Synthesis Sunday: Transforming My Way of Thinking and Doing My Job

It is time to start my back-to-school blathering again. I have already found my word of the school year - Transform - mainly because my school is in the process of changing every single thing that happens as part of the program in one way or another. Time to figure out what types of things I will strive towards this year in my main professional endeavor.

I keep my full-time job separate from my part-time pursuits as much as I can. I have two journals - one for my full-time job and another one for everything else. My everything else journal is my Star Wars themed journal, and I get to do some drawing and some exploring of a galaxy far far away in that book. I recently added a sticker to the cover (from a packet of stickers that I have been looking for since I moved in November!), and I get all sorts of joy from the process of decorating that journal. My full-time work journal functions very differently, but I am trying to think of ways to strengthen how I use it to help me expand my creativity. I recently started a new book, so I have lots of ways to adapt and make it my own.

Dictionary.com

 Back to the idea of transformation - I have been thinking about what this word means to me. As I often do, I go first to the dictionary...

My transformation is being forced upon me - to some extent. To be totally fair, I am not someone who runs from change, but I do prefer to be part of the planning process rather than just being informed that things are no longer going to work the way they have been working.

We are starting a new program for our older clients - something more focused on vocational exploration and life-long leisure programming than academics. This is something that our clients have needed for a very long time, and it is finally coming to fruition. This program will take about a third of our current client census out of our regular programming. All of us who provide adjunct services are no longer going to be doing things the way we have done them in the recent past. In fact, during the planning process, no one seemed to even think about what would happen for leisure programming for these clients. In the past several months, many of my ideas on how we will proceed with these clients have been the ones adopted.

Since we are sending a third of our clients to the new program where music therapy will no longer be music therapy the way we have done it in the past but will be leisure-based, every class will change a bit. We are looking at smaller classroom sizes, the need for less Behavior Health Technicians, and changes to our schedule to accommodate the new program and the ways we do our jobs. Most of the changes have not been worked out yet - I am hoping that they will be finished and set when we return to work in four days, but I am not counting on it. Most of the time, we run around like chickens with our heads cut off, not knowing what is going to happen and circling blindly until we fall over.

For the record, I do not feel comfortable in these types of situations. I am not easily convinced that things will all work out and that we should learn as we go. I would rather plan for all sorts of eventualities, and I can see many of them. Other people, I guess, do not see many possibilities, but I do. I also like to know that someone has a plan - it doesn't always have to be me, but SOMEONE should, right?

A bit of time ago, I finally came to the conclusion that, while I am perfectly capable of writing goals, I am LOUSY at keeping them. I make a goal and then just stop working towards it after the goal is written down. So, I changed my perspective a bit. I now go on quests - things that I am moving towards. I am not sure how that will translate into transforming things this year, but I am going to explore that possibility.

Time for some brainstorming now...

Transform - change in composition or structure, change in outward form or appearance, change in character or condition.

Since change is such a big part of this particular word, it is time to think about what is going to change for me. My schedule is going to change. My group structure is going to change. My interns' schedules will change. My focus in therapy may change once I have less clients in each group. My relationships with my clients will change when I have less people to corral during a session. All of this is about me. How will things change for my students? For my interns?

There are four days left of this break before we go back into the full school schedule. Some of this time will be taken up with planning and gearing up for a (hopefully) couple of months of "figuring things out as we go." Time to start planning my journey through the school year. Only twelve months left...