What do you do when you see a construction sign, like road work ahead or a detour? Hopefully, if you’re a good driver, your response is to slow down and be cautious about what lies ahead.

Sometimes I wish that we as people could wear construction signs about ourselves. I would love to let people know that I’m under construction myself. However, I don’t think I would ever take that sign off. I’m always looking for things to improve and fix.

I want to make sure that I’m clear about this. I am not chasing some arbitrary level of perfection. I’ve talked before on here about how perfection is not an attainable goal. What I am doing is trying to be better than the person I was yesterday. My only competitor is myself. My life is not a comparison to anyone else. Honestly, I don’t know anyone else who has been through what I have (especially recently).

In the field of teaching, we’re expected to attend lots of meetings that are “professional development” (PD for short). I put that in quotes because it does not mean that every single meeting will actually improve teaching skills. For the most part, there are always things to work on to improve teaching.  There are new strategies to try, and new ways to to engage and connect with our students.

I spent the last three Saturdays doing a class through my local library. It was a process of career charting. While it may not have been geared specifically toward teaching, there were so many things I learned that can help me as I try to become a better teacher. That was a better example of professional development than some teacher-specific meetings I have attended.

I am in a transitional stage in my life right now. I want to keep some things close to my chest as I work on them, especially as I may not have all the answers yet. But I can say that I hope this summer is good for me. I hope there’s a lot of construction that happens for me personally once this school year ends.

I still have so much to learn. There are always skills I can develop. I will never know everything. And that’s beautiful because that means there are always new experiences I can have. I don’t have everything figured out, nor do I pretend to. As I continue to be under construction, I am recognizing where I am at right here and now. There are a lot of things that I am good at, and there are many things I still need to work on for myself.

At the end of the day, I want to be proud of myself. I want to enjoy the person I see in the mirror. I am trying to find as many areas as I can that need to be under construction. The city and state where I live tends to do a lot of construction at once. I am trying to do the same for myself. In my search, there are a lot of areas that I am finding that need construction. Like I said, this is competition only with myself. I am not trying to be better than anyone else. I am only trying to be better than who I used to be.

I have learned a lot in my life so far, and I know I still have so much to learn. But hopefully, at the end of all this, I’ll be a better person than who I was.