Starting Over on the Back Foot: Navigating the Chaos of a New Term

We’re deep into the second week of the new term, and if I’m honest, I feel like I'm running further behind than ever. Between a couple of inset days to kick things off and navigating a genuinely traumatic experience I mentioned last time out, finding my rhythm has been an uphill climb. We’re shaking things up with our targets this year, which is brilliant in theory, but today it just feels a bit overwhelming.

Usually, it takes me a week or two to properly settle back into the swing of things, but yesterday my brain was completely elsewhere. A late finish had a massive knock-on effect, and while I managed to crawl to the finish line, I'm feeling properly battered.

To top it all off, my body decided to stage a protest with a cracking illness. For about 36 hours, I was wrestling with fevers hitting 39 degrees—shivering and freezing cold one minute, then burning up and drenched in sweat the next, accompanied by a throat that felt like I'd swallowed glass. Things peaked at 3 am last night when I woke up feeling utterly wretched. Thankfully, the worst seems to have broken, and I think I'm finally coming out the other side. But goodness me, nothing puts you on the back foot quite like a bug of that magnitude. When your brain power is entirely drained, just looking at a to-do list feels like trying to decipher ancient hieroglyphics. It wasn't quite the serene, positive start to the academic year I'd pencilled in.

Refocusing When the Wheels Come Off

Right then, how do we turn this around? At a certain point, you just have to roll your sleeves up, get stuck in, and take the bull by the horns. All you can really do is keep moving forward, and that’s the plan.

Of course, it’s not just education demanding my attention; there are a few ripples at the print shop causing some mild anxiety, too. One of the team is keen to start turning away certain customers. While I can see where they're coming from to an extent, I’m definitely going to have to fight my corner on that one.

To anchor myself amidst the chaos, I'm borrowing wisdom from two familiar heavyweights. First up is James Clear and his phenomenal book, Atomic Habits. Clear is brilliant at breaking down how incremental changes compound over time. He often uses a weight-loss analogy: eating a single clean meal won't magically make you drop a dress size, just as one greasy takeaway won't instantly derail your health. It’s the consistent trajectory that matters. Professionally, I need to stop worrying about the isolated slip-ups and focus entirely on building a steady, reliable rhythm.

Controlling the Controllables

My second anchor is Mel Robbins and her invaluable "Let Them" theory. Working in education means dealing with deeply emotional beings—people who, quite frankly, often operate at a maturity level way behind their physical age. It’s easy to get bogged down trying to police everyone else's behaviour. But the truth is, I can't control what anyone else does. I can only control my own actions, my choices, and how I choose to react to the environment around me.

It certainly can't hurt to revisit both of these audiobooks on my morning commute over the next few days. Sometimes, you don't need a radical new strategy; you just need a gentle reminder of the tools you already have in your arsenal. Here's to finding our footing, one small, consistent step at a time.

“This text was conceived and directed by a human, using Voice-to-Text and AI assistance to overcome a dyslexia induced literacy barrier.”