By: Tanya Coyle, CCC-SLP
Copyright 2011. Reprinted with the express permission of the author as it appeared on her blog The Lexical Linguist
awesome [aw-suhm] /’?s?m/ –adjective

1. inspiring awe: an awesome sight.
2. showing or characterized by awe.
3. Slang . very impressive: That new assessment tool is totally awesome.

There’s this book I’ve been meaning to read for about a year now. I think this summer will be the time. Maybe you’ve heard of it, maybe you haven’t. It’s called The Book of Awesome, by Neil Pasricha. Here is a link to his inspirational TedxToronto talk (I just found out he’s Canadian too!) about why he started his blog, 1000AwesomeThings.com, and later wrote his book(s).
Lately work has been really difficult for the entire team I work with. We’ve had an increase in referrals but no increase in staff plus this is the fourth year that the SLPs on the team have been only doing assessments and follow-up and not doing therapy anymore. When you’re not doing therapy, it’s a lot harder to feel like you’re making a difference or to feel effective in your job. It’s not that we AREN’T effective or not making a difference – of course we are. But we lose sight of that somewhere along the way in desperately trying to keep up and provide quality service to the students and teachers we support.
Recently I got the idea to start a Wall of Awesome at work. My intent is that we will post our triumphs, laughs, successes, and generally awesome moments throughout our year. This way we can look at that wall throughout the year and (especially) at the end of the year and say “wow – look at all the awesome moments we shared and things that happened for our students, staff and their families”. I think our department desperately needs that boost.
It then occurred to me that maybe our department isn’t alone in this difficult time when things seem overwhelming or difficult. I think many of us are feeling this to varying degrees for various reasons throughout the world. We can all benefit from seeing awesome things that have happened around us in our profession.
So, I began an SLP Wall of Awesome. It is my hope that you will contribute to this wall from time to time, when you have a success or awesome moment, and we can continue to build it as a global SLP community!! We can feed off of each others’ successes and moments of fun when we are down and chances are it’ll remind of us something similar that happened in our careers recently as well.
I know you can think of something awesome. Even the simple things (and usually the simple things) are full of awesome. If you still need some ideas, here are a few examples of things you might share:

• Something a client, staff member or community member said to you or to someone else that made you smile
• Great progress (or little bits of hard fought progress) your clients have made
• A connection or breakthrough you made with a client, family member or surrounding support staff member
• Something you learned that will change how you practice
• Little things you love about your job or the people you work with

That list isn’t comprehensive, but maybe it’ll give you some ideas. You may also get a few ideas after reading some of Pasricha’s 1000 Awesome Things on his blog. Heck, why not go over there and read some anyhow – it’s a guaranteed pick-me-up!
So, please add some awesomeness to our Wall of Awesome today.
Our Featured Guest Blogger: Tayna Coyle of Lexical Linguist
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About Tanya Coyle: Tanya attended Trent University for her B.Sc in psychology and a minor in anthropology (emphasis on linguistic anthropology). She graduated with a M.Sc. in 2004 from the S-LP program at the University of Western Ontario. She first worked in a local children’s treatment centre with children 0-6 years old and learned a great deal about multidisciplinary practice and therapy. She is now a speech-language pathologist working in schools in Southern Ontario. Tanya is co-creator of the SLPeeps Goal Bank and Shared Resource Folder and is also co-moderator of the new #slpchat on Twitter.