Am I Doing Better Than Before??

It is the first day of school, and I am feeling sucked in by my tradition of self-examination and goal setting. I am actively trying to avoid said tradition because I am finding that my goal writing skills are wonderful, but my goal achievement skills really vacuum! I seem to like writing goals but not doing the work to achieve those same goals. So, I am not going to make goals for this school year (at least, nothing formal...yet). I do not know if I can keep this going for the entire school year, but I am trying, so we will find out.

I've been doing this in my personal life for several months now. I am feeling less self-imposed guilt over not doing the things that I have flagged as important. I am hoping to find a way into completing tasks that does not include writing goals. This goes against every single trained music therapy impulse in my body, but I am trying to be strong!!

So, in the void created by not writing goals for this new school year, I am going to take stock of several attributes instead to see if I feel like I am doing better at specific things or worse. This is the professional edition of my attribute list, not the completely personal one, but as we all know, the personal does leak into the professionalism of us all at one time or another, so there may be some personal things snuck in here as well...

Here we go...

• Musical skill development: Compared to this time last year (which was 16 days before my hand injury), I would say that my skills have not increased much. I spent much of this year not being able to play the guitar at all or the piano with my left hand, so I have not had as much practice time and opportunity to advance my skills as I would have liked, but my skills are strong and solid and very functional so I'm not lacking. I just haven't pushed to learn something new. That's primarily due to the hand injury (I've been cleared, but there are still some concerns about my fingers right now).
• Professional skill development: I have not read nearly as many books as I thought I would this year - four rather than the thirteen I was trying for, but I did complete several CMTEs and expanded my knowledge of music therapy through different perspectives. I think this is an area where I am definitely doing better than before! I am tired of learning, but I am enjoying getting to know music therapists from other parts of the country through my own CMTE offering. That's right! I have an active CMTE offering, so that's definitely something that wasn't happening last year!!
• Music Therapy Interactions with Clients: I have been able to bring individual music therapy sessions back with specific clients recently. The start of this year means that I have 25 individual opportunities to offer to some of my clients. This is something that has not happened for several years due to lots of different circumstances including two injuries which kept me on light duty (AKA no individual interaction due to safety concerns) and the entire facility has gotten out of the practice of individual music therapy. I am starting to get that back and to get things going again. I want to fill up at least 15 of those individual slots for this semester, so I am going to do what I can to get that going more strongly. I think that this is an area where I have grown in the past year - but just in the last six months or so.
• Electronic skill development: This is an area where I have started to increase my sophistication but still have LOTS of things to learn about! I have a Promethean Board in my room now, and I am starting to figure out ways to get it into music therapy treatment situations, but I have so much more to learn! Thanks to Rhonda, during one of our Music Therapy Meets, I have learned about how to put together Google Slide shows that are interactive, but I have not really had the time to sit down and work on making my own. That's why I am trying to avoid filling all of my individual slots for this next semester - so I can have a bit of time to play around with how to incorporate the ProBo into my way of doing music therapy. Of course, I have used video conferencing software for many years now as part of my work with the Online Conference for Music Therapy, Inc., but there is always room for growth. So, I am doing better than before, but I am craving more and more all the time!
• Facility Team Recognition and Awareness: This is an area where I am not doing well. What I mean about this is being part of a team that works towards the common goods of the persons we serve. Now, to be fair to me, it has been almost impossible to be this type of person during this last year. We have had little to no opportunities to work with each other, but I bring an introverted aversion to face-to-face wastes of time to this particular situation. My new principal mentioned this when he told me about the lake get-together on the last day of summer school. He has noticed that I do not participate in many of these team-building excursions. What he doesn't know is that I have a Wednesday evening job which keeps me from participating and a severe difficulty with being outside in heat advisory temperatures in this humid air. Sounds like a bunch of excuses, doesn't it? Most of them are legitimate, but there is also lots of anxiety involved with having to go to a place where I would not be welcomed (due to the person hosting the event), watching co-workers engage in behaviors that are not my preferred things to do, and not being able to make sure that I could be healthy during or after the event. So, there is that. Some of this is me not wanting to be bothered, but some of it is bad timing. I did go to the first outing that was offered by this person when he was just our assistant principal - a bowling event. I had just had knee surgery the month before and was not allowed to pick up more than 5 pounds, so I had to sit and watch rather than engage. Hard to be part of a team when you can't participate in the activity. Also, I have recently found most things done in the name of "team-building" to be lacking the crucial element of actually building knowledge of our team and how we work together.

I am heading to work for the first of two "staff development days." We are no longer going to call them "inservice days." They now have a new name. We are going to be developed today. We have a bunch of trainings to get through and (hopefully) there is a rumor that we are going to get some ProBo training as well. I hope it is more than just "how to turn it on" training. I have questions about apps and who is in charge of buying and installing them...

I do have one quest for this year. I saw a good meme on Instagram that recommended reframing errands as quest events - I liked that, so I am taking it for myself. I will no longer have goals. I will have quests!

My quest for this year is to strengthen my communication opportunities for my clients. I do an okay job with this now - I have lots of PECS - but this needs to be significantly changed in order to offer as many choices for communication as possible to my clients at all times. I have binders of icons. I use my binders for sessions where most of my clients use alternative communication systems, but I do not have enough. There are never enough PECS in the world to communicate all that needs to be communicated. NEVER! So, my quest is going to be a never-ending quest to support my clients. How can I strengthen their voices in music therapy? Right now, due to the type of clients that I serve, most of my communication aids are contained in my cabinet where I control whether they are accessed or not. I want some of that to change, but I have to keep the safety of my clients first, and I have not figured out how to do this yet. Hence, the quest.

So, my quest (which is different from a goal, how?? Unknown, but it satisfies my need to have something to work on) is to strengthen the voices of my clients while they are in music therapy. There will be a map...hmmm. Something creative to make to help me on my quest? Yes, please!!

So, it is time to start my journey through this new school year. We will see what happens as I journey through new administrations, changes in how we do things, the continuing pandemic situation, and my own quest for better communication with and for my clients. 

Text description: Author wearing a facility t-shirt and a blue superhero cape in front of a messy bookshelf. There is a look of astonishment on the face of the author.