Well here we are again. As I write this, it feels like Groundhog Day with schools back to remote learning and key worker groups.
Although, things have evolved since last time – I have also evolved. After 6 months of blogging on teacher wellbeing, I’ve concluded that so many posts (including my own) focus on external factors. In many instances, we can’t directly control our short term workload, conditions, health and personal circumstances. Although of course, we can consider the long term effects and plan accordingly. Unfortunately, all too often those who consider that exiting the profession is the way to a better life, have constraints such as needing the salary to support their families in a catch 22 type scenario. Ideally as a profession, we want to keep all of you as you have many talents and skills and so much to give. Striking that balance between personal and professional self, will hopefully save the career you’ve worked so hard for.
We can’t change the whole education ethos and infrastructure, on our own or in a day. The thing we can do however, is focus on our internal wellbeing because ultimately, the only thing we can control is ourselves and our responses to situations. This is not a quick fix. Especially when we are on life’s treadmill desperately attempting to keep up with ourselves and demands upon us. I’ve seen many posts on social media stating that you are replaceable at work but not within your family and it’s a mantra that I keep repeating.
Doubly difficult is when you are also supporting a young family; your own wellbeing becomes secondary and over the past few years I have established that if the kids are happy, then so am I. My expectations of a ‘good day’ have been lowered, meaning I’m rarely disappointed but also gone are my climbing trips and mountain climbs that I used to love. If I’m brutally honest, I feel a bit like a shadow of my former 24 year old carefree self. It’s time for me to seize back the person I used to be which also involves looking after my own wellbeing with a higher priority. My first feat was to encourage my nine year old to make breakfast for my four year old allowing a lie in at the weekends. Small steps but it’s working so far. I also need to get the first couple of weeks of home learning out of the way before climbing this particular mountain.
As a sidenote, I would suggest that taking a collective stand against workplace toxicity and unfeasible workload as a profession would help everybody. After the year we’ve had, wellbeing is (or should be) higher on everyone’s agenda. Now is the time to challenge workload as well as taking a collective stance surrounding a curriculum that is not fit for purpose. Please refer to: https://positiveyoungmind.com/the-seeds-of-change-the-perfect-time-for-curriculum-reform-from-an-semh-perspective/
Still, these are external factors and often outside of the circle of concern (things outside the circle are things you can’t change and should let go, things inside you have control over and can therefore change. There is also a circle of influence where you have some control). During discussions, I have drawn circles in the air and stated that the issue suggested is ‘outside my circle of concern’. I can’t change it so I can either put up with it, change my perception and the way I respond to it, or completely change my environment. Not easy and increasing things that are important appear to be on the edge of the circle (your circle of influence) – i.e if enough people complained, there could be a positive change. Still external factors.
So let’s move to ourselves. Improving our mood and mindset goes a long way to in turn improving those external factors or at least our perception of them. Now before this pandemic I would scoff at the suggestion that I should take more time for me; seeing it as an insurmountable challenge with my giant ‘to do’ list. However, various twists of fate have led me to making ‘me’ a higher priority. Which is the first thing on the path to improvements.
Here is the link to the pdf infographic – please read on to explore each point in greater detail.
1. Make yourself the priority – Put yourself up a couple of notches in the pecking order of priority. Ideally, take the number one spot but if this really is not feasible, at least make a plan of how you are going to make time for you, however small. For example, taking baths not showers as then you get more time to yourself, planning child free time (post lockdown) where you could team up with another family and take it in turns to entertain the children for a few hours.
2. Ditch the guilt – Which goes hand in hand with my previous point. Every time I do something for me, in the back of my mind I’m being lazy which is not conducive to relaxation. As we do with so many of our negative emotions, bury it. This is the only emotion you should bury – let the others out!
3. Self-esteem – Are you someone who works too hard because you think it’s expected of you and you are attempting to be perfect at everything all the time? Does this or similar behaviour stem for some unconscious issue deep inside? We all have our own little issues in worrying we’re not good enough or having imposter syndrome or similar. Working on this is so important as if you have higher self-esteem you are more likely to consider yourself worthy of taking time out to work on yourself. A higher self-esteem improves every aspect of your life so it’s worth the investment.
4. Kindness breeds kindness – I always try and remember (although sometimes a challenge), that however someone is behaving in a situation, there is no way that I have a good understanding of the reasons behind their behaviour so I try to be a little bit kinder than needed. This also has the benefit of confusing people who are ranting at you as they can’t understand why you are responding kindly and calmly. This often neutralises the rant.
5. Gratitude – However tough things get having an #attitudeofgratitude (refer to twitter thread) is so helpful to improving positivity. Thinking about 10 things every morning on the way to work that I am thankful for, really helps lift my positivity and also remember that it could always be worse!
6. Are you a yes person? – I certainly am but these days I am learning to set some boundaries and if I say yes I try and add a ‘but’ and suggest some caveats e.g. I will need some non-contact time to do a good job or I will need admin staff to support with x/y/z/ etc. etc.
7. Mindfulness meditation – I would have nominated myself last year with the ‘person least likely to meditate’ award but things have changed. I am an over analyser. I think of every possible outcome to a situation before making a decision and when something has happened, I ruminate to the point of wearing a hole in my brain cells. However now, I have set aside 15 – 20 minutes a day to just be. I have trained myself to sit in silence with an empty mind. It took a while as when you start to do this, you just think about everything you haven’t done that day. Now I can sit with an empty mind and it is very cathartic. I should have done it years ago. If you don’t fancy the silence, there are thousands of guided meditations on YouTube.
8. Collaboration – It has been a dull year and I am not myself unless I talk to friends although I have also increasingly found myself not wanting to talk, especially as I’m not keen on zoom. This new year I have forced myself to take part in a couple of online courses (not work related) as well as catching up with friends each week. Furthermore the collaboration that online platforms such as Twitter and Facebook have brought, have led me to meet and converse with many different people; connections which may result in meet ups after lockdown.
I heard a prediction that the second half of 2021 will be a coming together, a wonderful time of meeting up with friends and delighting in the simple pleasures that we have all been missing. I will certainly be appreciating the ‘little things’ more than ever before. I’ll also be appreciating big things and making some travel plans!
Out of the ashes of the pandemic your phoenix can rise. The world is full of new beginnings and you will be too. Which of these areas will you be working on in 2021 or do you have other plans? Please comment below and thanks for reading.
Lynn