else does. I think if we can reflect on the circle of control, we can really remind ourselves where to focus our energy and our efforts, where they can really make a meaningful difference. By knowing what we can and cannot control, we really empower ourselves to navigate challenges with both resilience and grace, both in our professional roles and our personal lives. So, I love my friends that we talk all about this concept to kids in school, and we teach them, you know, what can you control? What can't you control? We use that tool as to help them reflect in their own lives. We have to be able to do the same things ourselves, because when we really start to embrace it ourselves, we really foster this culture of self awareness and growth within our community. Well, I hope that this was insightful. I hope that this was self reflective for you, and that it makes you think about things like, wow, maybe I do have a little bit more control in some of the things that I have that I'm doing, some of the things that I am doing in my program or in my life, or maybe I do have a little bit more control over this, and I should focus my energies here because I can control these things. And I know that I need to let go of the things over here on this side that I can't control. So just keep that in mind and let me know what you think. Let me know if there's other things that you feel that are in our control or out of our control. Maybe we can talk about this a little bit more. I'd love to hear what you think. Anyway, until next time, my friends, I hope you have a great week. Bye.
Carol: Thanks for listening to today's episode of Counselor Chat. All of the links I talked about can be found in the show notes and@counselingessentials.org podcast. Be sure to hit, follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast player. And if you would be so kind to leave a review, I'd really appreciate it.
Carol: Want to connect?
Carol: Send me a DM on Facebook or Instagram at counseling essentials until next time. Can't wait till we chat. Bye for now.
