How I coped as a stressed teacher

I’ve been teaching for longer than I care to remember. I like teachers. Most of my best friends are teachers and I care about what happens to them, so when I discover something powerful that works, I like to share it.

If that one thing can help others cope with their own stressful situations, then even better.

First, a little theory — sorry if sounds woo-woo to you — trust me, it works.

Iron Rule 1:

You are responsible for creating your daily experience of reality through your thinking

This is so empowering because most people go through life believing the exact opposite:

‘If only X or Y outside of me were different then I could be happy’ they think to themselves.

Iron Rule 2:

You create your experience of reality, via your thinking

The corrolory of this is :

Iron Rule 3:

If you want to change your experience of reality, focus on how you are thinking.

Notice I did not say ‘change your thinking’ — we are not in CBT or NLP land over here. Now before you start asking a million questions about this -I have a shortcut.

Iron Rule 4:

Take the book Sweet Sharing into work with you and read two chapters of it, every day, before you start your day.

Thats it.

So here is how this worked for me. I would get into work and before anything else, I would read two chapters of Sweet Sharing: it has been the psychological equivalent of taking two Mogadon tablets.

As I read, I found that I would unconsciously exhale at one point

That’s when I knew that my perspective had shifted and my thinking has slowed down, to the point where I could actually observe it.

This calmness allowed me to function during the day and to remain happy because I did not react to what the children were doing. In fact I would notice myself smiling and singing to myself (often quite loudly) at each lesson changeover: I was having another dreadful day and was having a blast!

After a while I then formulated Iron Rule 5

Walk in and walk out of work happy and achieve this by: if a pupil inconveniences me (misbehaviour), then I inconvenience them (sanction)

The above may not seem like rocket science on first inspection but when you work in a particularly stressful environment where the causes of stress are mainly systemic and down to the shortcomings of the institution, then these iron clad rules are what saves you and your mental health, long-term.

The effect on the children was dramatic.

In general, children’s behaviour is affected by the internal state of their teacher/parent.

If the adult remains calm they are more likely to calm down themselves.

Until I used this technique myself at work, I had not fully understood how this understanding can make you more productive and better at your job.

I thought perhaps it was just something that’s nice to have but not essential and absolutely not connected with radical improvements in performance

But I was wrong.

When I walked into work happy and left work happy and made happiness and relaxation my goal, ironically I could be more productive and more resilient and able to deal with the myriad of problems that occurred every day

You might wonder as I did how reading two chapters of any book can change your state so radically.

To be honest, I wondered the same thing

I interviewed the author and I still don’t think that he fully understands that his book has the power to change peoples state simply by reading it

The only other experience of this that I have had was after reading The Power of Now so I at least understand that even reading about mindfulness for example can create the experience of mindfulness 🧘‍♀️

I recently realised that this is an experience of Antifragility. ‘Some things benefit from shocks, they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness and disorder” Sounds like a school to me.