The book many never complete.

For many change doesn't always come easily because we're creatures of habit. To break a habit can be difficult as you 'always did it this way' or 'why change something that isn't broken'. Some may say that they have years of experience and what worked yesterday it good enough for today and tomorrow. Often new staff see the work place through a different lens but soon alter their focus to fit in as part of the team.

Often we start the year with new intentions to 'change' and in our hand at our first meeting is your diary or journal. Full of pages which inspires you to remember important dates, quotes filled with words of affirmation and plenty of vacant lines to record notes or observations. For the first month or so you use this book as if it was your bible as the pages within become an extension of your identity.

This book may accompany you to personal development courses where you write key points, record more amazing quotes and fill pages with doodles of provocations, mind maps or reflecting on tips you're keen to share with work peers. In your hand is a book of 'change' which can take you on many pathways or adventures if used to it's full potential.

As the year progresses the diary or journal is put down more than picked up. The cover is looking shabby with turned up corners, inside children's scribble is scattered through out the pages and those amazing quotes just don't hit the heart like when first read. When attending a meeting you pick up a piece of paper accompanied by anything that makes a mark. More ideas are written down and the inclusion of more dates of importance, but within a couple of days that piece of paper is lost, just like your desire to making changes.

Not only has the ritual of writing daily in your book ceased, so has that window of opportunity which was fully opened at the start of the year and now seems half shut with no intention to go any higher. So many diaries and journals books never completed but partly filled with the voices of many with the main voice spoken by you. Stories about your role as an educators, your interpretation of children's learning, your connection to community, your time in nature and everything that is read between.

Recently I moved house and found a box filled with half completed journals but no diaries as I don't care for dates or years as I'm a one day at a time type of girl. As I sat going through the journals my mind was taken back to the moment each entry was recorded. Some changes were actioned upon but never followed through, doodles remained doodles as those ideas were just drawings and that inspiring speaker who's book I purchased on the day was viewed once then put on the shelf for a rainy day. All those pages left in a box was such a waste because it was once treasured literacy.

I reflected if the outcomes for a particular year would be different if we continued the daily ritual of writing in our diary or journal. Would the year have a completely different flow if my pen had flowed across these pages till completed. If only we committed time to ourselves to look and revisit notes or quotes which could have changed the pathways for others, lifted our spirit when low or ignited the spark for creativity.

It's another year and for the first time every I presently don't need a diary but have a journal in my studio where I can record what I do in there on a daily basis. It may be a couple of lines but it has become my ritual for me during the month of January and have another eleven months to record and reflect. I hope your diary or journal will serve you well in 2025.