Do you ever get tired of listening to your student’s whine, gripe and complain about what they don’t like? They don’t like the dress code. They don’t like taking pedicures clients. They don’t like coming to school on Saturday. They don’t like practicing state board procedures on manikin heads. They don’t like instructors who are like drill sergeants. And the list goes on…
But are they alone?
Do you ever catch yourself or your fellow educators complaining about things? We don’t like the color line the school is using. We don’t like teaching anatomy. We don’t like that the students won’t put down their phone. We don’t like paying taxes.
Well, this month it is time for us to take notice and recognize all that makes our lives amazing and even more important, get our students on board with noticing how great their lives are too!
November is national gratitude month. It is the perfect time for us to take a break from all the negative and focus on what we are grateful for.
A simple way to do this, start each morning with your team and have each person share what they are excited about for the day like these great conversation starters:
- What do they love about doing hair?
- Why are they excited that they made the decision to come to your school?
- What client are they looking forward to seeing today?
Ask any question that will get them thinking about all the ways their life is awesome. Change the question every day. Simply start each day by asking them about what they love or are grateful for. Get the day started on that positive note.
At the end of each day, as students are standing around the time clock waiting to clock out, stand out there with them and ask each one of them what was the highlight of their day. Get them to tell you what they loved about their day.
Commit to doing this for the entire month of November and see how it impacts all the attitudes in your school.
I’ll leave you with this… what is the best thing that happened to you today?