Reduce Teacher Stress by Adopting a Gain v. Gap Mindset Shift

🎧 What can a documentary about a cycling hero and a top business book have to teach you about how to:

✅ Reframe mindset around standardized testing gaps

❤️ Better support students who are far below grade level?

A lot, as it turns out.

In this week's episode, I look at the key concepts from the game-changing book "The Gap and the Gain" 📚 

These key concepts can help you:

➡️ Better support students who are academically deficient, but working hard 

➡️ Help foster confidence and self-reliance in students

➡️ Learn the secret to not stressing over your never-ending "to-do "list

🏆 Get strategies to celebrate student progress and cultivate their intrinsic motivation

💡 Learn the power of a "5 Minute Pity Party" 

🔁 Change your self-talk and conversations to live more in the "gain" than "the gap."

If you've ever wanted to fuel your motivation, and that of your students by acknowledging forward momentum - don't miss this episode.

This uplifting episode will leave you feeling empowered.

Resources mentioned in this episode:
The Gap and the Gain: The High Achievers' Guide to Happiness, Confidence, and Success : Dan Sullivan & Dr. Benjamin Hardy

➡️ To get your FREE 🎁 PDF Guide The Professional Teacher's Guide to Saying "No" visit: www.gracestevens.com/sayno

Want to truly thrive in teaching without sacrificing your personal life?   
Check out my signature on-demand self-study course, Balance Your Teacher Life.  Complete details here: www.gracestevens.com/balance

📘 My latest (and greatest!) book:
The Empowered Teacher Toolkit
Check out the best-selling Positive Mindset Habits for Teachers book here
Beat Teacher Burnout with Better Boundaries book here

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Transcript

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Welcome back, educator friends. I am excited for this week's episode.  I watched a documentary a couple of weeks ago. It was fantastic and nothing to do with teaching. That documentary reminded me of a book I had read which was also fantastic and also had nothing to do with teaching. But I got to tell you, the application, the lesson learned, the ideas in both of those really have everything to do with your experience in the classroom and how you're going to make it more positive for yourself.

And for your students, more positive, more effective. So if all of that sounds good to you, I will see you inside today's episode.  Welcome to the Balance Your Teacher Life podcast, where we talk all things avoiding educator burnout, setting healthy boundaries, and achieving better work life balance.  If you're passionate about education, but tired of it consuming your whole life, you have found your home in the podcast universe.

I'm your host, Grace Stevens. And let's get going with today's show. 

Before we get started, I have a quick request for you. And it would mean the world to me. And it could actually mean the world to somebody else. And here's my request. If you're finding value in this podcast, in my message that happier teachers make for  more effective student outcomes that if you know a colleague who is really wanting more support, more ideas and maybe some inspiration and just to feel like there's something out there, some resource out there that is just for them, not about students, student test scores, not about classroom management, nothing to do with. 

Outcomes that education typically looks at but only to do with them having a more positive experience, more balanced life,  more fun, all those things, then please refer this podcast to them. This podcast is only just starting to grow. I would love to expand its reach. I would love to reach more educators.

Everybody needs You know a warm virtual hug knowing somebody is on their side and got some good support for them So if you would share it with a friend, I would really appreciate it  Okay, so let's get to it What was the movie? What is the book and what does it all have to do with you?  So, now, do not chew me out when I say that this movie was about pro cycling.

Um, the percentage of people who have an interest in pro cycling, um, is pretty, pretty low.  Um, you know, if this, if I, if somebody was, talking to me about rugby or football, um, you know, American football. I would like to now, what does that got to do with me, but stay with me just for a minute. So my interest in cycling is, um, actually I, you know, it's funny, I don't know where it started because, um, I am a cyclist, but I didn't start cycling, um, until I was in my forties.

Never even had a bike till I was in my forties. How fun is that? Um, but. I loved, um, the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia, these are like the top races that take place over multiple days, and I really enjoyed watching them even though it was kind of difficult with different time zones and no streaming and all that stuff.

In the 80s and early 90s it was something I really enjoyed to do, um,  and, um,  One of the things that I loved was to watch the Tour de France.  And this is before all, you know, before it all got tarnished with the doping and, uh, and all that stuff. Before it was all about drama. I mean, it was drama, but it was drama in people's really, um, Excellent, um, you know, prowess and, and, and how they really, um, persevered.

These races last, I don't know, I, I believe the Tour de France is like 23 days. Riders go over 2, 000 miles. They, over steep, dangerous mountains, over cobbled streets, um, individual time trials where they're just racing the clock, um, all these things. Anyway, it, there is intrinsic drama built into it. Before the doping scandals.

So, um, the  documentary was about Greg Lamont, who you may know. Um, if you do know, listen, there are no spoiler, um, alerts here because I'm going to tell you what happened in the documentary, but if you have any interest in Greg LeMond, you already know, like, it's like the biggest comeback story I want to say in the history of almost any sport.

So he had already won two. Tour de France, which was really something spectacular. Um, and he was at the peak of his game. And what I really enjoyed about the documentary, as an aside, was I had no idea how he had got into racing and that it was trauma, childhood trauma, that actually led him to get into racing.

And racing was his safe place and, uh, he really excelled at it. But anyway. Um, so what he's famous for is after he'd won his second Tour de France, uh, he was in a hunting accident. In fact, his brother in law shot him  and he almost died. Um, and while he was in the hospital almost dying, his wife went, um, went into labor, premature labor.

It was just It was this, um, incredibly trying time for him and it took a really big toll on his body but he persevered and he came back to racing and nobody was sure if he still had it. I mean he still had gun shrapnel inside his body. But anyway, the Tour de France, you know, takes place over all these days and sometimes the margin, especially when you think it does take place over, you know, over three weeks, more than three weeks, like the The margin with which people wins is usually, you know, kind of like golf, where it's like a percentage of a point.

It is usually like a matter of minutes. It's not a matter of hours. It's a matter of minutes. But anyway, the last day of the Tour de France is just this victory lap around, um, downtown Paris. And so that really doesn't count. It's the day before. The penultimate day is a time trial, uh, where The riders run the clock and that is really the last official racing day.

Well, before this last day, Laurent Fignon, another very good rider,  um, had, was, was in the lead. In the lead, and already celebrating. He was passing around the champagne on the train, on the way there. And you know, his press team was already celebrating. And lo and behold, and I remember watching it in real time.

It was kind of unbelievable. Um, that, uh, when Greg LeMond went to do his time trial, he ended up beating Laurent Fignon. By eight seconds, um, all on the last day. So what is the point of this? The point of this is Laurent Fignon. Now, the perspective they were, they had obviously, um,  coverage from the real event, but they were interviewing these people years after was the point of this documentary.

And Laurent Fignon said,  I have gone down in history as the person who lost the Tour de France by eight seconds. He said, in fact, I'm pretty sure that's what people will write on my gravestone. Here lies Laurent Fignon lost the Tour de France by eight seconds. He said what nobody.  is I won the Tour de France twice before that. 

Wow.  ? So, um,  That just really made me think of a great book that I had read. So let me, stay with me, let me tell you where this is going. So this reminded me of a really, um, good book I had read which maybe, probably, you know, it's a business book. So, you know, most podcasts for teachers are going to talk about education books.

You know, I do not. The books that have influenced me a lot have, because I have, was in business before and, you know, and now I'm Entrepreneur Now are typically business books and this book is called The Gap and the Gain. Um, it's by Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan and it really is this great take on, you know, personal development and productivity but really at its core the book is looking at the idea of how we fixate on focusing on progress and perfection, ,  rather than emphasizing the journey of growth.

? And, um, So, when we look at this idea of the gap, it's the space between where we currently are and this kind of often idealized version of where we want to be. And when we focus, you know, purely on that, and I feel we do a lot of that in education, and that's what we're going to talk about.  Focusing on that gap leads to feelings of, you know, inadequacy and stress and overwhelm, ?

As we try to strive to bridge that gap, ? And we get discouraged by the gap, when really what we should be is embracing it as an opportunity. For growth and what we should be looking at is the gain and what the gain is that really represents the ground of the progress we've made no matter how small, ?

It talks about celebrating our wins, acknowledging the forward momentum, ? So that we can cultivate a positive mindset and fuel our motivation. Now, I want to tell you something. I hadn't read the book for a while, but I remember that when I read it, I was like, wow, this really, you know, it was when I was still in the classroom. 

So I went and, you know, as a lot of maybe even your students do these days, um, I didn't have time to reread the whole book. I went to our friend Chachi B. T. and I said, Give me a summary of the  strategies inside the book, The Gap in the Game. This is verbatim what Chachi B. T. told me. Now listen to this and, and you're going to be like, ha, that's the classroom, ?

Here are the five things it gave me.  Setting clear and achievable goals.  Breaking down tasks into smaller, manageable steps.  Embracing failure as a learning opportunity.  Cultivating a growth mindset.  And building habits and routines that supports progress. Now listen, that could have come right out of any teaching book, any IEP goals, anything.

If that isn't a day in the classroom, I don't know what is. Okay, so that's why this book is, um, has every relevance to teaching. And so I want to talk about it. Alright, so again, the book is The Gap and The Gain. Um, I'll link it in the show notes. It's by Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan. But let's Talk about it. 

All right. So, again, it talks about how most people, especially, you know, highly ambitious people, it's written for business people, are unhappy because of how they measure their progress, ? We have this ideal, but the ideal is a moving target and always out of reach.  Now, does that remind you of test scores and benchmarks?

So when we measure ourselves against that ideal, we're always in the gap. And the gap, , when we're stuck in this mindset, we feel like a failure. We have failure, there's frustration, there's disappointment, there's low self esteem, guilt, depression, all these things. Is that what you want for your students? 

That's what happens for ourselves when all our administrators focus on the gap. That's how our students feel when we're focusing on the gap. When in between, if on the other hand, we focus on the gain. Right? How far we've come. What did we learn with these setbacks? You're feeling more success, more satisfaction, more confidence.

Right? More enjoyment, more optimism. All these things. The things that we want. Perseverance and problem solving. All these things. Alright? So the key idea is in the gap and the gain. That's basically it. Focus on the gain, not the gap. You know, it really breaks down, um, there's really six key concepts.  I'll just go over them real quickly and you'll see how, why I'm in love with this book.

Cause the first one is you gotta take ownership of your own happiness. Well,  that's everything I talk about, right? And my ECHO framework for educator empowerment, right? The H in the ECHO acronym is happiness can be synthesized,  right? The C is control what you can control. Like take responsibility for creating it for yourself, right?

So concept number two is stop comparing yourselves to others. Well, we know this.  Who is it who said comparison is a thief of joy?  Um, could probably do a whole episode on that.  Then the third concept is how you see your life shapes how you live. Okay, that's, that's a great concept for another day.  Number four, don't forget to track your progress.

Celebrate your accomplishments. Okay, that's where we can zone in on this. Um, it talks about some habits around that, but they're really focused on a personal day, so I'm going to talk about a classroom setting for that. Right? And then the last concept that I love, you can turn any, well I'm not sure about any, but seemingly negative experience into a gain by reframing.

What happened to you, right? And so I'm going to talk about this idea  that I have um, of a five minute  Pity party.  So we'll get to that. Alright, so let's talk about it. Are you with me so far? We are talking about the gap and the gain. How does this play out in the classroom? Okay? So,  two areas. First, there's yourself, and then there's your students. 

So, from the personal Perspective, from the teacher perspective. The gap and the gain has everything to do with how hard we are on ourselves. Right? Listen, our to do list is never going to get done. It's never going to get done. If it does, if you're really efficient at doing everything the school system throws at you, do you know what's going to happen? 

They're going to give you more.  That's basically how it is. That's basically how it is. Now, I have some whole episodes and it's a whole part of my coaching where I train people on a not to do list. How to proactively decide what you are going to do, which for me, you need a strong teaching compass, an internal compass, that, you know, for me, what I was going to do was always the activities that were going to  improve student outcomes, right?

Not things, things that were purely to promote somebody else's agenda, got to take a back seat, got to wait until somebody sent me a second email to do them because 90 percent of the time the second email never came. Um, that takes a level of confidence that not all teachers have, especially at the beginning.

But  again, your to do list is never going to be done. So have some kind of criteria for, you know,  The Eisenhower Matrix, do you know that? Just, just really breaking down the difference between what is essential and what is urgent. They're not always the same thing, right? So, first off, don't be so hard on yourself.

Look at the game. Think of all the things you did accomplish in the day. Not fixate on the three that didn't get done, right? Look at it as, look, you know how hard  You work to get all your lesson plans up to date. Oh gosh, during distance learning. It was like this huge satisfaction of mine that on Fridays, I would have team meeting with my other. 

Um, grade span teachers, and we took great pride in the fact we only taught for four days a week, uh, Monday through Thursday, and Friday was the day for lesson planning, for grading, for office hours to meet with students who needed additional support, for students who had special services, all those things, but it was a great point of pride for us that on a Friday, oh my gosh, before we went home for the weekend, we had the complete week, the following week,  Or, laid out, it was all in Google Classroom, all the assignments were set, like it was this great feeling, right?

And you know what? Or,  also, which was never done on a Friday, but usually on a Sunday evening, unfortunately, getting your gradebook up to date. Oh my god, it is all done, it is all in there. You know how long your gradebook is up to date, and your lesson plans are up to date.  I'm going to say about the same amount of time as your house stays clean and your laundry is all done.

It's about eight minutes and three seconds, right? As soon as all your laundry is done and folded and put away, the laundry basket is filling up again, right? As soon as your gradebook is up to date, late assignments are coming in, you've given new assignments, like there is always more, it's never  You've never done lesson planning for the year.

There's always something else happening, right? So, if you're focusing always on the fact it's never done, um, the gap, why, you know, somebody else's book is always up to date, or whatever, you are just going to be miserable. So focus on the gain, right? Celebrate the wins. I've had a lot of episodes about how you've got to be in  intrinsically motivated as a teacher, you know, you, we don't handle, you know, we're not in a factory with widgets,  right?

We don't get to build something and at the end of the day say, look how many cars I made, or I'm an architect and I designed a building and you know, 10 years later I see the building perfectly finished. Like there's a great sense of accomplishment in that. In teaching we don't always get the feedback.

We don't always know the impact we've made. So we need to celebrate the successes for ourselves.  But let's think about this with students, right? Here's where I see it most in the classroom. And it was a great stressor for students and also for me. Think about how, unfortunately, through standardized tests, benchmark tests, whatever things you have going on, that we label students usually, you know, in a couple of categories.

Either they're, you know, advanced, they're proficient, they're basic, or they're far below basic, right? So think of that student.  Who at the beginning of the year is far below basic.  You know, we've just, you know,  kids missed a year and a half of school. Even before that, there was always that student who ended up in your room.

Especially, I mean, when you're in first grade, the deficiencies aren't that bad. You can't say you're two years behind. That was before you started school. But by the time you're teaching third, fourth, and certainly upper grades, there are going to be students in your room who are academically deficient to the point of being years behind.

Years. And you can scratch your head, how did this happen? Why hasn't anybody intervened? You know, are there learning difficulties in place? You know, how does this child not receive the resources, the structure they need? Whatever. But the fact is, you have those students in your class. Now, they are far below basic.

Let's say, I'm going to make up some easy numbers. Let's say the benchmark is, to be proficient, is 200. And you have a student, and there are 100. Okay. And you work with them all year, small group, intervention, different supports, tutoring. All the things.  And at the end of the year, let's say they were two years behind.

Now they're only a year behind. Now their score is 150. Like, look at that. That's a 50 percent increase. Like, they've grown. Some students in my class grew two years worth in six months. Right? That's a huge gain. Guess what? They're still far below basic when you get your scores. There has perceivably been no real gain.

And the end.  I do have to say, in some districts, with some administrators, I do know that the pressure is not to even focus so much on those students. It's focus on the bubble students. What's a bubble student? The bubble student who just missed the benchmark by a few points. Focus on moving those over to the next benchmark.

Well, of course you should, but you're not going to leave everybody behind. Right? That was the whole point. Right? For those of you old enough to remember, that was the whole point of all the stand by testing. No child left behind. Kind of a joke. But anyway, that's where it shows up. The most right is when you have worked hard and this student has put everything into it And this student has really grown and if you don't celebrate those successes If you don't acknowledge that gain in different ways along the way and help the student take ownership of that gain They won't feel like a big fat failure because all they're looking up is the gap right, so Let's think about it.

One of the ways I'm probably, you've heard the name Dr. Robert Marzano. Um,  especially if you have done any professional, you know, professional learning communities, any formal work around the idea of PLCs, A lot of his research comes into play and one of, um, the things that he has proven, studied a lot is when students take ownership. 

of their learning, it leads to greater intrinsic motivation, specifically when students track their own data, right? Such as assessment scores or progress towards learning objectives, right? They develop a deeper understanding of their strengths and their own areas for growth. So instead of you just saying, here's your next goal, you having that conference with a student and you saying, Where do you think you're struggling?

What should we be focusing on? Like drawing them in. I've done this with students even as low as second and third grade, drawing them in. Where are we going to work? What do you, what's your goal for this next test? We did, you know, different benchmark tests pretty much every four weeks. That kid is always below.

Right? They know that, but on a chart, we would track. I want to be this much closer to the benchmark. I want to be this much closer. I want to gain this many points. And when they track, when they set their own, when they're involved in setting their own goal, and when they tracked it themselves, we'd make little charts, and they'd color it in, and they could physically see their progress, and we would make little intrinsic rewards along the way.

Um, it really led them to take ownership, and it was a very, I mean, research, Marzahn Research proved it time and time again, that it was a very, um, a very  powerful strategy and a very effective strategy, okay? So, that's one, is include the students in that. Encourage them to look at the gain, not just the gap, right? 

How can we, it's the whole idea of trying your best, persevering, problem solving, asking students, did you use your strategies? You know, teaching students strategies. And a lot of those strategies aren't just strategies for learning. You know, maybe we, you know, we teach them how to dissect a math problem, you know, circle the numbers, underline the, you know, all the, Different strategies we teach them, but the strategies for being successful at taking a test, a strategy for staying calm if you're panicking, right?

All the different strategies, having those conversations with students, not just being focused on the number that, um, that they were reached that is maybe, you know, not perfect. Nowhere near perfect and never going to be near perfect that year, but you're setting the foundation for them getting closer and closer and closer.

Having these, these conversations with them. Alright, so that's the first thing. The whole reframe, the idea behind growth mindset, you know, no need to do, to bring that up here. We all know growth mindset, right? Persevering and problem solving, first attempt in learning, you know, what can we learn? You know that there are no failures.

It's a learning opportunity. And I know that sounds kind of trite sometimes but um, to students that is, you know, they haven't heard it year in year out yet. So it could be new information for them. Right, so celebrating and let's talk about that.  How do you celebrate? Now,  I in fact was um, joking with some um, We were playing some games this weekend, my friends and I, and somebody didn't win and I'm like well they get the participation award and it led to some, you know, big old discussion about this isn't school, that isn't how life works, nobody gets awards for everything, so no matter how you feel about it, it is better for students to be intrinsically motivated.

Right? We know that. Everybody needs to be intrinsically motivated. But there's nothing wrong with celebrating. And that doesn't mean that you have to have some massive, you know, prize box or, um, you know, PBIS game center or whatever.  Things that are going on right now. Listen, to me the most effective strategies when I had small classrooms in a small classroom community, some of the best celebrations we had weren't when you worked towards the pizza party and you had to work towards it, you know, all semester and then get mad at the one kid who behaved poorly for the sub and you lost your marbles out of the jar that you were collecting, right? 

I'm talking about like a little daily celebration. It could be anything. Right? Maybe the fact that, you know, your class all made it to the cafeteria without getting into a fist fight or something. Maybe, maybe that's a goal that they set for themselves. Maybe that's the most stressful part of our day. Can we work around that?

Oh, you know, has everybody been working together? Did we support each other? Did everybody, you know, try their hardest on the test? Whatever. You know what the currency is for your class. I mean, I taught little kids for years. Let me tell you. A glitter shower.  Nothing better than that. You know what a glitter shower is?

I go meet a Walmart, get the huge container of glitter, and now you have to do it outside, otherwise you alienate the custodian. And everybody knows better than to do that. When the kids were leaving, I would pour glitter in my hand and  blow. And it would make a little shower of glitter that would land on them.

And they all giggled and they thought it was amazing. Okay? That costs nothing. And takes very little time and you do it on the way out the door so that when they're all riled up and excited they're going home. Um, flashing lights at the end of the day. Really? Yes, I once had a first class. First grade class.

You, you could get them to do a lot of stuff with the bribe of like, Hey, we'll like, we'll flash the lights at the end of the day and put on a little music. We used to call it like a little dance party. 30 seconds. We had a little dancing Charlie Brown. Um, if somebody really did something great and we would all cheer them on, let Charlie Brown dance.

And we'd push the button and again, 30 seconds dance party, right? Obviously that's little kids. You've got older kids. Maybe they can work with their earbuds in, you know. Whatever, you know what the currency is. You know what is a little treat for your class. Celebrate it, right? Celebrate. Okay, and so for students and us, right, personally the stakes all seem so high, right?

They just get  Let go a little. Don't hold on so tight.  Let go of comparison and self judgment.  Right? Don't compare.  You're beginning to somebody else's middle, right? Do you know what that means? Like if you're a new teacher, or new in a grade, and you've shown up and, you know, your new teaching partner has been in that grade forever and they have all these great units and all these great, um, project based learning and all these things and you're not there yet.

You can't compare you trying to survive and figure out what is even on the scope and sequence for this year because this is the thing. Third year that I've had a different grade assignment, for goodness sakes, right? You can't compare your experience with their mastery of the curriculum. Right? Don't compare your beginning to somebody else's middle, right?

Don't let go of, you know, comparing yourself, don't, on Pinterest, their classrooms, on social media, people putting their most you know, fantastic lessons they ever had, you know, people are showing the most idealized version of their day in their life on social media. We're old enough to understand that.

Kids don't always, but we do. Okay? I'll give you an example. Let's look at me and my podcast. Right, I'm 40 episodes into my podcasting journey. It would be easy for me to say, Oh, this podcast isn't reaching as many people as I want.  You know, it's not, it's not climbing on the charts, you know, look at maybe  When people think of teacher podcasts, what are they gonna think of?

They're gonna think of Angela Watson, you know, truth for teachers. They're gonna think of, um,  Of, um, Cult of Pedagogy, right? I can't compare myself to them. They've been podcasting, you know, eight, nine years. Would it have been awesome for me to have started a podcast eight or nine years ago? Yeah, it would have been great, but you know, I was in a classroom hustling is what I was doing eight or nine years ago, so I can't compare my podcast that is just growing to somebody else who's been doing it a long time.

You know, don't do that with your teaching, right? Don't do that with your teaching. Okay, all right, so.  Let's talk about this last idea because I wanted to keep this short and this is my idea I said about a five minute pity party because I want to Be real here. It is very natural for us to live in the gap.

Right? It is. It is very natural for us when we're going to bed to ruminate over the things we haven't done yet and where we're not yet. Right? We, we  We very quickly forget things that we've overcome or we do so many things in a day we forget to take the chance to even celebrate like the fact that a mere mortal managed to do everything that an average teacher did, especially a teacher with a family and other commitments and other things going on.

Like it's an amazing feat what we did, but it's very easy to be in the gap, especially when things don't go our way. And there are many things. So many things, right, in a classroom, in our education system that are beyond our control, right? And it is totally normal, right, to be sad or disappointed when things don't go our way, right?

You can't expect yourself just to be suddenly, permanently happy, right? Because you've tuned into this podcast and I've given you a few strategies, okay? That's like not the way it's gonna work.  But I am serving as a good reminder there is a different way of thinking and it It takes habit. So when you find yourself really disappointed, something that I do and something doesn't go right, or, you know, I am disappointed about something, I just give myself five minutes.

I say five minute pity party, sometimes I even set a timer, and I will just be really sad for five minutes. Or I'll journal, like, and just write negative things, which I usually don't do in my journal. And then I'll crumple up the paper and throw it away. Or rip it into tiny pieces. But you know, just allow yourself to sit in it.

Don't just dismiss it. You've got to feel your feelings, right? But you don't want to dwell there. Don't live there. Right? Feel your negative emotions, because if you keep suppressing them, they'll just keep bubbling up in different ways, um, that are not productive and not helpful, right, and, and you'll just prolong it.

So you've got to feel your feelings, but don't dwell there, right? So set yourself, um, a timer. Have yourself a five minute pity party, um, whatever that looks like for you. Again, for me, I'll write down all the  negative things I can think about, and I kind of have a little, kind of, ooh, a little, uh.  shock of kind of like, Ooh,  of like, Ooh, look at me doing all the things I tell people not to do. 

But I'll stay there just for a few minutes while I write all the negative stuff, all the ways I feel down on myself. And then I'll put a big old smiley face in it, rip it into pieces and move on with my day. So do not dismiss the power of the five minute pity party.  Good strategy. Again, don't just, uh,  Don't invalidate your own feelings or other people's feelings.

Their feelings are real. Kids do feel desperately  disappointed, some of them. They just feel so, you know, discouraged, like they're never going to catch up. Right? So, they, they gotta, those feelings are real and they're valid. And then, you know,  Validate them. Yeah, that's a bummer. Sorry, dude, like it is tough.

I'm so sorry. Don't gloss over them. But then like, and now what are we going to do with it? Right. All right. So celebrate every day.  Throw yourself a five minute pity party if you need to, right? Get students involved in tracking their own benchmarks, especially those students for whom, you know, they're going to be living in the gap for a while by the education systems, uh, kind of,  Criteria, which is just a number on a page, and as we know, uh, we teach complete, uh, human beings.

They're not just numbers on a page. And then one of the last things I'm going to tell you is just mind your conversations. Right? Go back to episode 30 and 32, where I really talked about this whole idea of the reticula, the reticula activating system, like what you're filtering in. What you're filtering out, you know, what you, you might be aware of that, um, phrase, you know, what you, what you focus on, what you give attention to grows, right?

What, what you resist, persist, like, what are you talking about when you're talking? What are your conversations in general about, especially around students, especially around school? Are you talking about the gap  or are you talking about the gain?  Are you focusing on the things that go right in your classroom, the things your students are learning, the new concepts they are getting, or are you just focusing about the gap? 

How  behind they are, how terrible their behavior is, how, you know, all the stuff that we know. Right. So, so that's really like my last piece of this with everything is it's a whole view. It's like, you know, how you think, how you feel, how you act, how you talk, they're all related, right? What you're thinking about, how, what you're talking about, what you're  internalizing is really creating this external experience for you about how you're feeling.

Okay, it's not something that's magically happening to you.  So, mind your conversations. Alright, so here's a quick summary. Okay, I watched the movie.  Maybe you're interested to go see it now. You know, I'm feeling a little bad for Laurent Fignon. You know, here lies the man who lost 8 seconds and nobody mentioning.

Nobody mentioning he won it twice, which in itself is this amazing accomplishments that most cyclists could only ever, you know, dream of. Okay, so  That idea reminded me of the book The Gap in the Game.  Then  When I went to Google or chat, like, tell me the key concepts so I could just refresh my mind. Oh my gosh, I already knew when I was reading it, because I was still a teacher when I read it, like how much it applied to the classroom, but that really just reconfirmed it for me.

And then looking at all those strategies. So by celebrating our wins, and acknowledging Ford, momentum,  we can cultivate a positive mindset and fuel our motivation by keep looking forward, right? Focusing on the gains, focusing on how far we've got. Right? Don't just focus on the gap. That leads to burnout, resentment, disappointment, it's damaging to us.

Unfortunately for students, it's the way our education system and, and, and measurement is, is set up. And so be really cognizant about that with your students. All right. Well, I trust that you have found something in there. Hope, uh, you know, helpful, hopeful. Try one of those strategies. And again, I know you have a busy life and you have a lot of choice out there what you can listen to.

And if you choose to spend some of your commute, some of your workouts, some of your prep period listening to me, I really appreciate it. I really appreciate it. I really appreciate you.  And if you have a colleague who you feel would enjoy this kind of message and support, please, a very kind thing to do and a very helpful thing to do would be to recommend it to a colleague.

So I appreciate that. And in the meantime, until next time, I will leave you and I will encourage you to create your own path and bring your own sunshine.