Chaos and Change......

So, some of you may know that life in education runs in blocks of time:  Summer time, beginning of school, holidays, testing, and end of year.  By far, the craziest for me is the end of year since I am in a time-crunch to get everything done before the students leave for their summer break.  As an administrator, this starts for me around April first, and ends on the last day the students are on campus. This year I have been moved to a different school - which means change, and I do not normally do well with change, but this is a welcome change.

It has been a tough year for me this year. My boss and  I do not always see eye to eye, but remembering that I am the employee I do as I am told.  So when I got the call that I was being moved to a different site, I was very excited.  I get a fresh start and this is what is so exciting to me.  I get to learn from the last three years and put forward a new me, with newly gained wisdom and knowledge, that will help me not repeat the mistakes I have made...and I have made a few!  So, I started thinking about my goal at the beginning of this calendar year, to get control of my finances and be debt free. I realized that a fresh start is good is what I need and that just the fact that I get to start again is a wonderfully, freeing feeling.

I admit it, I feel like my fiances are a mess again. However, the difference this time is I do not feel like it is the end of the world.  I feel empowered to say that I can have a "Do Over" and start to rediscover why I started this journey. I no longer see failure as a reason to throw my hands up and stay, "I can't do this, so why try?"  I read an article in Psychology Today about starting over and why it is OK to fail. The following hit home for me:

Starting over is about giving yourself a chance at real happiness. You will have to be brave and get good at learning new things, but how bad can that be? At the very worst, you will acquire the skills you need to start on the next project.

It is about choosing happiness over anxiety and dread. So I am going to start again and try to learn from my mistakes of the past few months.  I am going to stay focused on my goal of buying a house within the next three years. And most of all, I am going to focus on being happy, just plain happy.