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Day 11 The Happy Teacher’s Rituals

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Today’s Meditation

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“There is a comfort in rituals, and rituals provide a framework for stability when you are trying to find answers.” —Deborah Norville

We often think of rules and rituals as controlling us, not giving us freedom. But in fact, that is exactly what they do. Rules, rituals, structure, organization, and planning give us the well-planned day so we can harness the “feeling of power, control, and ultimately the freedom into the internal motivation you need” says Craig Ballantyne, author of the Perfect Day Formula.

And to embrace the happy, energetic, and relaxed teacher, we need to establish those rules and rituals in our lives to control the day.

So, now, think of your rituals and some of your habits. A habit is drinking your morning coffee without thinking, brushing your teeth while staring at yourself in the mirror, slipping your feet into your shoes, mindlessly. Those are habits.

Ritual are meaningful, thought-out, thought-provoking ideas to better yourself

Don’t fill your empty space with habits. Instead, cultivate rituals.

Like anything else in life, this will not be easy nor a fix-it-all. Everyone is different. It can take weeks, months, or even years to cultivate rituals. So be gentle. But don’t let go of the mindset that you can change your life.

Write your rituals and rules down. Think about them. Which ones will serve you best? Of course, you will need to put your shoes on to go to work and brush your teeth to keep your dentist from ostracizing you, etc. But do not dwell on these trivial matters. Some people find it a chore to put their shoes on, sigh with disgust when they don’t effortlessly slip on, cringe when the zipper is stuck on their pants or the button fell off as they buttoned the shirt. Really? Are you going to let that ruin your day? Bother you? This is unhealthy. And also the reason we need to cultivate rituals and rules. When you do, you won’t even think of any of the above, you will simply get another shirt off the rack, find a new pair of pants, and change the shoes. Effortlessly.

When you have rituals, habits won’t bother you. Guaranteed. And if they rear their head, breathe. Breathe deeply. Let it go.

What rituals do you need to cultivate?

Maybe a ritual you need to cultivate is more sleep. Or better sleep. Or the BEST sleep ever.

Here’s an example of a ritual: If you’ve never had a rule about eating after a certain time at night, you might have noticed that you mindlessly snack in front of the TV night after night. However, if you’re trying to lose weight, you might give yourself a rule of not eating after 6 pm or not eating at all while watching TV. Conquer the stress by establishing this ritual. Make it a “house rule.” Others will tempt you, ask you if you’re sure you don’t want just one scoop of ice-cream, just a small bowl of chips and dip, a handful of pretzels. And your answer will be: “No, thanks. I don’t eat in front of the TV.”

Now think of it this way: if you’re diabetic, you wouldn’t touch that ice-cream, knowing you’d have to stick yourself with a needle if you did. Then answer is pretty straightforward. No ice-cream for me, thanks.

Commit to your rule, think of it as the law. If you break it, you end up in jail.

Habits are easily broken, but rituals stay for life and grow with you. Be present.

Even with the meditation you are now practicing. Don’t make it a habit, make it a ritual. If it becomes a habit, awareness is lost.

When you have rituals in place, making decisions during your day, in your teaching, will become automatic and effortless

Make a list of 10-12 rules for living the perfect teacher’s life. To show you an example, here are top 5 from my Rules for Living the Writer’s Life (simplified), so you can see what they might look like.

  1. Wake up no later than 7:15 am, and go to bed no later than 11:30 pm. Every day.
  2. Yoga and meditation to start the day. Then breakfast and reading until 9:30. Fill out gratitude journal during breakfast.
  3. Read and write every day: Read min. one hour/day, write a min. 1000 words/day
  4. Make a list of 6 action items for the next day the night before
  5. I’m responsible for my actions and non-actions (probably my most powerful one for me!)

Then, — there is the NOT to do list, which includes all the things that can sabotage the day.

  • No TV during lunch or before 6 pm (if I do this, I know that’ll be the end of the work for me. I will just sit there and watch episode after episode of Forensic Files, Hawaii Five-O, etc. on Netflix….)
  • No eating after 7 pm

Now, write down your own list of rituals and stick to them. And remember, nothing worthwhile in life is easy. So keep at it. Don’t give up. Truly, implementing my entire rituals list has taken over six months. I’m STILL trying to break out of the habit of eating in front of the TV.

To see what the perfect day formula looks like and how to implement it, check out my article on LinkedIn and visit Craig Ballantyne’s website here. (I am not an affiliate, I just believe in it.)

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

Choose to control your time, your day, your life. Choose freedom of time by cultivating rules and rituals to keep your sanity, dis old, bad habits, create new, great habits, and conquer your day.

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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 Day 11 and beyond to create calmness, happiness, and energy in your life.

Keep Reading the blog: Day 12 Inspiration and Ideas Abound

©Taru Nieminen 2017   The Happy Teacher Solution

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Day 10 Promoting Positive Change

Photo by Mark Adriane on Unsplash

Today’s Meditation

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“Your positive action combined with positive thinking results in success.” —Shiv Khera

 

We’ve concentrated on many things during our journey so far. Many of them have been somewhat negative in nature, but all have changed into positives. There can’t be enough said about how positivity can change a person’s life.

As teachers, we often must be the bearer of bad news about unsatisfactory grades or calling about unruly students, learning yet another method of teaching, when you just mastered the old one, being called for lunch duty during your planning time, etc., etc.

But on the other hand, think of all the good that has happened, think of all the things you could write in your gratitude journal about your classroom this year. You could even start a gratitude journal for the classroom. Have students write in it. They do see the world differently. Only allow positive writings, if you do start this. You could call it “The Positive Journal,” “Our Classroom is Positive,” “Be Positive.” I’m sure you can come up with more creative titles. 😊

You’ve already started your positive journey, why not include your students? It might be slow at first, but it’s like the river that flows into the ocean, little by little, it does.

“Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.” —Willie Nelson

 

How to start a positive journal-writing experience in your classroom:

Choose a notebook, binder with loose leaf paper, even a folder would work. Or “open” a mailbox (e.g. shoebox, large jar) where students can drop words of encouragement, positive notes to classmates, you, the principal, and overall just tell what a positive experience they’ve had at school. And if your students are too young to write, maybe a “positive day” sharing session at the end of the day would work. Here’s another great project. The results are amazing.

“Delete the negative; accentuate the positive!” —Donna Karan

Make it positive

While teaching 8th grade English, I made a positive phone call home about a student. When the parent answered, I could hear the helplessness in the greeting already: “What has Kadra done now?” When I told about my positive experience with their child, I could hear (and imagined seeing) the astonishing gasp, the open mouth, the tears swelling up. This mother had never, in the eight years her child had been in school, received a positive phone call! How sad. Be the change, start today. Pledge to make five positive phone calls today. And another five tomorrow. Keep calling. Every day.

“For me, life is about being positive and hopeful, choosing to be joyful, choosing to be encouraging, choosing to be empowering.”—Billy Porter


Merriam-Webster defines positive as marked by or indicating acceptance, approval, or affirmation, having a good effect, and marked by optimism. Sounds like a winner, doesn’t it?

Vow to only post positive news, positive comments, positive affirmations on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. This can make a tremendous shift in the way you think. Unfollow negative people. Choose to be positive, choose to spread only positive news, choose to only start a conversation with positivity.

Love yourself first

“Love yourself first and everything else falls in line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.” —Lucille Ball

A teacher’s life can be filled with hardships and struggles, but with a positive mindset, you can find the wonders of teaching, love what you do, and live the ultimate teacher’s life.

The change to be the teacher you’ve always strived to be is within you. The power lies within you and the transformation to positive outcomes will shine through. Others might have already noticed it.

When you blanket yourself in love, you spread the love to others. Feel the love, the positive change, the transformation, taking place. Remember yesterday’s reading about influence? Feel like you haven’t reached anyone? You can influence someone.

“I had many teachers that were great, positive role models and taught me to be a good person and stand up and be a good man. A lot of the principles they taught me still affect how I act sometimes and it’s 30 years later.” —Kevin James

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

With this tenth day of meditation, you’ve reached a real turning point in attaining the happy teacher’s life. You’ve faced challenges, struggles, and difficult parts of yourself. As teachers, we know that teaching is not always easy, but it is always worth it.

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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 Day 10 and beyond to create calmness, happiness, and energy in your life.

Keep Reading the blog: Day 11 The Happy Teacher’s Rituals

©Taru Nieminen 2017   The Happy Teacher Solution

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Day 9 Create Abundance through Gratitude

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Today’s Meditation

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“Sometimes we should express our gratitude for the small and simple things like the scent of the rain, the taste of your favorite food, or the sound of a loved one’s voice.” —Joseph B. Wirthlin

 

When you started on this journey of meditation, of finding balance in your life, your career, your relationships, we started with the simple act of breathing.

Breathing with intention, and with clarity, is an antidote to the hassles of life, the challenges of teaching. Breathing deeply during meditation (or any other time) relaxes your muscles, lowers your blood pressure, and helps you manage your emotions. It creates the peace of mind, serenity, and tranquility we all need in our lives. And with practice, you will see positive results.

Peace, positive thoughts, and happiness, also come in the form of gratitude

Appreciation of the life you already have, the teaching, the family, the relationships, is a key to letting go of the scarcity mindset so many often cultivate. Instead, choose to cultivate a mindset of abundance, of energy, of love, and the love of teaching.

Today’s affirmation: “I’m so happy and grateful now that I can teach every day.” Feel free to change to anything else you might be grateful for in your life today.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to start a journal. But not just any journal, a gratitude journal. You might have heard of these and you might even have started one. If you have, but haven’t written in one in a while, it’s time to take it out again. If you’ve never had one, it’s easy to start. All you need is a notebook, any kind will work. It doesn’t have to be a fancy one. Decorate the cover with pictures and photos to make it special, yours.

The act of writing down of all that we appreciate brings peace, and knowing that we truly do have enough, we have more than enough. A friend of mine started with writing down, each day after the students had left, three things that went well that day. Nothing else. Just three things.

Sometimes we just forget

Learning to feel good about what we have can be harder than we think. We sometimes lose sight of what we already have and only think of what we don’t have.

“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.”  —William Arthur Ward

 

A gratitude journal gives you a chance to be thankful for, appreciate, and notice all the beautiful, good, and precious that you already possess.

The actions you take today to feel abundant, and the confidence in your ability to produce, do, work, and be, are affected by your positive thoughts and focus. This way, you’re not acting, working, and being out of desperation. There is a purpose to all you do.

“I am so happy and grateful now that I…”

Writing down the words, seeing the words, and feeling the words of “I’m so happy and grateful now that …” —I am teaching, I have food in my belly, I have books to read, I am able to teach and influence lives every day, etc., brings joy. I could keep listing more, but instead, I will remind you that unlike some of your students, you most likely have food in your belly, you have warm water for your shower, and you can sleep safely at night.

Now the above is not to make you feel bad for your students or their families. On the contrary, it is to show you how good you do have it. Be thankful. Appreciate all you have. Appreciate yourself.

“I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness – it’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude.”  —Brene Brown

Adopting a mindset of abundance can be very challenging at first, but it can also be the most rewarding aspect of this meditation for teachers. You’ll gain a renewed optimism in all your teaching. You’ll start to feel more blessed, more resourceful, and even more productive. All of this allows you to shift your reactions and actions to your environment. Feelings of happiness, relaxation, and appreciation embody your being.

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The practice of appreciation and abundance reverses the trend of scarcity. You can be your own source of abundance and richness, of optimal happiness. Abundance and the law of attraction show us that the more we give, the more we receive. Show your brain, your body, and your environment that you appreciate them.

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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 Day 9 and beyond to create calmness, happiness, and energy in your life.

Keep Reading the blog: Day 10 Promoting Positive Change

©Taru Nieminen 2017   The Happy Teacher Solution

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Day 8 Insight into Challenges

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Today’s Meditation

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“If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.” —Zig Ziglar

Undoubtedly, when you chose to become a teacher, you knew there were going to be challenges. And that you would change in the process. It is so in any profession. You face small, insignificant challenges, setbacks, if you will, and larger difficulties, which can wreak havoc on your emotions.

We often have a natural tendency to react emotionally and struggle with disappointment and unhappiness when this happens. We realize life isn’t a bed of roses. The way we go forward after those difficulties, challenges, and setbacks determines how they affect our career, our life, our families, and often, our relationships with students, parents, and administrators.

We could just complain, keep adding to the negativity already building up or we can trust our instinct, our intuition, to keep a positive outlook on whatever challenges are thrown our way. Often, when we think of challenges, we think of them in a negative light. But if you change your lens and start thinking this was just one of those things that just happen, and inevitably, happens to everyone. In our teaching, and overall, a positive aspect can work wonders.

Challenges are supposed to test us

When we choose to confront and solve the problem or challenge, we gain insight and our ability to overcome the next challenge is heightened.

A challenge is supposed to test our abilities. Think of yesterday’s brick wall, whirlpool, or keyless door. They’re there to give us a chance to see how badly we want something. To see how we are going to overcome the challenge and what it will teach us.

If not for challenges, we would not be able to navigate in the forest of wills, desires, and choices

And remember, if teaching was easy, everyone would be doing it. 😉

Feeling stressed about a challenging situation isn’t the most difficult part. It is the frustration over not knowing what will solve that challenge that keeps us up at night, wondering, feeling anxious. And if you know the answer and are just procrastinating about the work that needs to be done, then remember that running away from the challenge only distances you from the solution. The work or solution could be as simple as making that parent phone call, emailing the administrator, or speaking to a student about cheating.

Getting stressed over and over about the same situation makes it worse every passing minute. When challenges arise, we feel our abilities are put to the test. Welcome the challenges. And remember, again, if teaching were easy, everyone would be doing it. Accept the challenge and know that overcoming challenges is extremely gratifying.

They just keep coming

Some days, the challenges keep piling up. And we get frustrated because the solutions we came up with don’t work- they might even make the situation worse! Teaching, devoted teaching, and overcoming challenges, is to have patience. Patience that the precise, the true, the best solution will come to you. Have faith. You are a professional. All the solutions you’ve already come up with show that.

And, please, stop doing what doesn’t work. If you know, in your heart, as many teachers can attest, that waiting to call a parent about a bad situation will only make it worse for all involved, then you know the challenge is to make yourself make that call as soon as the bell rings and the students are out. Just make the call. You’ll feel better.

One of the best advice I ever received about parent phone calls was to start the second day of school and keep calling, with positive news — every day. When the first call from you is a positive one, the whole atmosphere in the classroom changes. Students come to school smiling! They tell you about the phone call, they feel proud, valued, and cared for. It can be an almost overwhelming transformation. And then, if you must make that challenging phone call, start with a positive note, and the parent, the student, and you will feel better.

“Don’t limit your challenges, challenge your limits.”

One of the ways to tackle a challenge is to visit with the challenge for 5-15 minutes first thing in the morning. Maybe this is the time you need to meditate. Take the challenge by the horns and shake it. Grapple with it. An answer is imminent.

Don’t dwell on it forever. Just take care of it. Creating some type of plan (a good one to propel the challenge forward and therefore win) and then following the plan is better than not having any plan at all, just drifting along on the currents of apathy. So, MAKE a decision, FOLLOW the plan, and you will WIN.

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Procrastination, facing a creative block, and controlling the inner critic are just some of the challenges we face as teachers. Visualizing success when faced with challenges can help you in finding better ways to overcome them and find solutions. Take the time to “see,” visualize, the positive outcome available for the situation.

When you feel overwhelmed with challenges, take into account Roger Crawford’s wise words: “Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional.” Choose to rise to the challenge, conquer the obstacle, think success, see the positive.

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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 Day 8 and beyond any time – every day if needed!

Keep Reading the blog: Day 9 Create Abundance through Gratitude

©Taru Nieminen 2017  The Happy Teacher Solution

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Day 7 Lesson Plans Re-energized

Photo by Diego PH on Unsplash

Today’s Meditation

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“A mind when stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions.” —Anonymous

You’re staring at the cursor in the document, the blank page, the empty mind. You’re waiting for that spark of inspiration to hit you so you can start your lesson plans.

But the mind is blocked, the eyes are glazed over, and the mouth is dry.

This is probably the scariest places for a teacher. Not being able to think about a single good idea, finish the task. We are faced with a week of students climbing up the walls, frustrated parents, administrators sending us emails about missing lesson plans, and colleagues shaking their heads in pity.

The confidence is collapsed, and you’re frantically searching for something to fill those white pages – the pages that should have something meaningful ready by Monday, by tomorrow, by next week.

Having this block can make you give up, you throw up your hands and lament that you just can’t do it today. And here comes the procrastinator, rearing its head. Do not let it in.

Every teacher struggles with this, not having an idea, no creativity pops its head around the corner to say “hi!” -saving your plans.

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” —Nelson Mandela

Truer words are yet to be spoken about writing your lesson plans. That is why yesterday, I urged you to have a template. You have the framework of your plans to start with, and guaranteed, the inspiration will come. You are not staring at a blank page.

Just like any other task, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Start with something someone else has already done. It’s okay not to have a new idea for every day. Some of the best ideas I’ve ever come up with have started with reading or teaching someone else’s lesson plans first.

The ideas are everywhere. Just look around you in your classroom. I bet you can find an idea right there. Re-teach a part of grammar, revisit a cool experiment, figure out a new way to teach the math problem, or find a new kinesthetic approach to a lesson you taught last semester. Review. Students like knowing what’s coming, and when you tell them since they know the subject so well, you’re going to try something different today, a way to get them moving.

Prepare, prepare, prepare

For a teacher, the block to come up with new ideas can be a daunting. As Gail Godwin’s quote tells us: “Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theatre.” But even with theatrics, you must have the preparation done.

 “A self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood.” —Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

This is what most of us need to hear somewhere around 2 pm every day when energy levels are dipping, our afternoon coffee cup is empty, and dinnertime seems like a world away. The creative spirit has left the building. Just because we don’t feel like it, doesn’t mean the work can be neglected.

So how do we come to terms with the realization?

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Experiencing a creative block is different for each teacher but the results are the same. The inability to be productive, to work, to feel energized is taken away.

When we are grappled by the block to create, it is hard to even get started. Today’s meditation will take care of that. When you “Clean out a corner of your mind, Creativity will instantly fill it.” (- Dee Hock)

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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 7-13 and beyond to create calmness, happiness, and energy in your life.

Keep Reading the blog: Day 8 Insight into Challenges

©2017 Taru Nieminen   The Happy Teacher Solution

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Day 6 Laser-Focused Teaching

@tobiasc

Today’s Meditation

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“It’s very tough for me to focus. I’m like: Look, something shiny! No, focus. Oh, there goes a butterfly.” —Gabby Douglas

Our ability to focus is often distracted by the clutter in our physical and mental world. And the ability to focus, which is attributed to be one of the most important traits of success, is often the one most lacking. Boredom, the un-challenged brain, mental and physical fatigue can ruin even the most focused activities in our lives.

Can you believe that as I was writing this, I actually listened to a voicemail! Yes, so insignificant compared to this important task of writing, yet, I didn’t want to miss something. Guess who it was? The exterminator, wanting to make the appointment to take care of the termites I have munching on my house. And that just goes to show, that we are all subject to FOMO — now labeled as an actual disease: ”Fear Of Missing Out.” Seriously, though, we need to start seriously (yes, I know I just used that word twice) thinking about how to focus on ONE thing at a time. Uni-task instead of multi-task.

Do that one thing well. And then move onto the next.

And do that well.

Choose to use the first 15 minutes of your day to clarify your mind, get rid of the mental clutter and mental fatigue. The chaos affects your ability to focus. The clutter limits your brain’s power to process information. This unfocused part limits you from being the most effective teacher. Clutter can distract you to the point that even small, menial tasks can seem overwhelming.

Jack Canfield gives us a few words of wisdom about distractions: “Successful people maintain a positive focus in life no matter what is going on around them. They stay focused on their past successes rather than their past failures, and on the next action steps they need to take to get them closer to the fulfillment of their goals rather than all the other distractions that life presents to them.”

A cluttered mind can impact your mental and physical being

A cluttered mind can impact your mental and physical being. It creates anxiety and increases the procrastination we took care of yesterday. It limits the new, exciting, and powerful things from entering your day and life.

Drs. Brown and Fenske (Harvard Medical School and University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, respectively) have come up with a “set of strategies for remaining mentally sharp even under trying circumstances.” Meditation is one of them.

They’ve studied focus, and specifically how we process information. “Preliminary research suggests that maintaining focus…might help build brain tissue. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital conducted MRI studies of people who regularly practice meditation, and found that compared with controls, they had more gray matter (brain cells) in areas associated with attention and sensory processing.”

“When we clear the physical clutter from our lives, we literally make way for inspiration and ‘good, orderly direction’ to enter.”           —Julia Cameron

 

The clutter that needs to be cleared includes both your work and home environment. And how fitting that is for a teacher. For which teacher does not bring home some work every now and then. Take care not to bring too much. Even though, as we agreed before, teaching is a lifestyle, it does not mean you have to be “on call” 24/7.

It took me years…

It took me years, but I finally figured out that bringing a bag full of work home was doing no one any favors. The bag sat there, staring at me (yes, I believe it had eyes!) begging to be opened, scolding me when I wasn’t eagerly tackling the essays that needed correction, or the grades that needed to be entered into the “Power Teacher” software.

On the rare, I did read through a stack of essays, and if I was so crunched for time that I “had to” correct and enter grades, I did do it. But more often than not, the same bag went back to school, unopened. Now disappointingly sighing at me as I laid it next to my desk the next morning.

Find a way to focus

I found a way to focus, though, at school. It took a while, but anyone can do it. I decided that instead of drudging the bag back and forth, I would finish all my work at school. I became laser-focused on this task. So, now, instead of wasting my time wandering around my planning hour, frantically trying to make copies, finishing lesson plans for the next day, leisurely using my cluttered mind to make excuses to do anything but grading and entering (the things I despised most) I did that first.

And my reward was that I started bringing less and less work home. Some days, no bag was carried out. It was all done. I used my planning time with laser-like focus. I made a plan, put Pandora on, listened to relaxing music and just did it. Whatever needed to be done. And I laid all of this out the day before, so I knew what I would be doing the next day during my planning hour; I didn’t waste half of it thinking about what I needed to do. I already knew.

And then I uni-tasked. I kept on grading, reading essays, until the hour was gone. I made so much progress, that most days, I could leave “early,” exactly when I was “allowed to” according to the contract.

I also didn’t leave on Friday until my lesson plans were done and in the principal’s inbox. This took a few months of hard work, and planning, but it could be done. Just work on them a few minutes every day. Have a template, if you don’t have one, here’s one I used. Most of it was just filling in that week’s standards and then figuring out what needed to be added. Now, your school might not need such an extensive form, or they might need more detail, or not even require you to hand in lesson plans. But even after ten years of teaching, I found it very helpful to write down exactly what I was doing.

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

Psychology and the art of meditation go hand in hand in showing us that our thoughts and the items in our mind are often thought of as just occurring naturally. However, we can control our thoughts and the items we let in.

Order now and Listen to Day 6 as we take the journey together to a laser-focused teaching day, where the ability to focus is engaged, and the laser-focused teacher can emerge.

TRY IT! 5 DAYS of FREE MEDITATION! Just click here, enter your name & email to get started!

or KEEP READING: Day 7 Lesson plans Re-energized

©2017 Taru Nieminen — The Happy Teacher Solution