Oftentimes as coaches, we might be the only person in our school or our building or a district that is the instructional leader for our specific area. So sometimes that can feel a little bit stressful. You’re trying to work towards a school goal, but maybe you don’t feel like you’re moving as fast as you could.

So today, I’m going to share four strategies to help you stay motivated in your role.:

1:: Keep track of your milestones

Sometimes it can be really easy to like make lots of gains and then forget how far you’ve actually come. This is why you should reflect on your achievements on a regular basis. Along those lines, don’t forget to celebrate daily accomplishments and small gains. It’s about a long-term process, which takes time. So those small gains every day are worth celebrating. You might want to do things like track the percentage of staff that you’re working with over time so you can see that growth, or you might want to set little reminders for yourself to remember that last year at this time we had laptop carts or whatever it might be that’s really exciting and motivating for you in your school setting.

2:: Surround yourself with a positive team

Collaborate and connect with colleagues who are moving forward in the way that you feel passionate and enthusiastic about. Make time for those personal connections, so that you are being re-energized by those colleagues that are doing the hard work that you’re so passionate about. You might even also want to provide opportunities to connect others to these passionate colleagues and to share amongst yourselves, so you can build that self-sustaining circle of enthusiasm for the direction that your school is going.

3:: Be clear about your goals and your priorities.

Don’t get distracted by new challenges, stay focused on where you want to go. As you’re doing this, remember how far you’ve come, because it always feels like you’re going too slow as you make progress. But when you look back and reflect on how far you’ve got towards your goal, that’s a really motivating experience. This allows you to try to keep your challenges and struggles that you may have as an instructional coach in perspective. Your pace is not necessarily the school’s pace and it’s that long-term growth that you’re looking for.

4:: Celebrate and share

Empower and encourage your colleagues to connect and share their achievements in as many ways as you can provide time for. Giving them opportunities to share the ways that they are all working towards meeting school goals will help not only you stay motivated, but will help them recognize that they’re all on that path together.

Hopefully those four give you some ideas for how you can stay motivated in your role as an instructional coach. How do you stay motivated as an instructional coach?

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