Episode 1: Find the Good Thing

Description: In this season 6 kickoff episode, Dr. Tina Boogren introduces a simple but powerful daily habit: pausing at the end of each workday to identify and write down one positive moment from that day.

Listen Now:

---

Transcription: Find the Good Thing

Hi, and happy New Year. Oh my goodness. I am so excited to be back kicking off season six, I can't believe it, of self-care for educators with Dr. Tina H. Boogren, and that is me. I am smiling huge sitting here alone in my hotel room on another trip where I have been thinking about all of you. I have had the distinct pleasure of visiting so many schools and districts to help kick off the brand new school year, and oh, my hand is on your back as you get things started.

This season is going to be filled with some exciting stuff. We have some big happenings in the work that we will let you know more about as this season continues, but as we get started, each week I'm gonna give you one teeny tiny little invitation to think about as you move into your work week. and to kick us off my invitation for you is I want you to start a new habit and that habit is the one good thing habit. 

Here's how this is going to work. What I want you to do is each and every day at the end of your workday, I want you to pause and I want you to name one positive moment. One thing that happened that particular day, and I want you, if you can, to actually write it down. How cool would it be to get to the end of the school year and have a log of one positive thing that happened every single day that school year?

Here's the research behind what you're doing. What you're doing is you are training your brain to notice and remember the good, especially at the end of a workday. Our brain gets tired, we've talked before and I'm sure I'll talk again, about decision fatigue, and it becomes really, really easy to get stuck in that kind of emotional contagion that's not always the positive stuff. We can kind of get stuck in just feeling the frustration at the end of the day that maybe we didn't get done what we wanted to get done. Maybe our lesson didn't go according to plan. Maybe we had  a not so great interaction with a student or with a colleague, and our brain can get stuck on that, and we just replay that negative piece over and over again.

So by pausing and considering one good thing, you are retraining your brain to remember that in every day, even the hard days, there's always good, always good. You are doing good things. And by writing it down, you're like cementing it in your brain. And what will happen is you will end up with this log of all this good stuff.

And so when you sit down and you think about the day, if your brain's getting stuck on having trouble finding that positive, you can go back and read what you've written before to remind yourself, “Oh yeah, there's a lot of good stuff!” And maybe you have repeat things and maybe you aim to have a new thing every single day.

I always say make the invitation work for you. I know that the start of the school year is hard. It's why I specifically call it the Season of Sacrifice. So those of you that have interacted with my book, 180 Days of Self-Care for Busy Educators, you know, I always think about the school year having four seasons, just like a calendar year does. And the start of the school year is hard.

Oh, you're so busy and you're getting used to a new routine and perhaps new students, perhaps a new staff. Perhaps you're in an entirely new place with a different role or different curriculum. There's so many things that can occur that make the start of a new school year especially challenging. I know many of the places that I have had, oh, the distinct honor of working with are going through major construction projects, and that is so stinking hard. And so by pausing and just remembering this tiny little thing that we can do, we're creating a new habit. And as we know, our wellness is built in habit. 

And so let me get you started in some things that you might think about. Maybe your day consisted of, you were able to stop at Starbucks on the way to work. Maybe your good thing is you manage to greet every single student by name on the way into your classroom or into the building. Maybe your lesson rocked. It went exactly how it was supposed to go. Maybe kids got really excited about what you have been introducing that you are going to be working on. Maybe you had a really positive interaction with a colleague or with a parent. Maybe you received a thank you or an email of someone really truly appreciating the work that you do. Maybe you remembered to drink your stupid water. Maybe you were able to eat lunch without distractions. Maybe you were able to take your lunch and eat it outside. Maybe you didn't hit snooze that extra time, which allowed you to feel not quite so rushed in the morning. 

Whatever it is, it's enough. And I want you to write it down. I want you to lock it in. Maybe if you're working with a team with a community, that you could make this a ritual and a pattern for all of you, that maybe you would check in with each other at the end of the day and each person shares their one positive thing. Or you do it in a text chain that you have with each other or via an email, or maybe it works better for you to do it in the morning or to do it at lunch.

As always, like I said, make it work for you. But that's the invitation that I want you to play with this week. I want you to find the one good thing, and I want you to pause and relish that. I want you to smile when you think about it. I want you to write it down. I want you to start training your brain to notice and remember the good 'cause it matters. 

As always, I'm going to do this myself this week. I plan to add this to my journal and I think it's gonna make a huge difference. I know it is. I know it is. 

As always, we are so stinking grateful. Adrienne is back with us. So many of you know Adrienne does all the behind the scenes work to make sure that this podcast gets to you. And drum roll please. She has worked tirelessly to update our website, so I need you to go to self care for educators dot com and see the amazing work that Adrienne has done to create a website that really reflects this community. I'm also so grateful of course to Solution Tree and Marzano resources. I get to keep doing this job that I love so much, even in the face of such hard times for educators.

And as always, I am so grateful for you- this badass self-care squad. I am so grateful for each and every one of you. Thank you for tuning back in. Thank you for sharing this podcast with your colleagues and with your friends and with your teammates, so that we all have something that we can tune into and work on each week to make our lives a little bit better.

You are amazing. I love you so much. It's gonna be an incredible year.