Episode 14: Focus on the Wins

Description: This episode invites you to focus on finding a physical, mental, and spiritual or social win each day to boost your well-being and counteract negativity.

Resources: Dr. Kristin Neff and Self-Compassion

Listen Now:

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Transcription:   Hi, and welcome to Self-Care for Educators. I'm your host, Tina Boogren. This is episode 14 of season five and this week's invitation is a fun one. I got this from someone else. So this comes from a dear, dear friend who actually got this idea from her daughter. And so I don't know the original source. I just love it so much that I wanted to share it.

Some of you have maybe heard this before, but man, it's a good reminder. Here's the idea. Every single day this week, I want you to focus on getting three wins. You need one physical win, one mental win, and one spiritual win.  So here's how my friend shared it with me, who got it from her daughter.

So the physical win, so this is something like just, taking a walk, right? Working out, resting if you need it, eating something healthy, stretching, taking your vitamins, anything that falls under what we would identify as that physical wellness in terms of our educator wellness framework. So anything related to food, hydration, movement, sleep, or rest. So you need one physical one.  

Second, you need a mental one. So this would be learning something, making progress on something you're working on, recharging your mind in some way. I would say this could be like a meditation. I know that this can, like the lines get blurred with a physical win, right? It could be some rest here. It could be how you talk to yourself, I would say, right? If you're ensuring that you're utilizing a growth mindset or you're talking to yourself like you would someone you love, like that's a good mental win. Even I would say a mental win is something that you're doing around the framework of mental wellness. So, You're getting a handle on the number of decisions that you have to make. You are thinking about keeping a little bit more balance, especially this time of year between work and home and the holidays and taking care of yourself, that mental load, and then that efficacy piece. And remember the efficacy is that combination of our feeling of confidence and competence, and that really plays out again and how we talk to ourselves. This is Kristin Neff's incredible work around self-compassion. So that second win is a mental win. 

And then the third win is that spiritual win. We could also think of this in terms of the educator wellness framework as a social win. So this is something that you do for yourself to strengthen one of your relationships, or you do it just because it's flat out fun, or it's some sort of journaling piece that you do, or some sort of connection that you find or make with something bigger than you. When we think about our social wellness, we think about our relationships and how we're building trust and how we're reconnecting to our own purpose. How we show up and live that purpose every single day when we are at work and how we show up and live that purpose when we are at home. So I love thinking about those three wins and how they just mirror our framework so much.

I mean, if you want to add a fourth win, you can touch on the emotional wellness piece and maybe you spend a little time just becoming aware of your emotions. But let's just take it for what it is, of these three. So a physical win, a mental win, and a spiritual or social win. And as always, I'm going to say, turn the dial up or down.

Maybe you want to do all three of these every single day. Maybe you just choose one of those areas and you need one win per day. Maybe you just need one win this week. Like, you know yourself, you know your schedule, you know if you are deep in the depths of disillusionment or not, how you're feeling. But man, what a great thing that is to keep your eye on that as you move through your day.

And I'd encourage you to record it, write it down, journal it. I'm a huge journaler, as you know, I love to write things down in my journal- what a great thing to have on hand. Or maybe just start a note in your phone, or maybe for accountability, you share your wins with someone else, a family member, a colleague. You can do this as always in your classroom as well. But just, you're just looking for those wins. 

I think this really appealed to me when she shared it because  I was with her this past weekend and we were all kind of talking about this just disillusionment phase that that we're in as educators especially, but no matter what profession you're in, it's a hard time of year. And so finding these wins is essential. I know I've said it before, but it's worth repeating that this time of year disillusionment can oftentimes be synonymous with burnout. And one of the main indicators of burnout is that negativity and cynicism. Uh, another indicator of burnout again, is that decreased sense of efficacy and that emotional exhaustion.

And so when we're in that place, Our brain isn't looking for the wins. Our brain is getting stuck on the things that are not going well, the things that are driving us crazy. Our self-talk is not real great.  So to counteract that, let's force ourselves, let's challenge ourselves. Maybe we add this to last week's invitation around a 30 day challenge, but we find those wins each day.

I'm going to do that this week and I really want you to do the same. My goal, I'm going to try to find all three. I want a physical win, I want a mental win, and I want a spiritual or social win. And I want you to do the same. I'm cheering so hard for you. 

As always, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, Adrienne. We're so grateful for you. Thank you, Marzano Resources and Solution Tree for this incredible job I get to do. And as always, to you, you, you, you, my badass self care squad, you are such a win in my life. I'm so grateful for every single one of you and I'm cheering so hard for you. Make this week amazing.