School for School Counselors Podcast

How to Cue Yourself for Better School Counseling

• School for School Counselors • Episode 105

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How can understanding the "why" behind your practices truly transform your school counseling program? This week, we uncover the secrets to setting yourself up for sustainable success. Steph Johnson guides us through the nuances of human nature and brain functionality, offering practical strategies for establishing effective habits and practices in your school counseling program.

Inspired by James Clear's "Atomic Habits," we break down sustainable habits into four essential components: cue, craving, response, and reward. Listen as we share actionable tips to make new behaviors obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying—especially when it comes to gratitude. With small, manageable changes, you can build consistent habits that support a successful school year. Tune in for a comprehensive guide to habit-building that promises to transform your professional school counseling practice.

Mentioned in This Episode:
BEST YEAR EVER!!!
Modern School Counselor Planner
School for School Counselors Mastermind


Resources:

Clear, J. (2018). Atomic habits: An easy & proven way to build good habits & break bad ones. Avery.

Gardner, B., Lally, P., & Wardle, J. (2012). Making health habitual: The psychology of ‘habit-formation’ and general practice. British Journal of General Practice, 62(605), 664-666. https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp12X659466


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Our goal at School for School Counselors is to help school counselors stay on fire, make huge impacts for students, and catalyze change for our roles through grassroots advocacy and collaboration. Listen to get to know more about us and our mission, feel empowered and inspired, and set yourself up for success in the wonderful world of school counseling.

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Speaker 1:

Hey, hey, hey, school counselor, welcome back to the School for School Counselors podcast. I'm Steph Johnson, your host, so glad that you're back here with me again for another episode, and I have a treat for you this week. After last week's podcast episode, where we talked about incorporating gratitude into your school counseling programming not only for your own benefit, but to benefit others around you. We had a huge outpouring of responses from our audience Lots of people posting on social media, emailing, seeking my team and I out to let us know how valuable and needed that episode was. So if you haven't listened to it yet, after we get done here, I encourage you, go back and check the previous. Go back and check the previous podcast episode. You will not be disappointed, and I think conversations like these are ones we need to be having when we work in an industry that is so different from the way that we're trained. You've heard me talk before about us being trained in these perfect world scenarios, and then we get dropped down into what sometimes feels like a demilitarized zone, right? Everything's going crazy. We're not really sure where up and down are sometimes and we're scrambling, just trying to make it through the day and do our best job for students and their families, and so I think conversations about conversations like the one we had last week about gratitude are really essential as we start looking to put the building blocks in place for our new school year to start off on the best foot, whether we've been doing this kind of work for a year or two or whether we've been doing it for 25. Based on the responses we received, I really kind of thought we probably need to do a podcast episode a little bit different from what I usually do, and here's how it's different Normally, when I prepare a podcast episode for you, it is a completely from scratch endeavor, start to finish. I come up with the topic, I dive into the peer-reviewed research and I create the episode specifically for the podcast. This week, I'm going to pull the curtain back just a little bit and I'm going to share with you some of the training points that I present to my School for School Counselors, mastermind members.

Speaker 1:

Now, in our mastermind, we talk a lot about systems, about cues and about setting ourselves up for inevitable success. Most of the time when we're talking about these kinds of things, we're talking about data collection, use of time, data, following up on our campus data those kinds of things which really are difficult practices to get in place on your own. You know, it's one of those things that on the surface, sounds really easy and feels like it should be very simple to implement, but once you get into the nitty gritty of your day, you're flying by the seat of your pants 100 miles an hour. All of a sudden it doesn't seem so simple, and the reason for that isn't just our circumstances day to day, but because of human nature and the way our brains work, and so if we want to establish these good practices and habits, we have to make sure that we are supporting ourselves in doing so. So in this podcast episode, that's exactly what we're going to be talking about, and you can use these ideas in data practices, surely. But also if you want to implement something like gratitude practices, establishing transition rituals or about a dozen other things, you want to make sure you get on top of, get started and get going really strong at the beginning of the school year.

Speaker 1:

But before we get started, I just want to thank you for being here, listening to the podcast and supporting the mission of School for School Counselors. As a listener, you probably know that I'm a full-time school counselor just like you, and I have a passion and drive for serving school counselors to the utmost of my ability. I've assembled a team that feels the same way about school counseling, and we are working hard to develop amazing resources, amazing experiences and tons of education and empowerment for our friends and colleagues in the field. I want you to be able to create a school counseling program that is impactful but also sustainable, so that you don't go home feeling drained every day or wondering how long you're going to be able to stick with school counseling. I want you to love going to work every day, and I'm seeking to bridge the gap between what you were taught in grad school, the comprehensive programs that you want to build, and the messy middle in between. All right, so let's jump into some of these cues. Let's really get you ready for the new school year so that you can virtually ensure your success Just by following through. You're going to know that the odds are in your favor with whatever initiative you choose to initiate, whether that's use of time capture, whether that is gratitude practices, as I said before transition rituals lots and lots of options here, but the point is we have to figure out how to manipulate our human nature just a little bit, I think.

Speaker 1:

First, it's important to think about what your why is in whatever endeavor you've selected. I'm going to use a gratitude practice as an example, since we heard so much about that last episode and I really want to make sure that these points hit home. What's your why? Why would you install a gratitude practice in your school counseling program? There are lots of reasons why. There are a lot of research-based reasons, and there may also be some reasons that are just important to your head or your heart. But you need to sit down for a second. Just determine what's your why in the gratitude practice, because if you don't have a why, if you don't have a reason to embark on this journey, why are you doing it? We need to have a compelling reason that means something to us. Why are we doing this thing?

Speaker 1:

After we decide why we're doing it, we have to decide what's possible. What are our limiting beliefs about the activity we've selected? What do we believe about a gratitude practice? Maybe that we are too busy to practice gratitude in our day. Maybe it's that we're going to forget because we have so many other things going on. Maybe it's that it's not as important as some of the other worries we have when we're on campus. There are tons of beliefs and limiting beliefs that we may have about a new endeavor, so it's important to recognize those and face them head on and then lean into your values with that.

Speaker 1:

I may believe that it takes too much time or it's going to be too easy to forget to embark on a gratitude practice, but I also know that every bit of self-development that I can do, every moment that I can spend in true gratitude for my craft, serves me. It makes me a better professional, it makes me a more empathetic educator and it makes me a better human being. And so, when I'm up against some of those challenges, I've got to think about what are my values, what's going to lead me through this? And after I've decided what my why is, I've confronted those limiting beliefs head on and I've leaned into my values about what I believe. I'm going to set a goal. Now, this doesn't need to be a formal, smart goal. I know everybody loves to talk about those but you do need to have some sort of a goal. I'm going to list one thing I'm grateful for. At the end of every day, I'm going to sit in my chair two minutes at the end of my day before I go home and reflect on three things I'm grateful for. Or, in the case of school counseling data, I'm going to make sure that I record my use of time at least three days out of the week. I'd recommend five, but that's a different conversation. Set a goal, decide what you're working toward, what do you want to make happen? And then we got to start working toward it. Right, we got to figure out how to set the wheels in motion. Let's get this train rolling so that when it starts moving it's going to be difficult to stop.

Speaker 1:

James Clear talks about in his book Atomic Habits, the idea of a habit loop where we get a cue, a craving, a response and a reward. If we can develop this habit loop, we're going to be able to sustain the habits that we put into place. So first is the cue. In other words, we have to make this behavior obvious. We have to leave no room for any shadow of doubt about when this needs to happen and how it's going down. We have to make it obvious and how it's going down. We have to make it obvious. Second is craving. We must make the behavior attractive. What entices us to engage in this.

Speaker 1:

Why is gratitude attractive? How is it going? Third is the response. We got to make it easy. If it requires a bunch of steps, if it requires jumping through a bunch of hoops, or heaven forbid if it requires us relying solely on memory to remember to make it happen, we're probably doomed. We've got to figure out a way to make this new behavior easy so that we can engage in it. And fourth is reward making it satisfying. What do we get out of this? You know, as human beings we have a psychology that craves reward. We want that recognition, we want that reinforcement, we want the feeling of esteem that comes when we accomplish something. So what's that reward for you? In the case of gratitude, it may just be increased self-fulfillment, feeling better about your work, feeling more content in your role on campus, perhaps feeling more optimistic about your current situation and the potential for change. Lots of options here, and so it's worth again just taking a few minutes to sit down and think through those four components of the habit loop. How do we make it obvious, how do we make it attractive, how do we make it easy and how do we make it satisfying?

Speaker 1:

James Clear says if you act like the type of person you aspire to become, you will end up proving that identity to yourself. You will end up proving that identity to yourself. So one of his strategies in creating habits is to start things off small or, in his words, make it so easy. You can't say no, make it an easy habit If you are going from no gratitude practice at all to. I'm going to journal for gratitude every evening at home. I'm going to take my gratitude journal with me to work. I'm going to jot things down during the day and then at the end of the week I'm going to look over all of them and reflect. You're probably going to have a really difficult time with that gratitude practice.

Speaker 1:

I mentioned in the past episode my gratitude practice. At the end of the day, my transition ritual is that I take my badge off that I wear clipped to my shirt. I clip my set of master keys to it, I take a deep breath and it signals to me that my workday is over and as I'm taking that breath, I'm reflecting on what I'm grateful for as I end my day. It's easy I'm guaranteed to be leaving work at some point every single day, and so I don't forget. I've worked to make that a consistent habit. I don't forget, I've worked to make that a consistent habit.

Speaker 1:

But beyond that, there are some other cues that we can provide in our environment to remind us to engage in these activities, because until it truly becomes a habit, it's going to be difficult, it's not going to come easily, it's not going to feel natural to us and we're going to need to support ourselves to get where we want to go. As I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, we talk about this a lot in our School. For School Counselors Mastermind we run a data cohort within that and school counselors who are interested in working with and manipulating their school counseling data on their campus, up-leveling their data game or perhaps just establishing the habits needed to keep it consistent all meet together and we support one another, we provide suggestions, we analyze data in real time. It's a really exciting and compelling group to be part of, but a large part of what we talk about, particularly as the school year is beginning, are some cues that we can place in our environments to help us remember these habits. So, again, whether we're talking about gratitude, whether we're talking about data collection, whether we're talking about specialized systems, whether we're talking about specialized systems in our school counseling programs. It doesn't matter what. These are some things that you can do to help train yourself toward those behaviors and eventually create habits.

Speaker 1:

Number one is the almighty sticky note. How many of you love your sticky notes? There is a really cool box set of beautifully colored post-it notes that I buy twice a year on Amazon. It's one of my most favorite purchases at the start of each semester. And, man, I go through sticky notes like nobody's business. And one of the best ways to remind yourself to engage in a new behavior is to use a sticky note. Keep it on your desk, put it on your computer monitor, put it on your door, wherever it is that you're likely to see it in the environment in which you want to engage in the behavior. So for me and a gratitude sticky might be at my desk so that when I shut my computer down at the end of the day, I'm reminded to practice some gratitude. Or maybe it's by my light switch, since that's the last thing I do before I walk out the door. It's going to remind me if I haven't engaged in gratitude through my transition ritual. I can do it. Then Give some careful thought about where to place these sticky notes, be strategic with them, be thoughtful about it. But I'm telling you, it can be so powerful.

Speaker 1:

And I will give you another little neat hack about the sticky notes. Because eventually you and I both know these sticky notes start to blend into the background, don't they? We make these notes with the best of intention, but then after a week or two they kind of just sort of blend into everything else that's on our desks and on our walls and become background noise. We really don't even think about them anymore. We might see the words on the sticky note, but it's not really resonating in our brains that we should do that thing. So one really cool hack about using sticky notes as cues is to schedule yourself to change your sticky notes. Sounds so silly, but you know, when you start running, running, running and you're intervening in so many things you are not going to stop and think about I need to go change my pink sticky note to a bright yellow one You're not going to think about it. But if you schedule it intentionally on your calendar at the beginning of the year and this is something we talk about in our Best Year Ever event coming up so if you haven't signed up for that. Listen. At the end of this episode I'll tell you about how to jump in absolutely free. Schedule the changing of the guard of the sticky notes. It's going to be game-changing for you, I promise. You can also try calendar alerts or phone alerts to be able to cue your behavior response. To really start to develop that habit.

Speaker 1:

You can use habit apps. There are several out there that you might want to try. Sometimes it's about keeping the tools open. So we talk about data tracking. We're talking about keeping our desktop data windows open all the time so it's at top of mind. Anytime we look at our computer monitor, our data is displayed there. Or checking things daily, checking in with them.

Speaker 1:

How can you do that for your gratitude practice? Are you going to note your points of gratitude? Our planner is a great tool for doing that. It has a beautiful space at the bottom of each day just begging for your gratitude items. You can get those and you can get your planner completely free of charge. Just check the podcast show notes here. We'll have a link for you. You can go, hop on, download it and compile it in any way you want Add pages, take pages out. It's really pretty cool, but make sure that you are creating an environment that's going to compel you to remember to engage in this behavior.

Speaker 1:

That's the name of the habit game, but we've got to be intentional about it, because if we're just planning on remembering, we're probably planning to fail Right, and we need to remember that one missed chunk of a behavior or one missed day of a gratitude practice does not mean that all is lost. Sometimes we become victims of all or nothing thinking, whether that's with gratitude practices, data practices, whatever it is we're talking about and one missed day is not going to be a game changer. Missed day is not going to be a game changer. We need to encourage ourselves to get back up on that horse and keep going. It's going to be fine. So really watch your mindset on this. One missed day or one missed chunk of time does not mean that all is lost. Developing habits cannot be an all-or-nothing attitude. According to Gardner Lawley and Wardle 2012, it takes approximately 66 days to develop one habit. That's a pretty chunk of time. So if we have this all-or-nothing attitude about it, it's going to be really hard to get to our end goal.

Speaker 1:

Be flexible, be compassionate with yourself, give yourself empathy. Treat yourself like you would treat your school counselor bestie. Would you walk up to them and say, man, I can't believe you didn't do your gratitude today. What a loser you are. Or would you say you know what? That's all right, we'll try again tomorrow, because I know this is going to be great for you. This is going to be a game changer for your school counseling program and I am here for it. I'm going to cheer you on all the way. Right, we need to do a better job of talking to ourselves like we would talk to our school counselor bestie.

Speaker 1:

And then, last, we need to talk about how we're going to celebrate our wins. Once we hit a milestone with these new habit behaviors, how are we going to celebrate? Positive emotion is so much more powerful than just the idea of relying on motivation or repetition. How are you going to give yourself that atta girl or atta boy? How are you going to cheer yourself on? How are you going to celebrate these wins? Write it down, get intentional with yourself. Tell yourself again, just like you would tell your bestie this is what we're going to do when you get there, and it's going to be amazing. I can't wait to do it. We're going to have the best coffee date ever. We're going to go down to the bakery on the corner that you love and we're going to get a slice of that delicious cheesecake. We're going to take some time and we're just going to do something for ourselves, whatever it is, it doesn't matter how big or how small.

Speaker 1:

The point is, we need to celebrate those wins and really cheer ourselves on, because sometimes it feels like we're the only ones cheering ourselves on and that sounds terrible and you know I jest. But at the end of the day, we've got to be our own best cheerleaders in school counseling programs for sure. But remember, at the end of the day, what's important is we're being intentional about how we're approaching these things. We have a reason why. We know why we want to do it, we know what's standing in our way way and we know why it matters anyway and we embark on these intentional acts. We put cues in our environment so they don't fall by the wayside. We are thoughtful about the way that we're implementing these new habits and we celebrate them when we've accomplished them. Even if it's just a little sliver of the overall goal, it's a great thing to be thinking about as we get ready for the new school year, and so I hope that that was helpful to you in thinking about some new things that you might want to try as we begin a whole new rodeo.

Speaker 1:

All right, I promised you I would also remind you about our Best Year Ever event coming up. I feel like I'm talking about it non-stop, but y'all, it is such a mission. Last year, we had 1,000 people sign up for our free Best Year Ever event, and this year we have a goal to almost double that and, as I told my Facebook group friends, I'm not sure if we'll reach it or not, but we're working really, really hard because we want to educate, empower and inspire advocacy for all of our school counseling friends and colleagues, and we're going to help you bridge the gap between what you were taught in grad school and what actually happens in real world school counseling. Our Best Year Ever event is an annual event, and we have folks that come to it year after year after year. This is not a one-and-done event. This is not one that you're going to attend once and then say, oh no, been there, done that, don't need that anymore. We have folks that attend over and over again because the conversation is so rich, it's so powerful and it gives us such compelling reminders about how to set our programs up to facilitate our best year ever.

Speaker 1:

I can't wait for you to join me. Your ticket is 100% free. All you have to do is hop onto our website to get signed up. I'll leave the link in the show notes or you can go to schoolforschoolcounselorscom. Slash bestyearever and get all signed up. We'll start sending you the information for joining us beginning July 23rd so just about a week away, and I could not be more excited. It's gonna be an amazing time and I don't want you to miss it. All right, I so appreciate you joining me for this podcast episode. Go give some thought to those gratitude cues in your environment coming up in the new school year. Go get signed up for Best Year Ever, and I'll be back soon with another episode of the School for School Counselors podcast. In the meantime, I hope you have the best week. Take care, my friend.