My biggest challenges aren’t new ones. They’re not seasonal or situational. They’re the same old adversaries, just wearing different jerseys.
Time is still at the top of the list. Not the total amount of it—I’ve learned that excuse doesn’t hold up—but the way it gets chopped into unusable pieces. Planning time that barely allows for planning. Quiet moments that vanish before you can do anything meaningful with them. By the time there’s space to work, there’s often not enough energy left to use it well.
Energy itself is another challenge. There’s plenty for students, for classrooms, for conversations that matter. Less for the pile of things that still need attention once the building empties out. I’m learning that being tired isn’t always a sign of laziness—it’s sometimes the cost of caring. The trick is knowing when rest is responsible and when it’s just avoidance dressed up in good intentions.
Patience continues to test me. Patience with systems that feel increasingly disconnected from the people inside them. Patience with change that’s presented as progress but feels more like rearrangement. Patience with myself, especially when I know how I want to do something and can’t quite get there under the current constraints.
And then there’s the challenge of letting things go. Not because they don’t matter, but because trying to do everything well eventually means doing nothing particularly well. That one’s hard. I like finishing things. I like excellence. I like the feeling that comes from knowing I gave something my full attention. Learning when “good enough” really is good enough goes against my wiring.
None of these challenges are dramatic. There’s no single villain, no crisis moment to point to. They just keep showing up, quietly, day after day. Maybe that’s the real challenge—not overcoming them once, but facing them again with a little more honesty, a little more grace, and slightly better tools than last time.
Copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt.
