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Leadership Skills For Child Care Professionals

Start Off With A Positive Expectancy
Julie Bartkus

Fast forward for a moment to the end of this year.  Reflecting back  - what would you like to say you accomplished? If you sat down and made a list right now, what would your list include?  Go ahead; take a few minutes to formulate your list.  I’ll wait…  

Perhaps some of you would like to reach a new milestone in your career, while others would like to live each day feeling less stress and frustration.  Some of you may include on your list transforming your staff into a dynamic, cohesive team, while others would like to help a child make tremendous progress overcoming a challenge he’s been facing. 

Whatever you include on your list, know there is one thing that can make a huge difference in the outcome you achieve.  This one thing is having a positive expectancy for the end result of what you would like to accomplish. 

Positive expectancy is expecting the best possible outcome to come forth in any and every situation.  Having a positive expectancy can make a difference in your attitude and the action you take as a result. 

Unfortunately, many times we focus on what’s not happening or what we’re not getting in life and we block positive results from flowing into our lives.  Sound mystical?  Well, it’s not.  Let me explain.  The action you take in your life is determined by one major factor.  Care to guess what it is?  It’s your thoughts.  That’s right, the thoughts you think over and over again greatly contribute to the action you do or in many cases don’t take in your life.   

Negative thoughts can keep you stuck and positive, constructive thoughts can propel you forward - easy enough to grasp.  The tricky part is mastering the skill of transforming your negative thoughts into positive thoughts so you’re propelled in a positive direction.  Not only is this the trickiest part, it is also the most difficult thing to do.  And that’s why many people don’t change or why some people set the same goal over and over again each year without achieving it.  The thoughts you think, the thoughts you hold on to, have been etched in your mind for many years.  For some of you they may have been etched in your mind since you first grasped what people were saying to you.  As a child care professional, you know how the first few years of life are the most informative and most impressionable years on a child.

It is a difficult thing to erase what has been etched. 

The great news is – it can be done.  You can transform your thoughts, create new etchings, and move through each day and every situation with positive expectancy.  So where do you start?  How can you think new thoughts so new action, new results will be achieved?  Begin the process of transforming your negative thoughts into positive thoughts by becoming aware of the negative thoughts you think and the energy you create within you and around you through hanging on to those thoughts.  Then, create a positive replacement thought for each one of your negative thoughts. That’s the first step.  As you become aware of your negative thoughts and replace them with positive thoughts, you’ll find yourself taking new constructive action; action that will help you accomplish new and exciting things this year.

Many people in my audiences ask me:  “Well, what if I can’t come up with positive replacement thoughts?” This is a challenge I fully understand.  Sometimes the people who I work with create what they think is a positive replacement thought and it’s still a negative thought – just slightly less negative than the first thought.   

An important part of the process is to fuel yourself with positive thoughts through reading positive, inspirational books, or associating with positive people (no, not positively negative people - positive, constructive people!).  Understand that there are many more sources for generating negativity in your life than there are for generating positive thoughts.  These resources include the television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and yes, those negative people in your life.  One of the founders of positive thinking principals, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, said he would stay clear of all the aforementioned sources so he could create more positive energy in his life.      

To generate more positive thoughts in your life go forward with positive expectancy for what your day will bring forth.  Don’t start your day reflecting on all the negative stuff that you think will happen because maybe it won’t and then you wasted all that time dwelling on the negative.   

Make affirmative statements to yourself, out loud if need be, at the start of the day about all things you want to accomplish and things you want to happen.   

Statements may include:   

*Today I will change the lives of 20 children. 

*Today I will create more positive energy in my working and learning environment through complimenting 5 people. 

*Today I will facilitate a dynamic, energizing staff meeting.   

You may be thinking this sounds crazy!  But let me ask you, when you reflect on statements such as:         

*Today the lives of 100 children will be positively impacted thanks to my dynamic team. 

*Today I am grateful for all my staff who show up on time and ready to go. 

How does it make you feel?   

Write out your own statements to help you move forward with positive expectancy and reflect on them for several seconds throughout your day.  Practice this repeatedly for one week, see how it makes you feel and see what kind of action you want to take – positive or negative.     

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