Doing Things You Hate So You Can Do the Things You Love

Thursday, July 31, 2014 by jethrojones

As a new principal, I want to get to know all my teachers. I also want to know what they see as the vision of our school. So, I am meeting with them all. I am really excited because meeting new people and getting to know them is something that I really love. In order to make that a reality, I had to something that I really don't like much: I had to use the phone. Despite the hours spent on the phone courting my wife, I have never liked talking on the phone. It is just not fun to me. I had to call people to set up the appointments, which, by how I was procrastinating and delaying, you would have thought was a much more difficult task than pushing buttons on a phone. 


When I approach a task that I really don't like to do, I deal with it one of two ways:

1. I reward myself by doing something fun. 
2. I make a game of it. 

Today, it was all about the reward. The reward for my (hard to me) work is that I get to spend the morning tomorrow talking in person to many of my teachers. That will be worth it. 

What has been fascinating for me to learn is that different people enjoy different things. To me, talking to people on the phone is near torture for me. For other people, they would much rather call than talk in person. 

What I think will be vital for me, is to be sensitive to what people prefer and meet them where they are. As the principal, I am much more willing to make myself uncomfortable in order to make sure one of my teachers is more comfortable. 

Have a Good Life. 

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