Michele, Author at Inspired Together Teachers

3 Limiting Mindset Beliefs That Will Hold You Back

March 6, 2020 by Michele Leave a Comment

This post is a part of our personal development for teachers series. It is our goal to encourage teachers to adopt lifestyle habits and beliefs that will improve all areas of our lives.

Your mindset is a series of beliefs that influence your behaviors and habits. Your mindset can set you up for success, happiness and personal fulfillment. Your limiting mindset beliefs can also keep you down, wallowing in the weeds of dissatisfaction, unhappiness and perpetual struggle.

The good thing about limiting mindset beliefs is that they don’t have to derail you; once you are aware of them, you can change them.

Most teachers are familiar with the growth mindset philosophy. The growth mindset belief is that your basic qualities are things you can change and grow with effort. People with a growth mindset are not afraid to examine their performance and abilities and pay attention to information that can stretch them. Those with a fixed mindset believe that our talents and intelligence are born in. They believe that success comes from innate talent.

Many teachers promote growth mindset with their students. You’ve probably read about and used strategies for helping students understand their mindset and cultivating a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset.

We are going to flip the script today and talk about how teachers can change and develop their own mindset issues.

Here are 3 limiting mindset beliefs that can derail you, and how a change in thoughts or actions can help you to overcome your limiting belief:

Perfectionism

Perfectionists often over think things. They wait to act until everything is perfect, which often means projects are delayed. Perfectionism leads to procrastination, which leads to paralysis.

At the heart, perfectionism is often fear of failure. Fear of failure is a fixed mindset belief. The mindset belief is, “If I don’t do this perfectly, I will be a failure.” Thus, people with a fixed mindset will not try things if they can’t do them perfectly right out of the gate. This stops them from trying. Waiting for things to be perfect is a great way to stop yourself from doing anything, thus avoiding possible failure.

A growth mindset shift is to adopt the idea that failure does not condemn or define you, failure offers you an opportunity to learn. Failure just means that you have not developed the skills yet. The growth mindset offers you the opportunity to try again and again, making small incremental changes to improve each time.

If you are in the game, you are going to fail sometimes. It means you are trying. No one expects every basketball player to make 100% of the shots. You should not expect yourself to be perfect 100% of the time either.

Imposter Syndrome

Imposter syndrome is the belief that says, “I am not good enough.” If you have imposter syndrome, you may believe that you are not ready, that you don’t know enough, and that somehow you got yourself into a job or position that you don’t deserve. People with imposter syndrome look around and see everyone else as more competent than they are, which proves to them that they are not deserving. Any success you have found must be just a fluke.

Imposter syndrome is fairly common, not only among new teachers, but among all teachers. Teachers spend their days largely alone with students, isolated from the trials and struggles of their colleagues. They know their own struggles, but often don’t see the struggles of others.

Social media also feeds into imposter syndrome. People often post their highlights but less often their struggles. It is easy to compare yourself to others on social media and come up lacking. Comparison is often the thief of joy.

How do you combat imposter syndrome?

Understand that whatever you are feeling, you are likely not alone. Talk to other teachers about your struggles. Ask for help when you need it. Share the successes, but also the failures. Once again, this is growth mindset in action.

Also, do not forget to own your achievements. Claim your experiences and growth. Recognize and celebrate your progress. Pat yourself on the back for the things you do well.

Overwhelm

Being overwhelmed is a temporary state that we all feel from time to time. Life is busy and we all have a lot of things to do.

However, sometimes overwhelm goes from being a temporary state to being a personal identity. “I am overwhelmed right now,” is different from “I am overwhelmed” as a perpetual life truth.

Do you regularly describe yourself as overwhelmed? Do you feel it every day? Has overwhelm overshadowed joy or happiness in your life? The demands of teaching are many, and the expectations for teachers are high. It is easy to succumb to overwhelm.

If so, you may have adopted “I am overwhelmed” as a mindset. Your mind believes your regular state is overwhelmed, and it becomes true. Your negative thoughts become your default way of thinking.

How to you combat overwhelm?

Get clear about which things are the most important. Overwhelm is often due to a lack of clarity. You have so much to do you don’t know where to start and you end up not doing anything.

Make a list of to-do tasks and prioritize it. Then schedule in the most important things.

Break larger projects down into small steps. Even ten minutes a day will add up when you take action on one small thing each day.

Be reasonable about what you can accomplish each day. Having a list of fifty tasks to do each day is not only unrealistic, it will immediately set you up for failure. Know what your top three tasks are and strive to complete those. Anything else is a bonus!

Adopt a morning routine that will allow you to start your day with intention.

Be careful about letting others control your time. You want to be open and available to others, but you also need some boundaries. “I can’t talk right now, but could we chat over lunch?” Or set a boundary such as, “I have five minutes right now, but if this needs more time could we meet after school?”

Don’t make things harder than they have to be. Can you find a way to make it easy? Lugging home 25 student journals to read in the evening is a huge task. Reading five journals a day is easy.

Adopt your own growth mindset

Our mindset beliefs influence our lives for better or for worse. If you believe in the growth mindset concept, you understand that your knowledge and abilities are not innate, and that you can change and improve with effort.

You can’t change everything overnight, and trying to do so will likely derail you. However, you can pick one mindset issue and take one step that will make your life easier or more joyful.

If we are going to teach our students to have a growth mindset, we also need to be able to adopt that mindset for ourselves. Examining our personal beliefs will help us to see where we are succeeding and where we can focus our efforts towards improvement.

Do you have limiting mindset belief issues that hold you back? Have you overcome them? What do you do to adopt a growth mindset?

Our best,

Charge Up Your Life With a New Morning Routine

February 28, 2020 by Michele Leave a Comment

This post is part of our series on personal development for teachers. Content knowledge, curriculum standards and teaching strategies are just part of the equation for what makes a successful teacher. Personal habits, attitudes and behaviors are also a big part of the picture. In this series, we explore ideas that will help you as a teacher and as a person.

Do you dread getting up in the morning? Do you hit the snooze button, roll out of bed slowly and groan at the thought of facing the day?

Imagine waking up without an alarm clock, feeling energized and enthused about your day.

Does that sound like an impossible, overly optimistic scenario? It doesn’t have to be.

You probably already have a morning routine that involves getting yourself ready for the day. You may shower, get dressed and pack your lunch. If you are really organized, you may even exercise. If you have children, much of your morning routine will involve getting them fed and dressed in something that at least resembles appropriate attire.

We used to think getting ourselves and the kids dressed and out the door with backpacks and lunch was a successful morning. Now we know that we were not setting a high enough standard. While we accomplished the most basic elements of getting ready, we left out mindset shifts that would set us up to have better experiences throughout the day.

We studied with master high performance coach Brendon Burchard, who has worked with Olympians, celebrities and top business executives. He expanded our idea of a morning routine. We’ve both adopted a new morning routine and now believe that it has been life changing for us.

This routine requires getting up a half an hour earlier, but hear us out- the results will impact your entire day for the better. We think it is worth it.

The high-performance morning routine:

You are most likely dehydrated after sleeping, so drink some water.

Do a few minutes of stretching. This is not your workout, just an opening up of the body.

Grab a cup of coffee or tea, an inspirational book, and your journal or planner. Find a comfortable place to sit.

Read (or listen to) something inspirational. This might be a podcast, an informational book or something focused on personal development. You may choose take notes. This step helps you to see the possibilities in your life and to be inspired to take positive action.

Then, take a few minutes to think about and mentally plan for your day. This is not planning your schedule or to-do list, but planning how you want to show up for the day. You need something in the morning to anchor you to your best self so that you don’t proceed with randomness. This step alters your mindset and shifts it so that you act with more intention.

Here are some possible things to think about and write down in your journal or planner

What does it look like when I am my best self?

How do I want to show up in the world today?

Who needs me on my “A” game?

What is one thing I can get excited about today?

How can I express gratitude to someone today?

What situation might mess me up today?

How would my best self deal with that situation?

What would it take for this day to be a success?

What can I do to make my successful day a reality?

You’ve set your day with intention, now you can continue on with the rest of your morning and head into the day with a positive plan.

We’ve found that we enjoy our morning routine and look forward to doing it each day. Knowing that we have a few calm, quiet moments to focus on what really matters allows us to get more done and feel more connected to the goals we have in our lives and in our work.

We live extraordinarily busy lives. Rather than being one more thing we have to do- we’ve found our morning routine helps us to determine what is most important. No matter how hard we scramble, we will never be able to do everything, but we can do the most important things.

Do you have a successful morning routine? How do you set intentions for your life and connect them to your daily practice? As always, we would love to hear your ideas.

Our best,

Have you joined our free Facebook group Teacher Warriors? If not, what are you waiting for?

How Teachers Can Embrace Flexibility

February 21, 2020 by Michele Leave a Comment

How Teachers Can Embrace Flexibility

Do you consider yourself a flexible person? Are you glued to daily routines and structures or do you just go with the flow? Either way, there are times when you will need to embrace flexibility.

You can write lesson plans weeks ahead, gather and print out your materials, and color code your daily planner to help you stay on task. The life of a teacher is busy, and no doubt these things will help you stay organized. Sometimes however, our best-laid plans fall apart.

A knock on the door brings a new student to your classroom. The power goes out just when you were starting a lesson using computers. A fire drill leaves you with a shortened class period and not enough time to give the test you were planning to give. Someone gets sick and throws up all over the ABC carpet.

It happens. Your well -planned lessons go out the window as you now must deal with deal with new and unexpected circumstances.

What’s a teacher to do?

Here are four ways to embrace flexibility:

Prepare for the unexpected.

Here in the Midwest we often experience challenging winter weather. Extreme cold or heavy snowfall results in delayed or closed schools. Water pipes burst, cars won’t start, and the wind chill is serious enough to be life threatening.

Those of us in places that experience severe weather know that we can prepare for the unexpected. We have heavy coats, boots, scarves and gloves. We fill the car with gas, blankets and emergency supplies. We fill the house with groceries and logs for the fire. We learn to control the things we can and then learn to deal with the rest.

You can prepare for unexpected situations at school, too. If weather is threatening, make sure you have warm clothing, in case you end up unexpectedly being assigned recess duty. Be sure to take home things you might need the next day if school is cancelled. We know a teacher who lives out in the country far from her school who keeps a bag of extra clothes in her car in case she gets stuck and end up spending the night at a fellow teacher’s house in town.

For those last minute, unexpected classroom disruptions, you can keep a set of alternate plans and materials in your sub folder that you can grab and teach at a moment’s notice. Another idea is to keep students’ favorite learning games handy and bring them out in a pinch. Many teachers plan units with projects that have individual or small group work tasks that are ongoing such as presentations and reports where students can work independently while you attend to an emergency. A little planning can help you adjust to unexpected circumstances while keeping students engaged in learning.

Use the skills you already use to adapt to learning differences.

You already have a skill set that allows you to adapt, and you likely make adaptions every day. When students don’t understand a concept, you reteach it in a different way. You create adaptions for students who are struggling or students who have already mastered the material. You have likely used adaptations for different learning styles and made accommodations for students with IEP’s.

Think of the ways you already adapt your instruction. You mix up groups, rearrange seating, and use learning centers or stations. You give alternative assignments. You offer learning through print, but also through audio and visual modes as well as in hands-on lessons. You may have associates in your room to assist specific students. The ways that you already adapt lessons can be the same ways you adapt when your original plan is no longer viable.

**Ask, what does this make possible?**

It is a natural to be out of sorts when our lives and routines are interrupted. We can complain and commiserate. However, that is not the only response we can have to challenging circumstances.

So much of flexibility is really just re-framing how we think about the situation. Author Dan Miller of the 48 Days to the Work You Love book and podcast teaches that whenever we are faced with a challenge, we should ask “What does this make possible?”.

Sometimes, shaking things up results in something new and wonderful. You have probably experienced a time when you deviated from your lesson and the new lesson was far better to the original one.

What does an unexpected or challenging event make possible? With less time, how might you do things differently? Without expected resources, how might you be creative? Could you ask students for their ideas about what they could do?

Be open to that the unexpected might leave room for inspired energy.

Stay calm and maintain a positive attitude.

There are always challenges, but inflexibility and personal negativity don’t make those challenges any less challenging.

You can choose to be rigid and self-righteous. You can resist the challenge and expend all of your energy trying to swim against the current. See what it does to your attitude and see where that gets you. Getting yourself into a tizzy and raising your blood pressure only makes things worse.

There is a reason why people conducting a job interview often ask you to describe a time when you faced a challenge and tell how you handled that challenge. They don’t really care what the challenge was. They want to know how you will react to unexpected situations. They don’t want people who say, “that’s not my job” or even worse, “but we’ve always done it that way.” They want people who can think on their feet, roll with the punches, and adapt to new and unforeseen events with confidence and creativity.

Being flexible doesn’t mean throwing all caution to the wind and letting life just come at you. We need some structure and some routine. The secret of success is to understand what you can control and when to let go of things you can’t control. You can stop resisting inevitable challenges. You can learn to envision a new outcome, or plan a new scenario.

You can even learn to enjoy the journey despite all the bumps along the way.

Our best,

Raise Your Standards for Personal Interactions

February 14, 2020 by Michele Leave a Comment

Do You Need to Raise Your Standards?

As you have become a teacher, chances are, you have raised your standards in some areas of your life.

Many of us are rethinking our relationships with food, choosing foods that are higher quality, organic, local, and more nutritious. We may have raised out standards in terms of exercise, recognizing that exercise helps us reduce frustration and become more mindful. Since you are a working professional, you have likely raised your standards in terms of your personal wardrobe.

We may also need to raise our standards in terms of how we interact with others.

It isn’t always easy to change your standards. Our standards are deeply ingrained; we often developed our standards as children when our parents and others taught us how to act. We also create our standards as a reflection of our personal values. Our standards are also closely related to our beliefs about what we think we deserve, and about our value as a person.

This is where it gets tricky. Examining how you interact with others takes it out of the individual realm as it involves another person. We are no longer just considering our wants and needs, but those of the other person.

You may need to raise your standards in your interactions with others if you have ever found yourself doing one or more of the following:

Failing to correct a student because you don’t want to hurt their feelings.

Not speaking up at a faculty meeting when you disagree because you don’t want to upset your colleagues or make them think you are a troublemaker.

Letting a student, parent or other teacher yell at you.

Letting a student undermine you by allowing them to change the direction of an activity.

Allowing someone to take credit for your work.

Doing the work of someone else rather than call them on it or letting it go undone.

If you have experienced any of these things, is a sign of an interaction which needs to be improved.

Here are a few ways to raise your standards in how you interact with others:

Understand that teaching often involves correcting someone or helping them to change behaviors and that this is a positive thing.

Teachers often hesitate to correct students because they don’t want to make them feel bad. Rather than framing it as criticism, frame it as help. Help students to understand that it is your job to offer guidance. Help students to understand that having a growth mindset means that they are going to make mistakes and that is part of the process. It does not mean that you will punish them.

If a student turns in a math assignment and misses 8/10 problems, you can return in to him with a big, red, fat “F” on top. That will likely be received as punishment. Alternatively, you can have a conversation about what went wrong and explain to him how to fix it. Then ask him to do the assignment over. That will be received as help.

Do not allow other people to treat you with disrespect.

You teach other people how to treat you by how you respond to them. If you allow someone to take credit for your work, or to undermine your decisions they will likely continue to do so. If they know that they can slack off and you will pick up their end of the project, they will leave you doing more than your fair share of the work.

If the “Me Too” campaign has taught us anything, it is that we don’t have to accept poor behavior in order to succeed. This doesn’t just apply to sexual impropriety, but to bad behavior in general. You do not have to allow anyone to scream at you. You can respectfully suggest that you will set up another time to talk when emotions are not running so high.

If a student calls you a disrespectful name, do not answer. Do not engage in name calling. You do not need to let it pass, but know that in the heat of the moment is not the right time to address severe behaviors. Try to remain calm and tell the person that the behavior is not acceptable and that you will continue the conversation when you can both respond calmly.

Learn to have courageous conversations.

If someone throws you under the bus, call them on it. Know your value and stand up for yourself when needed. If people in your life leave you feeling resentful, angry and hurt, speak up. You can do this without accusations by addressing how you feel. If you value the relationship, say so, and acknowledge what kind of behaviors you want or need. Though it can be difficult to do so, try to stay calm and speak with a low voice.

It isn’t fun to have courageous conversations, but when we do so, often times we clear the air. It is a chance to let go of anger and resentment. It is also a chance to better understand the other person and let them understand you.

**Be aware of what you bring to your interactions.**

The other side of the story is in what your attitudes and actions say about you. You’ve heard of the Golden Rule, and it is not bad advice to treat people how you would like to be treated. Raising your standards means being aware of you what you bring to interactions. Being respectful and kind goes a long way. People notice when you show up with integrity. You can take the high road and become a positive role model.

Though it is a process rather than an event, it is possible to raise your standards around relationships and interactions. You won’t always get it right, and old habits sometimes die hard. Try to keep moving in the right direction. Small steps in the right direction will often add up to big improvements.

When we raise our standards, we understand who we are and how we need to show up in the world in order to give and receive value. That is a worthy goal, one that will serve you well as a teacher and in other parts of your life.

Have you tried to raise your standards? We would love to hear your examples. Why not head over to our free Teacher Warriors Facebook group and share your stories?

Our best,

Celebrate Your Teaching Wins

February 7, 2020 by Michele 1 Comment

One of the ways to keep motivated and moving towards achieving your teaching goals is to celebrate your wins. Are you good at celebrating? Do you look for any reason to raise a high five, pat yourself on the back, or have a celebration?

Teaching can be tough and we all have bad days. It is easy to beat yourself up over a comment made by a student, parent or even another teacher. It is easy to feel frustrated when a lesson doesn’t go well or a student’s behavior challenges you. It is human nature to focus on the negative things we experience far more than the good things.

Think about it. You probably let a positive comment quickly role off your back or acknowledge it as if it were nothing. But the negative comments? They stay with you for days.

Celebrating little wins can help keep you energized around your goals. According to Michael Hyatt in his book Your Best Year Ever, celebrating little wins triggers a shot of dopamine in our body–a feel good shot to the brain.

Celebrating wins helps you recommit to a goal. It validates your work. When we make positive progress, we can use that effort to push us to the next phase- but only if we stop to notice and celebrate the achievement.

Hyatt says, “It’s critical to dance across the mile markers. Bring your family into it. Bring your friends into it. But take time to celebrate. Reinforce it. Let it sink into your nervous system and power you across the goal line.”

What can you celebrate this week?

A whole class lesson that went well?

A student’s “light-bulb moment?

Accomplishing a task, like finishing an IEP or writing a new unit?

Finally updating your grading portal?

Your days are full of tasks. Some are mundane and some are challenging. At times, we all feel overwhelmed. We all discover that somehow our time has slipped away from us and we haven’t finished what we thought we would. We have carried that bag or books and papers home and then carried them back to school again untouched.

That’s teaching life.

But we’ve all had wins. You get a handwritten note of gratitude from a student or parent. You are grading papers when you realize that students actually learned. A troubled student finally trusts you enough to open up. One of your kids carried an unwrapped brownie in his pocket all day so he could give it to you eighth period. Yes, it happened. You’ve had those moments.

What about you? Do you celebrate your small or big wins? Does it encourage you and help you to stay motivated? We would love to hear your wins. Head on over to our free Teacher Warriors Facebook page and post your wins. We’ll help celebrate with you!

Happy celebrating,

Here are 3 limiting mindset beliefs that can derail you, and how a change in thoughts or actions can help you to overcome your limiting belief:

Perfectionism

Imposter Syndrome

Overwhelm

How to you combat overwhelm?

Adopt your own growth mindset

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Here are four ways to embrace flexibility:

Prepare for the unexpected.

Use the skills you already use to adapt to learning differences.

Ask, what does this make possible?

Stay calm and maintain a positive attitude.

Share this:

Here are a few ways to raise your standards in how you interact with others:

Understand that teaching often involves correcting someone or helping them to change behaviors and that this is a positive thing.

Do not allow other people to treat you with disrespect.

Be aware of what you bring to your interactions.

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**Ask, what does this make possible?**

**Be aware of what you bring to your interactions.**