Learning and Growing

I don't want to sound all depressing on here.  My life is great.  REALLY!  Some things that I planned in my excel spreadsheet are better than I even planned.  I'm very fortunate to have married a saver, so that I don't ever have to worry about having enough.  Both my husband and I have jobs that we love.  We have a beautiful home.  I have learned and grown so much in the last year!

On bad days, I refer to this school year as the "Year that Wasn't Supposed to Happen."  I was supposed to have a baby in September and become a stay-at-home mom.  On good days though, I can take a step back and see how much I've learned and grown this past school year.

This year in my work, I was asked to be team lead for my fourth grade team.  I was VERY nervous to take on this position because I am not a natural leader.  I am indecisive and I avoid conflict like the plague.  Both of these personality characteristics I've had to flush down the toilet.  As team lead, I lead collaborative planning meetings twice a month, bring back news from the school administration, and head up the development of most of the material we create.  It involves a lot of decision making and I have to face conflict head on.

A couple months ago I chewed someone out.  Yes, I as in me... chewed... someone... out...  I did it, really!  I felt guilty, yet satisfied.  Is that how it's supposed to feel?  Never before in my life had I told someone EXACTLY how I felt in the heat of the moment.  Usually I drive home and think about all of the things I should've said AND never say any of it.  Now, I don't plan on chewing people out on a regular basis.  But, it was evidence to me of growth.  That I could actually tell someone exactly what I felt they needed to hear at that moment in time.  I felt like I said it in a respectful way (for the most part) and listened to the other person's side.  Having this conversation actually made things better for my team.

Today, I ran what I felt was my most successful meeting.  I'm doing better at timing the agenda so that we cover everything.  I feel like I was able to bring everyone's comments together to compromise on different team matters that we discussed.  I always worry about being too bossy or disrespectful of my teammates' views, but we were able to accomplish a lot in the small time period we had.

I'm learning and growing.

I'm doing and trying new things that I wouldn't have done otherwise.  I'll continue to find the silver lining in life because that is who I am.  Someone told me once that my "overly optimistic view on life" would change as life kicked me around a bit more.  I hope it doesn't.  I hope I don't let it.