Genre: Self-help, Inspirational
Source: I received a copy to facilitate my review. The
opinions expressed here are my own.
This isn’t
a book you can read through like a novel. I will even say that some parts may
be difficult for you to read. I grew up
when I was younger thinking that most
everyone around me was much more talented than I was. That is unless you talked
about teaching. I wanted to be a teacher from fourth grade on. I was positive I would be a teacher, even when
my family and friends told me all the reasons I didn’t want to be a teacher.
The way we see and react to life shapes us.
The principles in this book were not new to me. I grew up from my teens
on reading self-help and positive thinking books. However, I never applied all the things I
learned. In Roy’s book, the first principle
he mentions is forgiving those who don’t deserve it. After reading that section I realized that I
and my husband were both letting a situation hold us back. Instead of forgiving
those involved we felt didn’t deserve it, we actually used it as an
excuse. That was the hardest principle
to work on.
For
years I let the fear of failure hold me back.
Then I learned about Thomas Edison and how many times he failed in his
attempts to make a working lightbulb. His attitude was he wasn’t a failure, he
just learned that many ways that it wouldn’t work. As a teacher I am familiar with creating
action plans. Since I am a National Board Certified Teacher and I teach at an
IB school reflection has been a part of my life. We teach our students to
reflect on their work daily, weekly, etc.
I and my fellow co-workers do the same. This is probably the most
important part of my job. However, I’ve
also moved it into my personal life as well.
Principle # 13 was important to me for a multitude of reasons.
Compartmentalizing teaches you to be fully present when attending a task. I
have learned how to do that. But something Roy said rang so true in so many
ways. He talked about how watching a TV program when someone keeps talking to
you makes it harder for you to focus. I have an elderly mother who lives with
me and this happens quite often when I am sitting in the same room with her
trying to work or watch the news. But it
took reading this book for me to realize that I do this to my students. I give
them a task, check for clarification, set them to work and the every once in a
while I say something to them that pulls them right out of their work. This is
something I am definitely working on correcting.
I
laughed when I read that Principle #12 was “Make a Calendar”. My family and
co-workers tease me about my calendars. Yes, I have one for my job, and one for
my life. I even keep both together on an online calendar. But, at the beginning
of my summer break I discovered something on my online calendar that changed my
life. It was a simple button called “Tasks”. I had always ignored it. It
combined several things into one. It
allowed me to get rid of my plethora of lists that I kept with each
calendar. Now I can schedule it on my online calendar and prioritize things by
creating a “Tasks” list. Those who tease
me about having two physical calendars don’t understand that if I have no
access to my online calendar, I at least have the safety net of my physical
ones. We each must find what works for
us. Roy’s book is a list of great
principals. What makes his book stand out from so many others are the personal
stories and lessons that go along with them.
Those will resonate with you in so many ways.
Other principles that I found of value was #
15 “Learn to Say No” and # 49 “Identify your weaknesses. These two have always been my problem, and then I would get
overwhelmed. We got a new assistant principal last year. It was a particularly rough year for me. As
department chair I took on all the tasks of my entirely new department. It actually backfired because I was not able
to do everyone else’s job and mine and do them adequately. My AP is the one who helped me learn to say
No. He literally would step in and tell
people no on my behalf until I became strong enough to do it on my own. It was
him who pointed out that this was the only weakness he saw in me. I take everything he says and truly think
about it. Then I work on those areas that I know to be weaknesses.
Another
principle was to choose to be happy. I
have always tried to be happy. One of
the reasons I allowed myself to feel like I was less talented than others in my
family was because of something that happened in my family when I was a young
teen. Some in my family belittled me because of the way I chose to handle the
situation. It was a very depressing and devastating situation and I chose to
move beyond it and be happy. For others in my family it became all consuming
and created anger and bitterness. I learned a long time ago to choose happy.
That doesn’t mean I am never sad.
Finally
#’50 and 51 meant a lot to me. Number 50 says to do something small, but do it
daily. For me that is writing. I don’t care if it is a poem. I couple of lines
in my work in progress. I continually add to it each and every day. The other
important one was # 51 which was Don’t give up when you get off track. Life
will pull you off track. The trick is to work to get back on. This has probably been the most beneficial of
all of his principles. People fail in life because they get off track and give
up. I choose not to give up. I have a student who was involved in a terrible
accident last year. He missed most of the school year. Then had to be
homeschooled for the rest of the year. He was comparing himself to other
students in the classroom. I reminded him that after his accident we didn’t
know if he would survive. He had to learn to walk and talk all over again. He
can’t process things the way he used to. However, he has learned to break
things down into little pieces and continue to move forward. I reminded him of
the tortoise and the hare. He smiled and said, “the tortoise won because he
kept moving forward.” We have a right to
not only read and learn from these principles but we have an obligation through
our words and actions to share these principles with those around us.
I highly
recommend this book. It is a book I will
refer back to often because there is so much to be learned and reminded of with
this book.
