Hi, The Good Principal.
I’ve been following your confessions for a while now. There are days when I read something here and honestly wonder how a complete stranger managed to put into words what I’ve been feeling.
I’ve never sent anything because I always thought my own problems weren’t worth sharing.
But I’ve had a particularly exhausting week, and I guess I just want to get something off my chest.
People keep telling me how strong I am.
I know it’s supposed to be a compliment. I know they mean well.
But lately, every time someone says it, I feel something completely different.
Please call me Rebecca.
I’m curious whether other principals feel the same way, or if I’m just having one of those weeks.
I’m not offended when people call me strong.
I know it is a compliment.
I know some people are genuinely admiring the way I keep things together.
But there are days when “you’re strong” doesn’t sound like praise anymore.
It sounds like:
Good. So you can take one more thing.
And that is difficult to admit because nobody is actually saying that.
Maybe I’m the one hearing it that way.
Still, I’ve started noticing how tired I am of being known as the person who can handle things.
A few weeks ago, someone came into my office, handed me another problem, and said:
“Ma’am, I know you can handle this.”
I smiled.
Of course I did.
But inside, I had this immediate thought:
What if I don’t want to handle it?
That thought stayed with me.
So I’m sending this because I wonder if other school leaders ever get tired of being praised for surviving things they secretly wish they did not have to keep surviving.
There are days when I get tired of everyone telling me I’m strong.
I know they mean it as a compliment.
“You always handle things so well.”
“You’re strong, Ma’am.”
“I don’t know how you do it.”
And I smile.
Say thank you.
Make a joke.
Move on.
But sometimes I hear “you’re strong” and what I really hear is:
Good. So we can keep giving you more.
That sounds unfair.
Maybe it is.
But that’s what it feels like some days.
People assume if you handled the last difficult thing, you can handle the next one.
If you stayed composed during one crisis, you’ll stay composed during another.
If you didn’t break last month, then obviously you’re fine now.
And maybe most of the time I am.
But not always.
There was one week when everything felt like too much.
Not one big disaster.
Just a pile.
A teacher issue.
A parent concern.
A district deadline.
A staff member who needed to talk.
A decision I wasn’t sure about.
A meeting I didn’t want to attend.
Messages after work.
Things at home.
Nothing dramatic enough to justify falling apart.
That’s almost worse.
Because when there’s a crisis, at least you can point to something.
This was just…
too much of everything.
One afternoon, someone came into my office and said:
“Ma’am, I know you can handle this.”
I almost laughed.
Not because I could.
Because I was so tired of hearing that sentence.
I wanted to say:
What if I don’t want to handle it?
Not forever.
Just this one.
Can somebody else be the strong one today?
I didn’t say it.
Of course.
I said:
“Okay. Let me see.”
And there it was again.
Another thing.
Another problem now sitting in front of me because apparently I’m good at carrying things.
I know how dramatic that sounds.
I don’t mean literally carrying everyone’s problems.
People handle their own lives.
I know that.
But there’s this weird thing that happens when people see you as capable.
They stop checking how much room you have left.
Sometimes you stop checking too.
You just keep taking things.
One more meeting.
One more conversation.
One more request.
One more problem.
One more day.
Then somebody says:
“You’re strong.”
And you almost want to scream.
I don’t want to be strong right now.
I want to be annoyed.
I want to say I don’t know.
I want to say I’m tired.
I want to say this hurts.
I want to say I handled that badly.
I want to say I’m scared I’m making the wrong decision.
I want to say I don’t have anything useful to say today.
But there’s always that little voice in my head reminding me that I’m the principal.
So I edit.
Even when I’m alone sometimes.
That’s probably the strangest part.
You get so used to filtering yourself in front of other people that you start filtering yourself in your own head.
“This isn’t that bad.”
“Other people have it worse.”
“You chose this.”
“You can handle it.”
“Just get through the week.”
Sometimes I think I talk to myself the same way people talk to me.
Be strong.
Keep going.
Handle it.
And honestly?
Sometimes I’m sick of my own advice.
There was one night I opened a notebook because I couldn’t sleep.
Nothing special.
Just some old notebook I had lying around.
I started writing.
At first it was normal.
Things I needed to do.
Things I forgot.
Then somewhere in the middle I wrote:
I am tired of pretending this doesn’t affect me.
I stared at that sentence for a while.
It felt stupidly dramatic on paper.
But also true.
So I kept going.
I wrote things I would never say in a meeting.
Things I would never say to my teachers.
Things I probably wouldn’t even say to friends because I didn’t want to sound ungrateful.
I wrote that I was angry.
That I was disappointed.
That I was scared I was becoming someone I didn’t like.
That I resented being needed sometimes.
That I missed being left alone.
That I didn’t know if I was doing enough.
That I hated how much one person’s comment had bothered me.
That I was tired of being the calm one.
That I was tired of acting like I wasn’t tired of being the calm one.
It was messy.
The handwriting got worse the longer I wrote.
Some sentences didn’t even make sense.
A few things contradicted each other.
I didn’t care.
Nobody was going to read it.
That was the point.
For maybe twenty minutes, I didn’t have to sound reasonable.
I didn’t have to make the story fair.
I didn’t have to explain the context.
I didn’t have to think about how it would sound.
I could just say:
This pissed me off.
This hurt.
I don’t know what I’m doing with this.
I wish I didn’t care.
I care too much.
I’m tired.
That felt good.
Not fixed.
Not healed.
Just…
honest.
And maybe that’s what I miss sometimes.
Not being strong.
Being honest.
Those are not always the same thing.
People think strength means holding yourself together.
Maybe sometimes it does.
But I think there are also days when holding yourself together all the time starts to feel like another performance.
I don’t want to perform strength every day.
Some days I want somewhere I can be petty.
Confused.
Unfair.
Sad.
Angry.
Scared.
Wrong.
And then maybe look at it again tomorrow when I’m calmer.
That doesn’t mean I want to dump all of that on my staff.
I don’t.
They don’t need every private emotion I have.
But I think I need somewhere for it to go.
Because if it doesn’t go anywhere, it just sits there.
And eventually it comes out somewhere stupid.
In the car.
At home.
In a short reply to someone who didn’t deserve it.
In a meeting where I suddenly have no patience left.
So no.
I don’t always want to be strong.
Sometimes I just want to write the ugly version first.
The version nobody sees.
Then close the notebook.
And be done for the night.
I think that is what I am asking about.
Where do school leaders put the version of themselves that is not calm, fair, measured, thoughtful, or ready with an answer?
Because I know that version should not always come out at work.
But I also do not think pretending she does not exist is helping me either.
I would really like to hear what The Good Principal thinks.
And I would especially like to know what other principals do when they are tired of being the person everyone assumes can handle one more thing.
Do you talk to someone?
Write?
Sit in silence?
Keep it in your head until it passes?
I’m honestly curious.
Thank you for giving us somewhere to say the part that does not sound very “strong.”
Maybe that is exactly why it needs somewhere to go.
— Rebecca
FROM THE GOOD PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE
There’s a difference between being strong and having no place where you can stop being strong.
And sometimes, that difference is easy to overlook, especially when you’ve spent years being the person everyone expects to hold things together.
As a school leader, you can’t always say what you’re thinking. You can’t let every frustration show, and you can’t take out a difficult day on the people who depend on you.
That’s part of the responsibility.
But keeping your emotions in check at work doesn’t mean you have to pretend those emotions don’t exist.
You can be professional and still feel hurt. You can handle a difficult situation well and still go home feeling completely drained.
What worries me is when holding everything in becomes so normal that you stop admitting, even to yourself, how much something has affected you.
You deserve a place where you don’t always have to be the strong one.
You wrote something important:
“You get so used to filtering yourself in front of other people that you start filtering yourself in your own head.”
That is worth paying attention to.
Because once that happens, even your private reactions start having to pass some imaginary leadership test.
Am I allowed to be angry about this?
Is this serious enough to upset me?
Am I being dramatic?
Other people have it worse.
I chose this.
I should be able to handle it.
That kind of internal editing can make you lose touch with what is actually happening inside you.
And sometimes the first useful thing is not solving anything.
It is simply telling the truth before you clean it up.
I am angry.
I am tired.
That comment hurt me.
I resent being needed right now.
I am jealous of people who get to leave work at work.
I am scared I made the wrong decision.
I handled that badly.
Those thoughts are not leadership decisions.
They are reactions.
And reactions do not become harmful simply because they exist.
What matters is what you do with them.
That is why what happened with the notebook matters more than it may seem.
You created a place where the first version did not have to be fair.
That can be incredibly useful.
Because when you are leading people, the version you eventually act on often does need to be fair.
You need context.
You need restraint.
You need to consider other perspectives.
But that does not mean the first private version has to arrive already polished.
Sometimes you need to write:
This pissed me off.
before you are ready to ask:
Why did this affect me so much?
Sometimes:
I cannot stand this person today.
comes before:
What exactly is happening in this relationship?
Sometimes:
I want to leave.
does not mean you are resigning.
It may simply mean:
I need relief.
A private page gives you room to separate the raw reaction from the decision you eventually make.
That distinction is important.
You are not using the page to justify everything you feel.
You are using it to see what you feel before deciding what deserves action.
There is also something else in your confession that deserves attention:
“People assume if you handled the last difficult thing, you can handle the next one.”
Yes.
Competence can accidentally become a trap.
When someone consistently manages hard situations well, the people around her may stop seeing the effort involved.
They only see the outcome.
She handled it.
She stayed composed.
She got through it.
So the assumption becomes:
She can handle another one.
And another.
And another.
Sometimes the leader begins making the same assumption about herself.
I handled last week.
So I can handle this week.
I survived that conflict.
So I should be able to take another one.
I have always been strong.
So I am not allowed to have reached my limit today.
That is where the compliment starts becoming pressure.
Not necessarily because other people intended it that way.
But because “strong” quietly becomes part of your job description.
And then saying:
“I don’t have capacity for this right now”
can feel like you are breaking character.
You are not.
Strength does not mean unlimited capacity.
Being capable does not mean endlessly available.
Sometimes a strong response is:
“I need time before I answer this.”
Sometimes:
“I cannot take this on alone.”
Sometimes:
“This needs to be shared.”
Sometimes:
“I’m not in the right headspace to make this decision today.”
Those are not failures of strength.
They may actually be signs that you are paying attention before your capacity makes the decision for you.
I would also think about your line:
“Nothing dramatic enough to justify falling apart.”
You do not need one dramatic event for accumulation to matter.
Ten ordinary things can still become too much.
A difficult meeting.
A parent concern.
A deadline.
A problem at home.
Three late messages.
A staff conversation.
Another decision.
None of those individually has to qualify as a crisis.
The nervous system does not require a crisis certificate before it becomes exhausted.
Sometimes the problem is simply volume.
And because nothing looks dramatic from the outside, leaders often keep adding more.
That is why the private check-in matters.
Not:
“Is this bad enough that I deserve to feel overwhelmed?”
A better question may be:
“How full am I right now?”
That is more useful.
Because if the answer is:
very,
then you can make different choices before the frustration leaks into the wrong conversation.
You also said you want somewhere you can be:
petty,
confused,
unfair,
sad,
angry,
scared,
wrong.
I actually think that list explains why private reflection matters.
Not because you should stay in those versions of the story.
But because sometimes you need permission to start there.
A private page is one of the few places where you do not have to manage somebody else’s reaction while you figure out your own.
Nobody is offended.
Nobody is worried.
Nobody repeats it.
Nobody needs you to clarify.
You can write something ugly.
Close the book.
Come back later.
And discover:
I do not actually believe all of that anymore.
Or:
I still believe some of it.
Or:
That anger was covering something else.
That is useful.
It is not the same thing as rumination.
The aim is not to sit there rewriting the same pain forever.
The aim is to make the feeling visible enough that you can eventually decide what belongs to you, what requires action, and what can be put down.
And yes…
this is one of those moments where I can genuinely say:
there is something built for exactly this.
The Principal’s Private Pages was created for the version of school leadership that does not always belong in a staff meeting, an email, or a conversation with colleagues.
It is a private guided journal for the person behind the position.
Not a productivity planner.
Not another place to list tasks.
Not a book telling you to turn every difficult experience into gratitude.
It gives you somewhere to sit with questions and feelings school leaders often edit out before anyone ever hears them.
The things you cannot say out loud.
The weight of the position.
The day when everyone needed something.
The anger you do not want to carry into tomorrow.
The moments when you question whether you still want this.
The things you need to put down for a while.
The point is not to make you more positive.
The point is to make room for honesty before you decide what comes next.
Because sometimes you do not need someone telling you:
“You’re strong. You’ll handle it.”
Sometimes you need a page that asks nothing from you.
A place where you can write:
Actually, I do not want to handle this right now.
And nobody argues.
Nobody needs reassurance.
Nobody asks for a decision.
You can simply tell the truth.
Then close it.
That is what The Principal’s Private Pages is meant to offer.
Not a solution to every difficult feeling.
A private place where the difficult feeling is allowed to exist long enough for you to understand it.
So Rebecca, maybe the goal is not becoming less strong.
Maybe it is making sure strength is not the only version of you that gets any space.
You can still be the capable principal everyone knows.
But somewhere—
on a page,
with one trusted person,
in one private corner of your life—
you also need permission to say:
I’m tired.
This hurt.
I don’t know.
I’m angry.
I need a minute.
And maybe that is strength too.
Just a quieter kind.
Share Your Thoughts