The Question at the Celebration

At a district’s back-to-school celebration last week, I overheard two colleagues greet each other the way people do in late summer. One said, “Wow, you look great. What have you been doing?” It made me wonder how much of our well-being is shaped by our daily habits.

The answer stuck with me. She said she’d finally started each day exercising, walking, spending time outside, prepping her food. She sounded lighter just describing it. Then she said the part that stayed with me longer:

“I’m so nervous that when I go back to school, all of this will go away. I don’t want to do that this year.”

I don’t think that fear is about willpower. I think it’s about what happens to good habits when the container that held them, in this case, summer, disappears.

A Better Question Than a Goal

At the start of a new school year, we often think about goals: What do we want to accomplish? What do we want to change? Where do we want to be by the end of the year?

But maybe there is a better question:

What behaviors do you want to practice so consistently that they become habits?

133 Nights in Hotel Rooms

A few years ago, I was serving as a Director of Schools, a role that required me to travel frequently to schools in Colorado, Texas, and Louisiana. I absolutely loved the work. There was something energizing about being in different schools, learning from different communities, and experiencing different educational environments.

At the end of that year, though, I realized something remarkable: I had spent 133 nights in hotel rooms.

I loved the work, but being away from home for more than a third of the year required intentionality. Early on, I made a commitment to myself: travel would not become an excuse to abandon the things that mattered most to me.

The Checklist on the Mirror

The Flowers That Never Made the List

When the Container Disappears

That’s the same fear that the colleague named at the celebration. Summer feels bounded, a stretch of time with an obvious beginning and end, which is exactly what makes it safe to build new habits. The school year doesn’t offer that same edge. The beginning of a school year brings different schedules, longer days, unexpected challenges, and competing demands. And when life becomes busy or difficult, the things that matter most can sometimes be the first things we stop doing.

Ironically, those are often the things we need most.

Build Your Own Checklist

So, as you begin this school year, consider creating your own checklist.

What behaviors reflect the life and intentions you want to practice?

Maybe it is moving your body every day.

Maybe it is reading for 20 minutes.

Maybe it is leaving work at a reasonable hour.

Maybe it is eating lunch away from your computer.

Maybe it is taking five minutes to reflect at the end of the day.

Whatever you choose, make it visible. Practice it intentionally. Hold yourself accountable, not as punishment, but as a reminder that what you have decided matters to you.

Reflect and Celebrate

Then reflect. What is working? What gets in the way? What behavior has become so natural that you no longer need to track it? What are you ready to add?

And celebrate along the way.

Because eventually, the checklist becomes unnecessary. The behaviors become habits. And the habits become part of how you live.

I hope that the teacher makes her own checklist this year. I hope she tapes it somewhere she’ll see it every day. And I hope that a year from now, someone stops her at a celebration and asks the same question, and she gets to say she never stopped.