What's Your Plan?

0:00And just like that, the first week of school has wrapped up my friends. This is just a reminder podcast with Brian Martin. And to be honest, I'm sitting here feeling quite tired after the first week. And it's something. You come off summer vacation where you can go into relax mode a little bit. And then you transition back to school and it's like going from zero to 100 in the blink of an eye. But it's a good thing. I mean, it's pretty awesome to be surrounded by great students. It's pretty awesome to be surrounded by some phenomenal colleagues. And as we wrapped up this first week, I really got thinking about how I'm going to approach the inevitable challenges that are going to be knocking at the door this year. And this is what we do. You probably spend a ton of time creating great lessons.

1:04You do the research for them. You put your creativity to work. You design lessons that are going to be fun and interesting. You create these lessons that are going to be rigorous and promote so much learning. But what we don't do, many of us, we don't spend any time preparing ourselves for how we're going to handle the things that are going to pop up this year. Those speed bumps. Because when those speed bumps happen, stress and fatigue often set in, we can become better. That joy that we had the first few weeks of school, it starts slipping away. And it turns into dread and dismay. Those Sunday's scary start coming in. And once we start sliding down that slope, it's such a hard thing to get out.

2:09So maybe take a little time and think about how are you going to handle? How are you going to deal with these inevitable things that come at us? When that problem hits, are you going to run to the teacher next door and start complaining? Are you going to start firing off some emails that you might come to regret? Are you going to get trapped in that cycle where you start ruminating on things and you become angrier and angrier and angrier the more you think about them? Or are you going to plan a hat? When those speed bumps happen, are you going to remind yourself to take a deep breath? Will you make a plan to move your body? And that might be getting outside at lunchtime or just doing a lap or two in the hallway.

3:09Is it having a mantra that you can repeat to yourself over and over again to drown out that negative self-talk that can run rampant through your mind? And one mantra that I picked up this summer is, ohms, obstacles make me stronger. When I plan when those issues pop up, then I'm going to take a deep breath. I'm going to remind myself that obstacles make me stronger. Now I know there's going to be days where I might have to say this a bunch of times, but I'm going to remind myself obstacles make me stronger. I can do hard things. And sometimes it's looking for the opportunity within the mess. Where's the good? Where's the opportunity? Where are the moments that you can grow from?

4:09You know yourself best. And you probably have a ton of tools that work for you. And the key is you want to consciously plan for how you're going to react in those moments and remind yourself of your plan. There's in the moment when stuff hits the fan, when the emotions start running rampant through you, what happens is it's really easy to revert back to the habits that can often be so unhealthy for us. Those habits that seem to build more stress within us. Those habits that fuel our anger a little bit more, that create a little bit more fatigue. Those habits that unleash all those negative feelings that take root inside of us. So I encourage you to take a little bit of time.

5:13Think about your tools, your strategies. And those speed bumps happen for you. When those bad moments happen, how are you going to handle them? What are you going to do? What's your plan? And always remember my friends, we've been blessed with another sunrise. I hope you have an awesome day.