Back To School 2016

For many teachers, this is the first week back for 2016!
Whilst there’s no kids till next week, you might’ve started out of choice, so you can sort and prepare for the onslaught. Or you could be there under duress, due to those wonderful back to school ‘Professional Development Days’ (are you sitting in one right now? Are you checking fb or snap chatting yourself poking your tongue out to others in the room? You are aren’t you!!!)

I could talk four hours about PD days! However I won’t! Instead, I want to talk about some of the most important questions for the year, including:

What are you going to achieve?
Have you set yourself goals?
Is there something new you want to try?
Are you going to challenge yourself?
Are you going to challenge others?
What do you want to get out of 2016?

On New Year’s Eve, whilst watching fireworks in Kangaroo Valley, I was thinking of all the possible new years resolutions that’ll be 'set and forgets’. I always wonder why people do it? Are they just happy to set themselves up for failure? Or are they simply saying it because they think that’s what other people want to hear? Radio stations get endless people calling in to tell the world what they’ve decided to do, to radically change their life for the better! The most common ones include:

Lose Weight & Get Fit
Diet & Eat Healthier
Quit Smoking
Drink Less
Learn Something New

Simple enough it would seem! Yet the reality is very different and few people (if any) call up the radio the week after to exclaim how it didn’t work! Oh well, there’s always next year! (I’m rolling my eyes, but I guess you can’t see that right now).
So what’s your point? I hear you scream! Well the point is, why do people think they have to wait for some fixed point in the year to improve their lives? Even though starting a new school year there are fresh opportunities to help guide the lives of others in a positive and meaningful way, it doesn’t mean we should defer this for ourselves.

So for my new year, I didn’t resolved to radically change my life, in fact apart from still being single, there’s a lot I really like about my life! However, what I did do, was set myself some goals, because what I want to get out of this year, is to use my education and experience to help others. So to be specific and I expect people to hold me to these!

1. Teach someone something meaningful and potentially life-changing!     
   
      To be honest this one is a really hard one to gauge, as often the lessons we teach others won’t become obvious or life changing until further down the track. But it’s an attitude that I want to take to make sure I do my best to share my experiences and knowledge with others. I’m playing the long-game on this one!

2. Make someone random I don’t know feel happy!         

        Simple! Well… Not quite, because again this is not a tick box goal. I want to try each day to make someone I don’t know feel good. Even if it’s just smiling and chatting with you barista in the morning or helping someone with something where there’s no other motivation than to give and make someone smile. If we all did this, the world would be a nice place.
3. Run 750km!

           So this is roughly the distance from Sydney To Ballina! I’ll log some progress shots through out the year and I know this is the one that people are going to try and trip me up on! So watch the map!

So now I throw the challenge out to you! Forget the new years resolutions that so easily fade into oblivion! Set yourself some goals for the year! Tell me about them! I’d love to hear from you and know what you want to achieve in 2016!
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But overall, have a great year and I’m looking forward to posting lots more on the adventures of life!