Mastering Work-Life Balance: Transition Rituals for School Counselors

School Counseling to Personal Life Transition

So I'm walking through a campus hallway one day and was minding my own business , deep in thought about where I was headed and how I was going to intervene , and I step in this big squishy wad of I don't know . It was like some kind of supersonic play-doh stuff And of course I didn't have time to stop and get it off my shoe . I grabbed a Kleenex , tried to get what goo I could off the bottom of my shoe and then I just kept rolling right , i just kept going . And then I just kept going because I had things to do , you know places to go , people to see , kind of a thing . But what happened was , everywhere I went , that play-doh putty whatever it was was picking up dirt , all kinds of nastiness , off the floor right and just caking it on the bottom of my shoe . And then , as I went through my day a little bit longer , sat down , talked with a few students , stood up and started walking again , noticed that this putty had hardened and now was kind of clicking when I walked And it was really , really difficult to get off the bottom of my shoe .

Now , what in the world does this have to do with school counseling ? My friends , i think a lot of you are ending your school day exactly like that . You are ending your day with all of this stuff that's collected throughout the day and you just can't chip it off when the day is over . You're finding it hard to lay your work down when it's quitting time and walk away . So in this episode of the School for School Counselors podcast , we're going to talk through some things that you can do to better delineate your work time from your personal time . As , as givers , as helpers , as people who want to make a difference , we are often very guilty of holding on to the things that have happened during the school day and letting them bother us at home at night . So let's dive into that . Let's dive into how can we effectively transition from school counseling mode to home and family mode .

I have talked about this a lot with beginning school counselors . I've done quite a few workshops with different organizations and things like that about beginning in school counseling , the things they didn't teach you in grad school , which there's a lot If you haven't heard . Go back to one of our very first episodes . I'm thinking particularly about episode one , episode two , maybe episodes four and five as well , just kind of talking about the expectation of what it's going to be like to work in school counseling versus the reality , and often there is a stark contrast there . So if you're a first year school counselor , or even a second year , i'm not telling you this to scare you by any means , but I do want you to be prepared .

And we know , logically , that what we're taught in grad school is that perfect world scenario . It's that ideal pie in the sky version of what school counseling is . And then we get boots on the ground in a school and we realize that now we're in the real world , and nothing wrong with that . It comes with a lot of awesome challenges , a lot of opportunities to learn and grow , not only as a school counselor , but to learn about yourself , and so that's never a bad thing .

But as we navigate this territory and this terrain , as we exert so much mental energy trying to decide , you know what's going on with students . How can we help ? What's the best course of action ? Why are they doing what they're doing ? What are they missing ? What are they lacking ? What are they needing ? How can we support them ? How do we get their parents on board ? Do they have enough to eat at home ?

All the things that we think about in a day , multiplied by the hundreds of students that are in our charge , that mental load can become pretty overwhelming . And the funny thing about it is , when we're in that frame of mind you would think that at the end of the day you just kind of want to slough it all off and walk off and say you know , i'm done with that today , i'll worry about it tomorrow . You know , kind of like a scarlet o'hara in Gone With The Wind , right , i'll worry about it tomorrow . That's not the reality . The reality is , i'm guessing , sometimes , if not a lot of the time , you tend to carry those worries and frustrations home , and while I think that's very normal for all of us , i still do it from time to time .

If I have an especially complicated case I'm working on , if I have a really disturbing turn of events with a student , right , you know , some days you have those days where they all of a sudden decide to disclose something and you feel like you've been punched in the face right . Those days I tend to err a little bit more on the side of taking some things home with me , but most of the time I'm able to kind of draw a line and to be able to recognize . This is where my day ends , this is where my personal time begins . I'm not on the clock anymore . I'm not a school counselor right now . I'm a wife , i'm a mom , i'm a family member , i'm a community member . But that's really hard to do .

So my primary suggestion for this is something called a transition ritual Needs to be something that you do to signal to yourself that your school counseling day is over and it's time for your U-time to start . And , as I mentioned , you know I've taught this to beginning school counselors a lot . It's a neat idea . It's a neat signal for you to be able to transition from one phase of your day to the next . It is often difficult to implement and so it's often neglected a lot of the times And it seems silly that something so simple could make such a difference . But I really do believe that it's powerful .

When we can find a good transition ritual , it's going to help reduce your stress level and it's going to help you feel healthier as a human being . You are going to be able to turn into feelings of relaxation , letting things go a little easier . It's going to provide your brain that mental cue It's time to release , it's time to move on . It's also going to give you a better work-life balance , and I've talked about this quite a bit already , but you have to consciously transition from work to personal life . It gives you permission to really jump into your after work hours , do the things that you want to do , or the things that you need to do , without worrying about everything that's happened before And again .

I bet that sounds really silly , but , guys , there's some science behind this . This is a real thing . You are going to have improved well-being , mentally as well . You are going to be able to be more present when you're off of work , be more present with your family , with your friends , with your loved ones . You're going to be able to have greater clarity of mind , without trying to process all the things that have gone on in the day and attend to what you need to attend to now . So you need to have that clear distinctive line And really , when you're able to give that undivided attention to your kids , to your significant other , to your family , it's going to make everybody feel better , right ? It's going to be that cascade of oxytocin . Everybody's going to feel more connected , more linked together , more loved and fulfilled , and that's good for everybody . So there are a lot of different kinds of transition rituals that you can try . I will tell you my personal transition ritual after I go through this list . I'm going to give you lots and lots of ideas and I don't want to sway your opinion with what I do before you hear all the other things . So here's some ideas for some transition rituals .

And again , if you're like me , i tend to be at times a little persnickety , a little jaded . I tend to write things off sometimes if I don't have some really good evidence . That's why I'm harp on evidence based so much . I want to know that things work . So when I hear some of these things that sound a little out there , a little woo-woo , a little kind of silly , it automatically makes me want to turn my face away from them . But if you will give this a chance , i think you're going to see a great return on your investments .

Number one physical activity . So a short walk , a jog , some exercise , something like that between work and home , is going to do wonders . Now , if you have a day like I have , typically you're laughing at me right now because it's very , very hard to fit any dedicated exercise time into the schedule . So if this one doesn't work for you , don't worry about it , but if it does , it's a great way to transition from one phase of your day to the next .

Second , if you're a journaler doing a little bit of reflective journaling , it could be something as simple , as you notice having one of those little notebooks in your car writing down the things that you don't want to forget for the next day and then leaving them there , literally leaving them there in the book . You can pick them up tomorrow . It is amazing what that mental space can do for you . I will tell you , i do that at night because often I'm up working on school , for school , counselors , things . I have a lot in my mind , a lot of things I want to do . When I found I was having some difficulty sleeping , i can sit and do a brain dump when I'm ready to cycle down , get ready for bed , for rest time or for family time , and then I can pick those ideas back up later . My brain is not trying to keep a lot of tabs open in the background , trying to not lose those thoughts , and so that's really important . So journaling could be a great transition ritual for you .

Third , mindful breathing or meditation . I don't think I have to tell you about the benefits of those . You are already very well-versed in the benefits of breathing , in the benefits of mindful meditation . We know it helps everybody , it doesn't matter who you are . So that might be a great approach , because some people find great significance of transition when they change their clothes from work clothes to home clothes . I just kind of signals to them like my work day is over , i've taken it off , i've put my personal time on and I'm ready to rock and roll .

Disconnecting from technology , having a set amount of time after your work day that you do not look at a screen , could be significant for a lot of us , particularly if you're working in a role where you're staring At your computer a lot of the day . You're working on paperwork , transcripts , reports , those kinds of things . This could be a significant transition ritual for you . And then hobbies and or loved ones , right Intentionally engaging in some kind of a hobby that you enjoy , disconnecting from work completely And this sounds a lot like what we're often told for self-care . But you have to do this routinely and effectively in order for it to be a transition ritual . It can't be , you know . Oh well , last Thursday I read a book when I got off work and that felt real great . It doesn't qualify as a transition ritual until it's a habit , until it's a habit , and so if you've not ever read Atomic Habits by James Clear , i recommend it to my masterminders all the time . It is just such a life-changing paradigm in how we develop habits , where they come from , how we can really implement them in our day-to-day . You should check that out Now . I gave you a whole list of transition ritual ideas . Right , physical activity , journaling , mindful breathing , meditation , changing your clothes , disconnecting from technology or engaging in time with a hobby or with loved ones . All those are great ideas .

Developing Transition Rituals for Work-Life Balance

My transition ritual is so much simpler because often and you might be able to agree with me here my days aren't as typical and routine as I would like for them to be . Some days I'm running out the door like my pants are on fire . Some days are a little bit more leisurely . Some days I have things I have to do right after work . Some days I don't . So developing a habit for all of those different sets of circumstances can get kind of tricky , and for me I found that some of the more involved things mindful things weren't gonna work for me at the end of my work day . So here's my transition ritual , and this is no joke . I do this at the end of every work day . I take off my badge that I wear it's clipped on my shirt I get my keys out of my pocket , i clip my badge to my keys and I take a breath And that's it . But I have trained myself . I have trained my brain to recognize that when I do that , my work day is over . And it might sound so silly , but I'm telling you the days that , on the off chance that I forget to do it , i do notice a difference . I do notice a difference in my transition from work to home , and so I'm going to invite you just to kind of think of a way that you can develop a transition ritual for yourself . What are some things that you can do that just gently signal work time is over and personal time has begun ?

There are some tricks to making these habits stick . Sometimes we start with the best of intentions , we have things that we plan to do , and then they kind of fall by the wayside . Things get crazy . We get busy , we start running , we forget to do them for a couple days and then all of a sudden it's not happening anymore , right ? And then by that time it's like who cares anyway ? Why should I even be doing this ? Just forget about it . Have you ever been there ? Yeah , me too .

So , james , clear and Atomic Habits talks about creating habits and the four things you have to do to make them stick . Number one is making it obvious . So making it obvious to me means I need some kind of a cue to remind me . Might be an alarm on a phone , it might be a sticky note by the light switch when I leave . I actually have a note on the back of my door just in case to remind me to transition .

Second is make it attractive . If it's something that you don't want to do , if it's something you think is stupid , if it's something that feels like it takes too much time , you don't want to sit and you know mindfully breathe for five minutes at the end of the day , then don't do it . Find something that fills you up and gets you centered . Find something that you enjoy doing . Make it attractive . Third , make it easy . We don't need any complicated rituals here . I told you mine is as simple as clipping my keys to my badge and taking a breath . Easy peasy , it's done in literally under five seconds . And fourth , make it satisfying Not only satisfying to do , but satisfying in the result . So for me , my transition ritual is very satisfying because I have mindfully trained myself to know this is the end of my work day . I'm letting it go , and to me that is very , very satisfying .

If you try to implement these transition rituals and you're not perfect from day one because who is right , you're not perfect from day one but you get 1% better at developing that habit every day , by the end of the year you're going to be 37 times better at that than you were when you started . Pretty cool , right ? And so there's some things that you can do to catalyze this habit , to remind yourself and really make it happen . Number one I mentioned my sticky note that I have on my door just in case to remind me to let go of the work day Again a calendar reminder , phone reminder , smartwatch reminder , something like that to signal to you it's time to let go , we're done for the day . Number three calendar reminders to remind yourself in 15 minutes we're shutting down . In 10 minutes the day is over .

Now some of you feel like you don't have that kind of control in your day . You don't have the ability to do that , but I think this is what a lot of people mean when they talk about boundaries right , and drawing a boundary about the end of your work day . I think what they're really meaning is you've got to remind yourself to stop so that you don't feel obligated . Now it is so important to have transition rituals in place , and every single person that I've talked to that has really thoughtfully implemented the idea , has come back and told me what a game changer it's been for them . So , as we're looking into stepping into the new school year , it's going to be super important that we start to develop these great habits now that we can carry out through the remainder of 2024 , right , yeah , so , speaking of 2023 , 2024 , the new school year is upon us .

I want to remind you , our best year ever event starts July 25th for Knights of Amazing School Counseling Awesomeness All of us together in one Zoom room , sharing ideas , hearing great information to get us on track and on course for the beginning of the school year . Well , it's great . whether you've been counseling for one year or 31 years , it doesn't matter . We're all going to glean something from this , new and experienced school counselors alike . I would love for you to join us . We're going to be there about an hour , hour and a half each evening .

We've broken it up because we know a lot of you are back on duty and you just didn't want to think about work until you had to think about work . Right , everything is a thousand percent live . It's going to be happening in real time . You're going to be able to jump in and ask questions as they come to mind . None of this formal hand raising or waiting for chat , comments or anything like that . Let's just go for it . You can get all signed up and get your ticket at schoolforschoolcounselorscom slash . Best year ever . We'd love to see you there . Speaking of the best year ever , i hope you have the best week ever . I'm going to look forward to speaking with you again here very , very soon on the School for School Counselors podcast . Until then , take care .