The Principal's Handbook

Barb Flowers: In today's episode. I'm going to share how you can change your thoughts when teaching feels impossible. That's all. Coming up next right here on the teacher, burnout, podcast stay tuned.

Barb Flowers: There are days or periods of time throughout the year. When teaching just feels impossible, it feels like you can't make it another day. You're so excited for the weekend, or maybe the next break that's going to be happening. And you just have this feeling of restlessness, and you're looking forward to whatever's next, and it's hard to be present where you're at.

Barb Flowers: Maybe you even feel like you're just going through the motions of the day, because you're so overwhelmed with behaviors and things going on in the classroom. Whatever the reason is, I first off want to let you know you've got this.

Barb Flowers: Whatever comes at you. You've got it. I know it's hard in teaching.

Barb Flowers: I know teaching is very hard, but I just want to reassure you, even when you feel like you, don't you? Do you have this? You can do this so you can change your life by changing your thoughts. And when I first heard that I thought, there's no way that's impossible. How can you change your life by just changing your thoughts?

Barb Flowers: And the more I practiced this, the more I believed it, and the more I could see it working. So today I'm going to help you change your thinking when teaching feels impossible.

and I want to start by talking about the T. Cycle that I coach on with my clients.

Barb Flowers: So the T. Cycle is that you have your thoughts that create your emotions which create your actions. So

Barb Flowers: it's really important to think of that as a cycle, because if you have a thought, emotion, and an action, then that action is going to create a new thought, a new emotion, and a new action. And it just kind of creates these circles that keep going until you learn to change those thoughts.

Barb Flowers: and

Barb Flowers: when you have a thought like teaching feels impossible. You then have an emotion such as dread or anxiety, or you feel unmotivated.

Barb Flowers: which then leads to negative action, and that negative action could be doing nothing. Maybe you just are unmotivated, or you don't do anything. That's the negative action.

Barb Flowers: So that's why our thoughts matter so much. Because when we have a thought, it's creating our feelings and emotions that drive our actions. And when we have negative thoughts, it's creating negative emotions and actions which then creates more negative thoughts.

Barb Flowers: So it's really important that you become aware of that and learn how you can change your thinking. So what we tell ourselves matter and

Barb Flowers: what we tell ourselves matters. And it makes a difference when we think negatively. So today I want to give you.

Barb Flowers: Today, I want to give you 5 strategies for changing your thoughts.

Barb Flowers: So the first strategy is, acknowledge the thought and let it go. So learning to acknowledge your negative thinking is really important. That's the first step in making a change, and so acknowledging that it is just a negative thought. It's not a fact. It's just a negative thought, and then letting it go and having a way that you visualize that negative thought and watching it go is going to help you stay in a calm state of mind, and just peacefully watch the thought go.

Barb Flowers: So for me, I like to visualize the thought on a cloud, and I just watch it float away.

Barb Flowers: and you just watch the thought go. If you ever do a meditation. Some of the meditations. Talk about having a thought in your mind, and you just watch it float away. So really acknowledging that thought and just letting it go, letting it move on, and you're going to have a new thought

Barb Flowers: which leads into the next strategy which is actually reframing your thinking. And so when you identify and acknowledge that you do have negative thoughts that is going to help you be able to reframe, that

Barb Flowers: when you acknowledge that you have negative thoughts that's going to help you be able to reframe that. So you become aware of your automatic negative thoughts or cognitive distortions that you're having such as all or nothing thinking, or ever

Barb Flowers: so after you acknowledge your thoughts. you.

Barb Flowers: the next strategy I want to give you is reframing your thoughts, and when you reframe your thoughts. You start with the idea of acknowledging or identifying what those negative thoughts are, because once you become aware of those negative thoughts, then you can start to change them. And so you start to notice that your brain is super dramatic. When you notice that you have negative thoughts, you'll notice that you have them all the time, and you'll notice that other people have them all the time.

Barb Flowers: But our brain automatically goes to the negative because it wants to protect us from something bad happening. So it tries to give the negative scenario and have that be the thought that we're thinking

and just knowing that that's what happens, and that's pretty normal for the negative thought to come first.

Barb Flowers: just acknowledging that as the first step to having more positive thoughts is important. because the more you notice those negative thoughts. the more you're able to

Barb Flowers: change the negative thought.

Barb Flowers: the more you notice those negative thoughts, the more willing you are to change them. It's a problem when people don't even notice how negative they are. If you've ever been around someone who's just super negative, and

Barb Flowers: every thought or every.

Barb Flowers: If you've ever been around someone who's super negative, every word that comes out of their mouth is just negative negative, and you start to notice it. And it's like they don't have a clue that they're being so negative. It's because they haven't even learned to identify those negative thoughts

and some negative thoughts that we have our all or nothing, thinking, you know, or over generalizing things when we say it's always like this, or it's so hard, or everything, you know takes so long when we start to over generalize things.

Barb Flowers: when we start to over generalize things and just think all or nothing, thinking that is the type of negative thinking as well. That's a cognitive distortion that we have. And there's many other types of cognitive distortions. I actually have another episode about that. So I'll put

Barb Flowers: the link to that episode in the show notes. But those are negative thoughts that your brain is having. And so it's doing that to protect you. So you want to make sure to acknowledge what those negative thoughts are.

Barb Flowers: so that next you can challenge those thoughts.

Barb Flowers: So you want to ask yourself, is this negative thought? Is it fact or fiction? Because a negative thought could be fact? But most times they're fiction, because most times we over generalize, or we have that all or nothing thinking. So you always want to ask your brain for the evidence to prove a thought as fact or fiction.

So, for example, if you have the thought, I'm a terrible teacher.

Barb Flowers: Okay, you need to ask yourself for the evidence of that. What is the evidence that you're a terrible teacher.

Barb Flowers: And more than likely you're going to have a really hard time finding that evidence, because it's your brain making up a story. It's fiction.

Barb Flowers: So, making sure that you ask yourself that question, is it factor? Fiction is going to help you decide? If that

Barb Flowers: so make your brain

Barb Flowers: so, asking yourself if the thought is factor, fiction is going to help you challenge those thoughts, because many times we don't have evidence to back them up.

Barb Flowers: And then you want to replace those negative thoughts with a neutral thought. So this doesn't mean simply thinking positive thoughts, but it means viewing things and a more realistic light. So, for example, instead of saying, I love going to school every day, if that's not how you feel, you saying I love going to school every day is not going to help you love going to school every day. You need to say something like I can handle going to school every day.

Barb Flowers: That's a more neutral thought. Or maybe it's even I can handle going to school today. So having a neutral thought is okay, because

Barb Flowers: having a neutral thought is going to help you build up to more positive thoughts because it's more believable for you. It's hard to go from a really negative thinking pattern and a negative thought to just automatically thinking positive thoughts. You have to do what's called a thought ladder and have more neutral thoughts first. So making something neutral is going to help you think more positive.

Barb Flowers: The next strategy is to develop positive affirmations, so create affirmations that really resonate with you and counteract what your negative beliefs are so. For example, if you think I don't want to go to school.

Barb Flowers: you could have an affirmation like I choose to make today a good day.

Barb Flowers: I am a person who walks into school with a positive attitude, and having affirmations like that is going to help you change your thinking again. It kind of goes back to what I just said with the neutral thoughts you need to have those neutral thoughts to, or have an affirmation that feels believable to you, because if you state something that feels completely unbelievable, it's going to be hard to believe it.

Barb Flowers: Another strategy is to develop positive affirmations. So you want to create affirmations that really resonate with you and counteract that negative belief. So, for example, if you're having the thought, I don't want to go to school.

Barb Flowers: you could have an affirmation of. I choose to make today a good day.

Barb Flowers: or you could say, I'm a person who walks into school with a positive attitude. So you want to choose something, though that's believable, because, as I said before, with having more of a neutral thought, that is a good place to start if you're in a super negative mindset

for me, having that positive affirmation is what's really helpful.

Barb Flowers: I like to have affirmations about who I want to be as a person. So when I say I'm a person who walks into school with a positive mindset that helps me. Remember that I get to decide who I want to be, and I create affirmations that support the person I want to be. So. I love affirmations that start with. I am a person who.

Barb Flowers: because I decide the character, traits, and the things that I want to believe about myself, and I state those in affirmations. So I'm a person who walks into school with a positive attitude. I'm a person who makes a difference in kids lives every day.

Barb Flowers: I'm a person who collaborates well with my colleagues, so when I do that, I really live up to what that affirmation is, because I just tell myself that's the type of person I am.

Barb Flowers: and repeat.

Barb Flowers: and repeating affirmations daily

Barb Flowers: really helps you be able to state them throughout the day, and repeating affirmations daily, really helps you start to believe them and have them become part of your subconscious. And so, if you start repeating affirmations in the morning, or before.

Barb Flowers: if you start repeating affirmations in the morning, or before going to bed. It's going to help you remember, to do them daily. Also you could do affirmations by saying them out loud. I like to say them out. Well, I say, I like to say them in my brain, so I'll think I'm a person who does this

Barb Flowers: or write them down. You can also meditate on them, and just sit in that thought

Barb Flowers: to really let it soak in and visualize what that looks like which we'll get to in a minute, but really letting that soak in. So take time with these affirmations and really think about them, you don't want to just say the affirmation once

Barb Flowers: and expect that it's going to work. You need to be saying the affirmation over and over, so that it makes a difference, and it really gets into your subconscious.

Barb Flowers: My next strategy is to practice gratitude.

Barb Flowers: I always like to say it's really hard to be negative when you're in a state of gratitude, and so taking time to just think of all the things you're grateful for makes a huge difference in your life, and it makes a huge difference in having a positive attitude, so

Barb Flowers: things that I like to do to practice gratitude. You could set a timer for 1 min and just list all the things you're grateful for. If you do journaling with your students, this is a great activity you could do with your students.

Barb Flowers: You could build it into the school day, so that not only are you teaching students to have gratitude, but you're having gratitude practices as well build into your school day.

Barb Flowers: You could also just list 5 things you're grateful for on a piece of paper, or do 5 finger gratitude where you're with each finger just saying something you're grateful for, whatever that is, make it a routine, so that you're every day making sure to be grateful, so that it keeps you in a more positive mindset.

Barb Flowers: And my last strategy is to use visualization. So you want to visualize yourself achieving your goal or overcoming your fear, whatever you're trying to achieve or change. You really want to visualize that.

Barb Flowers: So, for example, if I had the positive affirmation of I'm a person who collaborates well with their colleagues.

Barb Flowers: if I sit and visualize myself collaborating well with my colleagues and I were, you know, in a positive state of mind, we're smiling. And we're collaborating and talking about data.

Barb Flowers: That's what's going to actually happen. Because there's research.

Barb Flowers: That's what's going to actually happen. Because there's research that your brain doesn't know the difference between visualizations and reality. And so when you visualize it, your body feels like it's actually doing it. So when you're visualizing, you really want to get as detailed as you can and think about, how does this scenario feel? How does it look? What exactly are you doing? So really visualize as much as you can. So you're really in it.

Barb Flowers: and that helps your body feel like you've already done it. So I like to do visualizations of the type of person I want to become. You know I have the list of traits that I would like to have, and then I visualize myself being that person because your mind doesn't know the difference. It doesn't know the difference between the visualization and reality. And so

Barb Flowers: when your body feels like it's actually doing it.

Barb Flowers: it's practicing doing it.

Barb Flowers: So visualization is a really good technique for

Barb Flowers: becoming a more positive person. So just visualize yourself, talking positively to people, visualize yourself, smiling and walking around with a happy attitude. Visualize yourself doing the things you want to do. This is really helpful.

So just to recap the 5 strategies that are going to help you be more positive are to acknowledge the thought and let it go

Barb Flowers: reframe your thoughts, use positive affirmations.

Barb Flowers: have a practice of gratitude, and visualize so hopefully. You found some of these strategies helpful. I encourage you to at least try one or 2 I'd love to hear if you tried them reach out to me on Instagram. I love hearing when people actually implement things from the podcast

Barb Flowers: but reach out to me. I'd love to hear from you thanks. So much for joining me today.

Barb Flowers: Thanks. So much for joining me today for another episode of the teacher burnout. Podcast if you want to take the next step in feeling, less burnout and overwhelmed. You need to grab my new course. The teacher, overwhelmed, and boundary solution is a great course that I created to help teachers deal with

Barb Flowers: overwhelm and setting boundaries so you can click the link in the show notes to get it. But it's going to help you learn practical strategies that you can use right away for dealing with your overwhelm, and then how to set boundaries with parents, colleagues, and administrators. So it also includes tips, positive affirmations, and worksheets that go along with the course. So

Barb Flowers: if you feel any kind of burnout, overwhelm struggle with setting boundaries, you need this course. It is going to help so much so click the link in the show notes to get it

Barb Flowers: and get that course right away, and that will help click the Linkin click the link in the show notes to get it.

Barb Flowers: If you love the show.

Barb Flowers: if you love the show and you're listing on apple scroll down in your app and leave a review. I always appreciate a review. It helps other people find the show, and I want you to keep in mind that you have the power to shape your life according to the mindset you choose. You don't have to be stuck in a negative mindset. So hopefully, you take a strategy from today and reframe, and have a more positive mindset to have a more positive life. I hope you have a great week, and I'll see you back here next time.