Making a Difference That Lasts: Intention and Attention

As an educator, I have been surrounded by incredibly caring people who genuinely want to make a difference.

For years, I have used a simple question as an icebreaker in meetings, an introduction during presentations, and even an interview question:

Why do you want to be a teacher, counselor, principal, superintendent, or educator?

The answer is nearly universal:

“I want to make a difference.”

With few exceptions, I can say my colleagues have made and continue to make a profound difference. I could share countless stories of former students who speak with love and wonder about an educator who changed their lives. I also think of my own teachers and the many professional and personal mentors who made a difference in mine.

History gives us extraordinary examples:

Mahatma Gandhi…

the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. …

Mother Teresa…

Sir Winston Churchill…

Florence Nightingale...

the Reverend Billy Graham…

And, here in North Carolina, Dr. Dudley Flood and Dr. Gene Causby... educational leaders who helped schools and communities navigate the difficult early days of desegregation. Traveling across the state, they brought fragmented groups, school board members, teachers, administrators, parents, and, most importantly, students, to the table in search of solutions. Their wisdom, wit, and courage helped defuse problems of tremendous magnitude.

Like the better-known figures listed above, they made a lasting difference.

Yet I wonder whether any of them experienced moments like those I have known, periods of self-doubt when you question whether you are making more than a difference in the moment. You wonder whether your work will truly make a difference that lasts.

Refusing to surrender to negative self-talk, I search for evidence of lasting impact within the tapestry of lives woven together throughout my career, a career spanning decades, thousands of lives, and dozens of communities.

In those moments of reflection, I think about the heroes who mentored me and the students I taught early in my career who are now achieving their dreams. Among them are doctors, attorneys, teachers, bankers, investors, real estate agents, landscape artists, and professionals in countless other fields. Even more important than their career accomplishments, I see them flourishing as friends, spouses, parents, neighbors, and members of their communities.

My own life bears witness to the lasting difference made by the public school teachers who taught and loved me as a child. My career reflects the influence of the teachers and administrators who took me under their wings, first as a young teacher and later as a beginning administrator.

Perhaps the success of my former students reflects the desire I have always had to pay forward what others gave to me. Perhaps that lasting difference can be found in the instructional assistants with whom I worked who are now teachers, the teachers who became principals, or the principals who became superintendents.

There are certainly many encouraging examples. But what can we learn from them? What might be the key to making not merely a difference, but a difference that lasts?

From my reflections, I believe there are two essential requirements: intention and attention.

At the beginning of a new adventure, a new career, school year, position, opportunity, or journey, it is important to state clearly what we intend to accomplish.

A teacher, for example, might say, “This year, I will help each of my students grow in reading.”

That intention becomes even more powerful when it is expressed as a S.M.A.R.T. goal (one that is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound). The teacher’s goal might then become: “During this school year, I will help each of my students improve their reading proficiency by five percentage points on the state assessment.”

Writing down our goals, whether personal or professional, requires us to consider intentionally what might be possible.

But intentionality should not be limited to the metrics typically associated with our work, such as reading scores or other measures of performance. We should be equally intentional about the things that matter most: building relationships, caring for ourselves and our families, and serving our communities.

We might begin with intentions such as:

“This year, I will truly get to know my students and colleagues.”

“I am going to spend more time with my family.”

“I am going to become more involved in my community.”

Written as S.M.A.R.T. goals, those intentions might become:

“During the first week of school, I will have a one-on-one conversation with each of my students, followed by another personal check-in at least every other week.”

“This year, I will spend at least four additional hours each week with my family by reserving one weeknight and one weekend evening for an activity together.”

“This year, I will become more involved in my community by joining a civic organization, attending its meetings regularly, and participating in the monthly Chamber of Commerce gathering.”

Reflecting on an intention, saying it aloud, and ideally writing it down makes us more likely to achieve it. Intention focuses us. It helps prevent the distractions of life from pulling us away from what we have decided matters most.

Feeling good? Ready to change the world and make a difference?

Well…not so fast.

There is another equally important component.

The intention to make a lasting difference is not enough.

Intention fails when it is not accompanied by attention.

Even the best plans are meaningless if we do not continually pay attention to them. If I intend to know my colleagues better, I must spend time with them regularly. I must ask about their families, their interests, and the things that matter to them. If I intend to become more involved in my community, I must place those commitments on my calendar and honor them.

Failing to give consistent attention to the actions required by our goals makes it unlikely that we will achieve them.

If my intention is to help students improve their reading proficiency, I must complete the daily work that brings that intention to life. I cannot expect a student to improve magically if I have not assessed their progress, formally and informally, and, most importantly, adjusted my instruction based on what those check-ins reveal.

In my classroom, during the days before smartphones, I kept checklists in my lesson-plan book. I recorded every check-in and tracked each student’s progress. At a glance, I could see whom I had not spoken with recently. Today, technology makes that kind of tracking much easier. Yet even the best electronic reminder is useless if we fail to pay attention to it.

A personal goal involving self-care and exercise has demonstrated the power of intention and attention in my own life.

For years, I paid lip service to wanting to become healthier and more physically fit, but I made little progress. It was not until 2012, when my son Joshua challenged me, that I determined to act. I decided to become intentional.

It was not easy.

At first, I struggled to run to the stop sign at the end of our road, less than half a mile away. I began using mailboxes as small goals:

I can make it to the next mailbox... I can make it to the next one...

After a slow first month and halting progress, particularly in simply getting out the door, I discovered a strategy that worked for me: tracking my accomplishments and competing against myself.

I opened a new Excel worksheet and created a chart to track my exercise, primarily running and cycling. I set annual mileage goals and recorded my progress each month. Using the MapMyRun application on my phone, I tracked every run and ride. Each week, I opened the spreadsheet and updated my progress.

That Excel file eventually became a Google Sheet filled with line graphs and bar charts documenting more than a decade of progress. I compare one month with the same month in previous years and challenge myself to set new personal records. I accept that I will log more miles during the spring and summer and fewer when the cold weather arrives, but I keep going.

Some years are better than others. Short-term setbacks happen. Still, I know I am making long-term progress because I continue to pay attention.

The same lesson shaped my professional life.

As a principal, I wanted to spend more time in classrooms. It was a heartfelt goal, and year after year, it appeared in my professional development plan. Yet year after year, I failed to accomplish the seemingly simple goal of visiting classrooms more often.

It was far too easy to become trapped by the urgent: a leaky toilet, a phone call to return, or the next unexpected problem, and miss the important work happening inside classrooms.

My breakthrough came when I transformed that worthy intention into a specific goal. I established a target number of classroom visits per week, created a shared tracking sheet with my assistant principals so we could hold one another accountable, and most importantly blocked the time on my calendar.

For superintendents and other district leaders, the same principle applies to visiting schools. How often are you actually present in each school in your district? Do you track those visits? Is time reserved on your calendar each week to be in schools?

If being present in schools is truly one of your priorities, place that time on your calendar now. Do not leave an important intention vulnerable to the demands of the urgent.

Without intention at the outset and attention throughout, I would still be talking about what I hoped to accomplish instead of making meaningful progress—in my health, in classrooms, in schools, and in the lives of others.

Intention and attention are powerful tools for every leader and especially for EdLeaders beginning a new season of opportunity and service.

In the end, only time will reveal whether each of us has made a lasting difference. But I cannot imagine accomplishing that lofty goal without both intention and attention.

Decide what matters.

Name it clearly.

Write it down.

Then give it your faithful attention.

That is how an intention becomes an action, and how an action may ultimately become a difference that lasts.

I have been thinking about the power of intention and attention for some time. This post is based on an EdLeader podcast I shared in 2023 and a blog post I wrote in 2021.

Photo Credit: The first image was generated by ChatGPT. I added the text on the image using PowerPoint. The second image is a photo I took while visiting a classroom. The third image was taken during a 5K race at Charles D. Owen High School.