Tag: happy teacher

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Restoring Mental Energy

Tranquil Meditation scenery
Pixabay.com

Sometimes, no matter how much meditation, deep breathing, or mindfulness we pack into our day or week, our mental energy can be depleted.

To restore it without drugs, alcohol, caffeine or food, try one of these ways:

Find uplifting and positive activities

If f a Facebook or YouTube cat video makes you laugh, then watch it. Just in case you need a fix right now, here’s one:

If prayer or meditation gives you the needed relief, then pray or meditate.

If playing with your children does the trick, then play.

Some days, binge-watching Netflix can do the trick. 😉

Make a list of activities that are uplifting to you and make you feel positive about life.

Do what you love just like Bob Ross

(Here’s a link to Bob’s YouTube channel!)

Work aside (the one that pays the bills), what is it that you LOVE to do?

Baking, cleaning, organizing, reading, painting, running, walking in nature?

Some say you can’t choose what you do for a job and many say that the notion of “doing what you love, so that it doesn’t feel like work” is reserved for the few and the talented.

But each time you decide to do something (life, work, family) you are making a choice.

A choice to eat or not to eat the chocolate cake instead of an apple for breakfast. That’s not to say you have to beat yourself up about it. Admit your choice, and move on. But do realize you did make that choice.

Same with work. You CAN choose to take steps to better your situation. You can choose to be happy you have a job in the first place. Often that can be the catalyst to accepting what you have, and often it can be the catalyst for change.

You could start turning your hobby you love into work you love. It may take time, but it is possible.

If you are already doing what you love (teaching), then make every moment count. Do the things you love to do with your students, brainstorm with colleagues to make your school the best – the greatest – place to work and learn.

Mission for a purpose

Often, focusing on the “why” of our work can restore your energy.

For teachers, the why can be helping students understand grammar or math problems, influencing lives, ensuring students are taken care of, getting them ready for the real world.

For a factory worker, it can be that the microwave-ready veggies they put into the bags parents are purchasing helps the harried family have a fast and nutritious meal.

Restore with gratitude

writing a gratitude journal
pixabay.com CC0

When you are grateful for even the smallest things in life, you can quickly restore your energy. Writing down or saying out loud the things you’re grateful for today can increase your positivity.

Simply state: “I’m so happy and grateful that I have…

…food in my belly

…a job

…money for gas

…a nice home and family

…a healthy lifestyle etc.

Bringing work home

As teachers, we feel that we should be available 24/7, including nights and weekends.

After all, we do have summers off as well as time during the Holiday season to recharge.

You know well that it doesn’t work that way.

When you’re working 6-7 days a week, you’re doing no one any favors. Least of all yourself.

When you’re not happy, no one is happy.

We don’t even realize it ourselves that we project the unhappiness and exhaustion we feel onto everyone else as well – students, colleagues, and family alike.

Bringing work home won’t show as extra pay at the end of the month. Nor any less.

Instead, try to do all the work possible at school – at work.

Now, if you’re an English teacher like I was, there are times when you have to take a stack of essays home to read and correct. But it shouldn’t happen every night.

And if you’re like me, taking that bag of work home but not even opening it because you are so exhausted, well – that just creates more stress, because now you didn’t take care of it. (I wrote about the belief of how hard a task is here)

My solution was to have rituals in place, so that work was done at work, and home was for relaxing.

Cultivating a calm mindset is the key in managing the way your energy is expended.

That energy can be replenished with meditation. To feel calmer, happier, and more energized, click here for guided meditation written for Teachers by a Teacher.

I wish you a calm day.

Most sincerely,

Taru

Feel happier today — Order the full guide to listen to words of inspiration

Master your life to find happiness and fulfillment. Live in the moment, be present, be here now, and use your talents to create a clear and tranquil mind.

TRY IT! 5 DAYS of FREE GUIDED MEDITATION!

Just click here, enter your name & email to get started!

All done with the 5 Free Days? If you found the meditation helpful, imagine what 21 Days of Guided Meditation can do? Order now and Listen to Days 6-21 and continue to create calmness, happiness, and energy in your life.

Use coupon code Love2019 during the month of February to get $9.00 OFF regular price of $29.00! (That’s 31% off!)

Keep Reading the blog: 9 Tools to Get Enough ZZZs

©2018 Taru Nieminen – The Happy Teacher Solution

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Day 21 The Happy Teacher’s Path

Photo by Anisur Rahman on Unsplash

Today’s Meditation

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“Happiness is a journey, not a destination.” —Ben Sweetland

Congratulations on finishing the 21-day journey! (If you haven’t started the journey, click here to get the tools.)

You now have tools in your toolbox as a teacher to take your teaching to the next level, to be a happy, relaxed, and energized teacher.

As you continue the path to happiness and fulfillment, you can always come back to the meditation, the readings, the recordings, to give yourself a lift. With meditation, you can master all the parts which can wreak havoc in your life. Now you know how to control them and give them the space they need so you can be successful in your life, your relationships, in your work.

You are now mastering your new life

People will notice. When you realize or think that your friends, colleagues, students have changed, it is actually you, who has changed. Changed to feel that you can be happy, relaxed, and possess energy throughout each day of teaching.

You really can be and have it all— by controlling your mind, your body, and feeding your soul.

All you needed were the correct tools.

It has truly been an honor to work with you during this journey. Remember to think love, feel love, breathe love in, breathe love out, and blanket yourself in love to feel happy, relaxed, and energized.

I wish you all the joy and happiness an ideal teacher’s life can give you and yours, and as I leave you with Aristotle’s wise words, remember to lead, teach, and live in your heart.

“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”

Feel happier today — Order the full guide to listen to words of inspiration

Continue to master your new life to happiness and fulfillment. Live in the moment, be present, be here now, and use your talents to create a clear and tranquil mind.

TRY IT! 5 DAYS of FREE GUIDED MEDITATION!

Just click here, enter your name & email to get started!

All done with the 5 Free Days? If you found the meditation helpful, imagine what 21 Days of Guided Meditation can do? Order now and Listen to Days 6-21 and continue to create calmness, happiness, and energy in your life.

Keep Reading the blog: How to Create Resilience

©2017-19 Taru Nieminen – The Happy Teacher Solution

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Day 20 Align Yourself with Your Dream

Photo by Daniel Apodaca on Unsplash

Today’s Meditation

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The Seven Keys to Living a Life with Passion and Purpose Are Commitment, Clarity, Attention, Staying Open, Having Integrity, Persistence, and Following Your Heart.

When you dedicate yourself to the happy teacher’s lifestyle, make it your focus and be willing to commit to that focus every day.

Now, I’m not saying that weekends and every day of your summer holiday should be spent on coming up with new lesson plans, or even thinking of lesson plans. On the contrary, if a day at the beach gives you the happiness you need to figure out your passion, then do that.

Ponder — “How Is This (whatever you’re doing/going to do) Helping Me Be Happy?”

Get your brain to play with you, your body, and your mind. Let it tell you what it needs, what your body needs, what your mind needs. If it’s a day of rest, good, if it’s a day of yard work, a day of volunteering – whatever it is, just do it with the mindset of aligning your hours and days, weeks, and months, to being the happy, relaxed, energized teacher.

Dedication to your craft can be even more important than talent. After all, the Sistine Chapel wasn’t painted in a day, nor was your teaching certificate earned in mere minutes. Take heart, and decide to align yourself with your dream.

Be True to Yourself, Be True to Your Dream

Stand in your own power of positivity, be aligned with your principles, think of yourself in the highest. Embrace all the parts of you. Foster responsibility for your own well-being.

When you are true to yourself, you feel empowered, you don’t want for anything; no need to compare yourself to others, wishing you had something, wishing you were someone else. You are completely at peace, content to be the happy teacher and finding that within you every day.

When thinking of your dream and dedicating yourself to the world of teaching, you can ask this question: “Who do I have to be in my inner world, to create effortlessly and easily with joy, the things that will nourish me in the outer world?”

Being passionate about education means being enlightened and involving yourself fully to the task. Learning new things develops the whole brain, the whole heart, the natural capacity of humans to evolve in our thinking and grow toward fulfillment.

What are you willing to do?

What are you willing to do, to even sacrifice, if needed, to find your dream, to live your dream, to be the happy, relaxed, energized teacher? Are you willing to say, “I am a successful teacher!” “A happy teacher, relaxed and full of energy!”

Put your energy into projects that you feel are worthy, so you can glean maximum happiness for your life, creating the happy, relaxed, and energized teacher.

And remember Woodrow Wilson’s words as you ponder your teaching:

“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, within greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are her to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”

Feel happier today — Order the full guide to listen to words of inspiration

Find your natural joy of teaching, figure out where you need to teach, what you need to teach, and who you need to teach. Your passion should bring you joy. The expansion of knowledge and power you receive from meditation can give you happiness and in turn, influence your everyday life.

TRY IT! 5 DAYS of FREE GUIDED MEDITATION!

Just click here, enter your name & email to get started!

All done with the 5 Free Days? If you found the meditation helpful, imagine what 21 Days of Guided Meditation can do? Order now and Listen to Days 6-20 and beyond to create calmness, happiness, and energy in your life.

Keep Reading the blog: Day 21 The Happy Teacher’s Path

©2017-19 Taru Nieminen – The Happy Teacher Solution

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Day 19 Renewal at the Core

Photo by Jacalyn Beales on Unsplash

Today’s Meditation

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“The moment you take responsibility for everything in your life, is the moment you can change anything in your life.” —Hal Elrod

Renewal begins in the mind. And leaving the treadmill way of life behind. That way the natural happiness inside is released. We are renewed.

When we get overstressed, overwhelmed, tired and irritated, the negative feelings just add up, we begin to spiral downwards in our minds, in our body, our life. Energy is zapped out of us like the air being let out a balloon, all the air squeezed out, laying limp on the ground.

Decide to start anew

This is when we need to make a decision to re-focus, re-energize, and re-center ourselves. Clearing away bad habits and firmly deciding not to spend time on anything that doesn’t bring us happiness, and start anew.

The journey you’ve taken to become a happier, relaxed, and more energized teacher has given you tools to take care of life’s challenges, and today we celebrate the renewed teacher.

Renewing is making something new, fresh, or strong again; the time when something is effective or valid.

Validate your new beginning with vigor and fresh, new ideas. Make this time your strong time.

Take time to release the obsession that faster is better, that speed, performance, and “effectiveness” is the norm — take time to renew, to release, to connect.

Ask your mind and body what they require. It’s okay to let go of even some effective habits if they don’t serve you, if they don’t bring you happiness and fulfillment. Make a commitment to take care of the needs of your body and mind, being healthy. Explore your lifestyle. What is it that it needs to be healthier, more productive, vibrant and imaginative?

So far, you’ve gone above and beyond in your daily life by taking care of you, taking this journey to become happier; finding the simple, good life for long-term.

Feel happier today — Order the full guide to listen to words of inspiration

During this journey, you’ve taken care of the self-sabotaging inner critic, the procrastinator, you’ve gained focus, knocked down creative blocks, and overcome challenges. You’ve invited abundance in, and learned to create effortless motivation by creating a flow in your day. Now it is time to renew and find the simple, good life of a happy, relaxed, energized teacher.

TRY IT! 5 DAYS of FREE GUIDED MEDITATION!

Just click here, enter your name & email to get started!

All done with the 5 Free Days? If you found the meditation helpful, imagine what 21 Days of Guided Meditation can do? Order now and Listen to Days 6-19 and beyond to create calmness, happiness, and energy in your life.

Keep Reading the blog: Day 20 Align Yourself with the Dream

©2017-19 Taru Nieminen – The Happy Teacher Solution

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Day 18 Shaping the Happy Teacher’s Life

Photo by Austin Schmid on Unsplash

Today’s Meditation

____________________________________________________________

“When you follow your bliss…

doors will open where you would not have thought

there would be doors; and where

there wouldn’t be a door for anyone else. “

—Joseph Campbell

When it comes down to it, we all want a good life. Each and every one has the ability and power to manifest the life you want, the life of your dreams.

You can find joy and value in what you do by using your talents to positively influence the world around you. When you do this, manifest this, you are bound to be happier. Bound to be more relaxed, more energized.

Finding your passion or your “why”

When a person’s primary motivation and focus is on the “why” of their work, they are working on the A-level of their profession, career, relationships, and life in general.

The power of your mind can fully demonstrate what you can and will accomplish in your life. Making thoughts into reality and creating that authentic teacher’s life — seeing the ideas and possibilities come to life, to reality. When you start to put these ideas and possibilities into your life, think “integrity, intelligence, and high degree of energy” as those three can make you successful beyond belief. But also remember, as Warren Buffet once said in a Harvard lecture: “if you don’t have the first, the other two don’t matter.”

“If you don’t know what your passion is, realize that one reason for your existence on earth is to find it.” —Oprah Winfrey

Deepen your understanding of your core motivation, your passion, your “why” and journey toward putting your passion to work for you.

Your passions are the loves of your life, the things that are most important to you. When you talk about them, your face lights up, you give off a glow, your eyes sparkle and shine. Everyone knows you are passionate about these things.

When you think of your work as a teacher, ask yourself these four questions:

  1. What is my best work experience? (after you answer this, ask yourself the follow-up question: How can I duplicate that every day?)
  2. What is my best work detail? (i.e. what is most motivating to me? why did that detail make me feel so good?)
  3. What’s important to me at work?
  4. What’s missing?

Be specific with your answers, but most of all, be truthful. Only you see these answers. Writing them down can open your eyes to new possibilities, new ideas, new thoughts, and you might want to share some or all with your significant other, your best friend – someone who understands where you are coming from and where you’re going.

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” —Eleanor Roosevelt.

When you know your “why” — life is fun and engaging

Remember, when you are truly passionate about something, you don’t have to try hard to put attention on it. It’s fun, engaging, it’s exciting. Challenges might slow you down, but they no longer deter you. You might have to take a side street, a detour, but you eventually end back out on the open main road, cruising along, living your ideal life, making a list of your passions and manifesting them each day for the rest of your life.

If you’re struggling with finding your passion, I recommend The Passion Test- the Effortless Path to Discovering Your Destiny – a book by Janet and Chris Attwood, or What Motivates Me by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton.

Find your passion.

Feel happier today — Order the full guide to listen to words of inspiration

Shaping the happy teacher’s life starts with figuring out the specifics of life, visualizing the way we want our life to move forward. Today’s meditation can show you the happy teacher.

TRY IT! 5 DAYS of FREE GUIDED MEDITATION!

Just click here, enter your name & email to get started!

All done with the 5 Free Days? If you found the meditation helpful, imagine what 21 Days of Guided Meditation can do? Order now and Listen to Days 6-18 and beyond to create calmness, happiness, and energy in your life.

Keep Reading the blog: Day 19 Renewal at the Core

©2017-19 Taru Nieminen —  The Happy Teacher Solution

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Day 17 Nurturing the Teacher Within

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

Today’s Meditation

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“If you feel burnout settling in, if you feel demoralized and exhausted, it is best, for the sake of everyone, to withdraw and restore yourself. The point is to have a long-term perspective.” —Dalai Lama

Teaching can be a revered profession, but unfortunately many are seduced by the summers off and the vacation time during the Christmas holidays, 180-day work year, etc.

And not everyone knows how to become a great teacher. It takes perseverance, talent, effort, and patience. A lot of patience.

What makes the difference?

Like a long-distance runner who keeps training day in and day out, but the one that has the best training under his belt won’t’ necessarily win. Attitude, skills, determination, strategies, and maybe even having a support group comes into play. But none of these will help by themselves. And as we’ve seen with barefoot runners, the type of sneakers you wear won’t help you win.

The same holds for teachers.  Each of us has a fairly similar set of tools to work with — a computer, a desk, software to enter grades and attendance, etc.

But it is the skills and abilities of the teacher, each individual, that makes all the difference. Therefore, it is critical to nurture the teacher within to refine those skill sets. The perseverance, talent, effort, and patience.

How do you nurture the teacher within?

You’ve already started on this journey to make sure you are nurturing the teacher within by practicing this meditation, by banishing the procrastinator, silencing the self-critic, reigning in the self-doubt in order to come out a better teacher, a better person, a ready, relaxed, and happy teacher.

“Invent your world. Surround yourself with people, color, sounds, and work that nourish you.” —Sarak

When a school or district gives its teachers the environment to continually excel and thrive and nurture herself, the talent a teacher possesses becomes extremely important. But you can do this on your own as well; by creating the conditions necessary for growth and development.

The definition of nurture

To nurture is defined as 1. to feed, protect, support, and encourage, 2. to bring up, educate, 3. upbringing, training, education, 4. development, the nurture of young artists, 5. something that flourishes, food.

You might have noticed that “education” and “development” came up more than once in different forms.

In that regard, you are in luck, as a life-long learner, you can train and develop, bring up the side of you that gives you more skills, more ability, more support, for you.

The life-long reader

Educate yourself by bringing yourself to the forefront of your teaching, and teach well, you must read.

“While slight attention to the soul can go a long way, it isn’t enough to maintain the active life and give the soul mere morsels.”        —Thomas Moore

When was the last time you read something inspiring about teaching? And I don’t mean a meme or humorous teacher analogy or video on Facebook. I mean a real book, or a professional article, something that can inspire you to invite love into your teaching. When did you last deepen your understanding and knowledge of the craft of teaching? Again, not just sitting absentmindedly at a professional development, skimming the material you’re supposed to read. But truly engaging.

And when was the last time you took really good care of yourself, your health, and ate healthy, nutritious meals, not a Luna bar gulped down during a break…

When you find the time to nurture yourself, you can create that perfect teacher’s life and it’s easier to have a positive mindset. You’ll have more time, more freedom, and life’s little challenges won’t’ bother you as much, you’ll have all your “ducks’ in a row.

“What’s vital about our creative process is that we learn to use it, to nurture it, and express it in our daily lives.” —C. Diane Ealy

Ask yourself what nurturing the teacher within means to you. There isn’t a set answer for this, everyone is different. You’ll need to decide what’s best for you.

Is it going back to university to earn a higher degree, take some classes? Is it getting on the school board, or finding out about professional development that you’ll enjoy? And not just the ones your district makes you take, so you can garner the needed education credits for your certificate.

Find what nurtures you.

Feel happier today — Order the full guide to listen to words of inspiration

Take time today to nurture the teacher within and you will find quickly that you will become more productive and less likely to be plagued by burnout and fatigue.

Nurturing requires commitment and a gentle approach toward yourself, to truly allow yourself to blossom as a teacher. Create a pattern of self-nurturing to feel your best. Every day.

TRY IT! 5 DAYS of FREE GUIDED MEDITATION!

Just click here, enter your name & email to get started!

All done with the 5 Free Days? If you found the meditation helpful, imagine what 21 Days of Guided Meditation can do? Order now and Listen to Days 6-17 and beyond to create calmness, happiness, and energy in your life.

Keep Reading the blog: Day 18 Shaping the Happy Teacher’s Life

©2017-19 Taru Nieminen  The Happy Teacher Solution