Episode 427: Monday Mindset: Stay Brave

The moment you want to quit is often the moment you are about to grow. I’m sharing a simple phrase that has been sticking with me lately: stay brave. Not “be brave someday” or “become brave when things calm down” but stay brave right now, especially when you feel pulled back toward the familiar way of doing things because it feels safer.

You’ll also hear a practical way to handle rough days when a lesson bombs and students are checked out. Instead of spiralling, we try a “so what?” reframe and focus on what you can actually do next. If you’re ready to strengthen student writing and your own confidence, join our FREE Writing Workshop this July: https://www.ebteacher.com/writing-workshop

Subscribe, share this with an ELA teacher who needs a lift, and leave a review so more teachers can find the support.

Transcript

Mission And Teacher Time Back

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi there, ELA teachers. Caitlin here, CEO and co-founder of EB Academics. I'm so excited you're choosing to tune into the Teaching Middle School ELA podcast. Our mission here is simple, to help middle school ELA teachers take back their time outside of the classroom by providing them with engaging lessons, planning frameworks, and genuine support so that they can become the best version of themselves, both inside and outside of the classroom. And we do this every single day inside the EB Teachers ELA portal. This is a special place we've developed uniquely for ELA teachers to access every single piece of our engaging, fun, and rigorous curriculum so that they have everything they need to batch plan their lessons using our EB Teacher Digital Planner that's built right into the app. Over the years, we've watched as thousands of teachers from around the world have found success in and out of the classroom after using EB Academics programs. And we're determined to help thousands more. If you're interested in learning more, simply click the link in the podcast description. And in the meantime, we look forward to serving you right here on the podcast every single week. Well,

Monday Mindset For Hard Seasons

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hello, teachers, and welcome back to another Monday Mindset. I am so glad you're here. And I want to talk about something today that I think is going to meet you maybe where you are in the midst of a school year. And so I want to share it with you in the summertime so that hopefully you can like store this in the back of your brain to tap back into when things get hard. And this is also applicable for life. If you're in the middle of something hard in your own personal life right now, who knows the things that we're all going through, right? Everybody has difficulties that arise. And I came

The Meaning Of Stay Brave

SPEAKER_00 1:43

across something from Brene Brown, and it was two words I found very interesting. And the words were stay brave, not be brave or become brave, but she chose to use the term stay brave. And I thought that was cool because it's like it's something that you already have in you. Like we're already brave, and we just have to actively keep choosing to be brave and stay brave over and over and over again, especially in the moments when everything in you wants to just tap out and be like, nope, I'm out, I'm done. And I've

Why Batch Planning Feels Scary

SPEAKER_00 2:17

been thinking about that a lot because we actually just wrapped up our batch planning live event and I watched something really beautiful happen with the teachers who showed up to that event. Because batch planning, if you've done it before, you know, really sitting down and doing the deep work of planning a huge chunk of your year is not easy. It is not for the faint of heart. It challenges you, it asks you to think differently, it asks you to confront the places where you've been winging it or maybe you haven't been showing up as your best self. It also commits you to, it also asks you rather to commit to a new way of doing things when the old way is so much more familiar. Right. So it's so much easier because we know it. And there were moments during that event where I could feel like some of our teachers were like, I don't know, I don't think I can do this, right? Right on that edge of being pulled back to the old way of doing things. And where the discomfort of the new thing was making that familiar old thing feel very appealing all of a sudden, right? It's like when we're faced with discomfort or uncertainty, a lot of the times we will we will retreat back to what's familiar. And this happens in relationships, this happens in all sorts of ways and things that we exist in as human beings. And what I keep thinking over and over and over again when I see these moments pop up for people, and even especially for me in my life, is stay brave. Don't tap out, right? Lean into that discomfort. Because here's what I know to be true. And I know you've heard some version of this before, but I want you to like like really let this land because this changes you, it really truly has the power to change your life. And that

Growth Requires Tension Like Training

SPEAKER_00 4:03

is if it's challenging you, it is changing you. It really like really, like, not just intellectually understand that, but like integrate that into your being. This is not just a cute thing to put on like a motivational poster, though we can put it on a motivational poster and make it look cute, we can do that too. But this is literally how growth works. And I know I really a lot of things back to the gym, but it's such a beautiful example of how so much of this works, right? Like, think about what happens when you want to build physical strength or like muscle. You don't get stronger by doing what's comfortable, right? You get stronger by putting muscles under tension, like by pushing your muscles past where they've ever been before. And I remember one of my trainers saying to me, like, that rep where it starts to burn, like that's where you're actually meeting growth. But the first 10 reps that didn't hurt, you've already done that before. You're not actually building strength there. You're building strength as you push past that discomfort in your muscles, right? Because what's happening is by pushing them past where they've been before, in that process, the muscle fibers in our body are actually breaking down. Like the muscle fibers are actually tearing, literally. And then our muscles rebuild stronger than they were before. And that's literally the mechanism to growing your muscles. That's actually how it works. And if you think about our nervous system capacity, our emotional capacity, our psychological capacity, we're not any different.

unknown 5:36

Right?

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Every time you're in a moment that's hard, that's uncertain, that's making you feel fear, that's making you want to close the laptop or walk out of the room or go back to the way that you've always done it, that is your version of the muscle under tension. That is you on the edge of becoming someone new, of expanding into a new way of being. And the teachers that I have watched transform the most inside of our membership, at our live events, through this podcast on Instagram, they are not the ones who necessarily had the easiest road. They are the ones who stayed when it got hard, who kept going when they hit the wall, who chose to be curious about their discomfort instead of running from it. Right? Of asking questions, why am I feeling uncomfortable right now? Where is this coming from? How can I expand my ability to hold something more, something greater?

unknown 6:30

Right?

SPEAKER_00 6:30

I always use this phrase in my life. I live my life by this. Of where there is your fear, there is your task. What are you afraid of? Why have we not faced it?

Staying Brave On A Bad Tuesday

SPEAKER_00 6:45

And so I want to be honest with you staying brave is not always this like big dramatic thing. Although there are times in our lives that are like that. Medical crises, divorce, all kinds of stuff, issues with our kids, okay? And also, sometimes it's literally just choosing not to give up on a Tuesday afternoon when a lesson bombs and your students are checked out and you're exhausted and you're questioning every single choice you've ever made as a teacher. Sometimes staying brave just looks like showing up tomorrow and letting yesterday be water off the duck's back and not letting it impact you. Oh well, it didn't go well. Right? One of the things I always think about is like we always make excuses. Yeah, well, but what if, but what if, but what if happens, blah blah blah. And I go, and so what? And then we answer that so what? And it's like usually not a big deal. It's usually something we can handle. Right? And so

Lean In And Workshop Invite

SPEAKER_00 7:48

wherever you are right now, whatever hard thing is sitting in front of you, whether it is a new school, maybe you're transitioning into middle school for the first time, maybe you're closing in on you know the end of your teaching career, and you want this last year to be your best year, whatever it is that you've got on the horizon, I want to invite you to stay brave. Don't tap out, don't go back to comfortable just because comfortable feels safe. Right? The version of you that's on the other side of this discomfort, that version of you is worth staying brave for because that is how we grow. We gotta lean in. So here's to a week of leaning in. I'll see you tomorrow on the podcast. Make sure that you sign up for my writing workshop, ebteacher.com forward slash writing dash workshop. It's happening towards the end of July. It's going to be fabulous. I'm gonna teach you new things. And because you are going to be able to stay brave, you will 100% be able to take these strategies into your classroom this upcoming school year and finally make a difference in your students' writing and become the rock star writing teacher at your school. All right, here's to a great Monday and a great week, and I will see you tomorrow on the podcast. Bye, everyone.