Celebrate Your Teaching Wins

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,