103. Mid-Year Check-In: Are You on Track with Your Counseling Goals?

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, you're in the right place.

Because we're better together. Ready to chat. Let's dive in.

Carol: Hey there, school counselors. Welcome back to another episode of Counselor Chat. This is the podcast where we talk all things school counseling because let's be real, this job is wild and we all need a little support along the way.

For those of you that are joining me for the first time, I'm Carol Miller and today we are hitting pause for a mid year check in. Yep, we're at that point in the school year where the excitement of fresh planner pages has faded and the glow of new initiatives might be dimming.

And here's some real talk. You might feel like you're running on caffeine and just pure determination. Are you guys there with me right now?

So let's take a step back and ask ourselves this question.

Are you on track with your counseling goals? Or maybe even more importantly, do you even remember what your goals were? And I'm saying there's no judgment if you set them back in August and you haven't looked at them since, because trust me, I've been there.

But I think today we are going to reflect on progress. We're going to make some adjustments and we're going to talk about maybe refocusing, all without adding more stress to your plate.

Because if there's one thing you don't need, it's another to do list longer than the lunch line on pizza day. Are you guys ready to dive in? Come on. Here we go.

So first things first, how did we get here so fast? I mean, where did all the time go? We just started school and now we are past the midway mark.

What is going on? It really does. It feels like just yesterday we were setting up our offices, we were making such ambitious plans and we were thinking, this is the year I'm finally going to stay on top of my data.

But now,

well,

the school year is half over and we're just trying to figure out how it happens so quickly.

This is why I think a mid year check in is so important.

Because let's be honest, if we don't stop and reflect, we end up in survival mode. And when we're just trying to make it to June, we're going to miss opportunities to actually make an impact.

So grab a sticky note or two, your planner, or even just the notes app on your phone and let's do a really quick self check. Are you ready? Here's what I want you to do.

I want you to ask yourself,

what were my main goals for this year?

And if you have to dig through some old emails to find out what your goals were for the year, well, there's no shame in that. But what were your main goals for this year?

And then I want you to ask yourself what's actually working?

Because, come on, you have to give yourself some credit because there's something that you're really rocking right now. I know you're doing something well.

And after you talked about what's actually working, I want you to ask yourself,

what spends a struggle?

Maybe a lesson flop a groot never got off the ground or you're just buried under referrals.

I know for me, I've, I've come back to the office and I've said, well, that lesson needs to be redone. And I've kind of put it on the desk at the corner in my.

I gotta update this pile a little bit. And some of them are still sitting there.

And I have a referral system that I looked at the other day and I said,

how come my Google form, how come all the answers, all the referrals that I had from the beginning of the school year, how come they're all gone? What happened to my referral data?

Why is this just blank?

I don't know where it went, my friends. I'm still struggling with that. But what's been a struggle? What has been a struggle for you?

And then the last thing I want you to ask yourself is what's one thing I can't adjust for the rest of the year?

Boom. Four questions to help get you back on track.

That's it. Just four.

And then there's this, my friends, if your main goal this year was just survive until winter break, I want you to know congratulations, because you crushed that. We are well past winter break.

We're almost to the end of the school year.

So if that was your goal, it's time, my friends, to get some new ones.

So let's talk about what's working because we really do need to celebrate our wins. I mean, I have talked about celebrating our victories before. We don't celebrate them Enough. And when we don't celebrate them, we're not going to feel that we made a difference at all, that we've had zero accomplishments.

And let's face it, no one else is going to celebrate them for us.

And I think we need to talk about our wins.

Before we start diving into what's not working, we really need to talk about what, what is.

School counselors. We're just notorious for focusing on what still needs to be done.

We do have to celebrate those wins.

So here's some ways that we can flip the script.

Did you finally start that small group that you've been talking about since September? My friends, that's a win. Did a student tell you your lesson made a difference?

Another win. And did you not roll your eyes when someone asks, so what do school counselors even do? My friends, that's a major win.

So I want you to do this action step. I want you to write down three things that you're that are going well even if they feel small,

because small wins big. They add up to big impact.

All right,

now let's get real. What's not working?

Maybe your calendar looks like a game of Tetris, and you feel like you have zero time for actual counseling. Maybe your referrals are so out of control, you are drowning in individual sessions.

And that awesome SEL initiative you planned,

it never got off the ground. And here's the thing. It's okay to change course, because goals, they're not written in stone. And if something isn't working, it's not a failure.

It's feedback.

That's right. It's feedback.

Adjusting your goals isn't giving up.

It's like switching from high heels to sneakers. Still stylish, just way more practical.

So instead of saying, I failed at this goal, try what part of this goal still makes sense? Or what's a more realistic way to accomplish it? Or do I even need to focus on this anymore?

Or is there something more pressing?

Some example fixes?

Maybe you're drowning in that individual counseling. I looked at mine the other day.

Like I told you last week, our new person started, and now I just feel like I. I took out a lot of the individual counseling there for a while because I was picking up all these extra classroom lessons, and I really focused on that.

And now that we have,

I have helped. I have been. People know, oh, you have help. Now those referrals are flooding, flooding in.

And I feel like I'm drowning a little bit in the individual counseling. But I also know that I have to Shift my focus to some tier two interventions. I'm going to try to put some of my kiddos into small groups, maybe do some teacher consultations and I got to look at my classroom lessons and see if I can switch a couple things out to those things that my kids are being referred to and focus on those topics

rather than maybe some of the ones I've already planned out for the year. Because the goal is to reach more students without stretching yourself too thin. And if you don't have time for lessons, maybe try co teaching with a teacher or maybe embed some SEL into morning meetings instead of trying to book whole class times.

I think if you can just get in for a couple minutes in the morning, even if it's just one class, start there because you really will make a difference and you're going to see a ripple effect with that.

And if data tracking is a mess for you, use a Google form to log your student visits instead of trying to maintain a detailed spreadsheet that, let's face it, you're never actually going to update.

I know I have this form. This is who came, this is the time they came in, this is the time they came out or the time they left. Here's a little something that we talked about.

Here's what we want to talk about the next time. And I was great with it for maybe, I don't even want to say a week. It was probably like a day and five minutes of the next day and that was about it.

But a Google form just saying this kid came in so much easier.

So just instead of having this really detailed thing clean it up a bit, make it super simple because we can handle simple. I here's one trick too that I do.

We are trying to definitely keep data as part of our elementary counseling team. This is all the elementary schools in my district and as the tc which is the teacher coordinator, so I know other schools call it something different but it's like your lead counselor type position.

We are trying to collect data. And so what I have done is I email everybody, including myself, each week, each Friday at 1:50pm I don't know why I chose that time, but it's something that I remember and I have it all scheduled in in Gmail.

But I send out this Google data tracking form and it's so simple because we're just saying how many lessons did we have? Did we do? How many counseling groups did we see?

How many individual sessions did we do any long term counseling? Did we have crisis response? We just track the numbers at 1:50 every Friday. I know that I will get that done before I go home and it's going to take me less than a minute.

And I'll be honest, if I didn't have it emailed to me every single week, I wouldn't be doing it. So I spent the five minutes up front because I just copied and pasted the same email every week.

And I do it from every vacation period to the next vacation period. So I'm not doing a hundred emails at a time, but I AM Scheduling about 10 at a time, which has made it totally doable.

And it doesn't take long. It took me so it was. It took me as long to schedule them all as it does to fill it out. And I'm telling you, it takes me no time to fill it out.

So clean up your, your data tracking. It doesn't have to be a mess. And if you need a form that you email to yourself and you schedule it, do that.

It does make a difference.

So let's talk about my friends setting up a really simple game plan for the rest of your year. Because now that we've checked in, we have to and we know what's working and what's not.

We really need to set ourselves up for some success.

We don't need 10 new goals. We just need one or two small, actionable changes that will really make our life easier because it will make our program more effective.

So here's how to keep it simple. Pick one area to improve. Maybe it's data tracking, maybe it's small groups, maybe it's less in engagement and make one small tweak.

You don't need to make an overhaul, just one change.

And commit to checking in again in two months and schedule that in. Send an email reminder to yourself, because we know how it goes. If we don't schedule a check in, we're going to blink and suddenly it's May, and we're just trying to survive the field trip season.

So like I said, set a reminder. Send yourself that email. Set a reminder in your phone. I love the reminder app on my phone. Love it. Because your future you.

It's going to. Thank you.

All right, counselors, here's what I want you to remember.

You are doing better than you think. You might not have hit every goal perfectly, and that's okay. Because progress, it isn't about perfection. It's about impact. And every conversation, every lesson, every moment that you show up for your students, it matters.

So give yourself a little grace.

Adjust as needed, and most importantly, keep showing up.

I thought we could end our session together.

Session. Listen to me like I'm in counseling right? I'm in counseling right now.

I think that we can end this episode with a little affirmation.

Let's let me say it and then let's say it together. Are you ready?

I am making a difference even when I don't see it. My work matters and I am enough.

You ready to say it with me? I am making a difference even when I don't see it. My work matters and I am enough.

Now go out there, friends, and keep being the amazing counselor you are. And until next time, have a great week. Bye for now.

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 at 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. Want to connect? Send me a DM on Facebook or Instagram at Counseling Essentials until next time.

Can't wait till we chat. Bye for now.