The Simple Mindset Hack to Uplevel Your Life [episode 81]

Kelsey Sorenson [00:00:00]:

You are listening to episode number 81 of Wife Teacher Mommy, the podcast, The Simple Mindset Hack to help you up level your teacher life. On today’s episode, I’m diving into some really fascinating content about what our brains do to get in our way, sharing some funny stories too, and ultimately sharing the Mindset tool that has been a game changer for me and can be for you too.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:00:24]:

You hey. Teacher is all you gotta do. Someone gotta take care of you, whether it’s the time or resources you have. Why Teacher Mommy may have brought your back they’ll bring the galaxy. Galaxy. Mommy.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:01:05]:

Welcome to wife. Teacher mommy. The Podcast I’m Kelsey Sorensen, a former elementary teacher and current homeschool mom. And even though I’ve been a resource creator since 2014, I’ve realized that printables alone aren’t all you need in order to thrive as a teacher or homeschool parent. That’s why I also created this show and got certified as a life coach to help you finally kick burn out to the curb and feel confident with whatever challenges come your way. With the right mindset, strategies and new teaching inspiration, you’re going to be well on your way to your best teacher life. Now let’s go. Before this episode officially begins, I wanted to share a free resource with you that I think you’re going to love. My friend Sarah from the Stellar Teacher Podcast has put together a free private podcast for upper elementary writing teachers. If you’ve ever felt like your schedule is already cramped and you don’t have time to teach writing, or you’re wondering how you’re going to help your students who struggle to write a complete sentence, write that five paragraph essay on your end of year state test, then you’re going to want to check out this podcast series. In her free private podcast, the Confident Writer System series, you’ll learn the five mistakes that upper elementary writing teachers make. Sample routines that take your students from confused to confident and manageable ways to teach writing every day without feeling rushed. This is seriously something that I wish I had access to when I was teaching writing. And the best part is that you can binge the whole thing in under 90 minutes. If that sounds like something you want, then head over to Stellarteacher.com Writingpodcast. That’s all one word, stellarteacher.com Writingpodcast. And sign up for this free private podcast. So the Confident Writer System series episodes are only available inside her private podcast and trust me, you’re not going to want to miss them. Okay, now let’s get into today’s episode. I am so happy to be here recording on the podcast today, fresh from my Facebook live last night that I did with so many of you. It was such a great time. I love when we get to not only I’m talking to you like on the podcast, but we get to connect with each other and I get to answer questions live and see your excitement and it fills me up. It really lights me up and gives me energy. I was just so full of adrenaline when I was done. It just made my day to be able to be with all of you and I always love it and I’m so glad that so many who are watching also loved this teacher planner that we’ve launched. It has all the pages that you’d expect in a teacher planner, but it also has this beginning section where we have all these life planning and goal setting sections that as a business owner, I’ve seen a lot of business planners have this. Yeah, if you’re a business owner, you need to set goals and intentions. You need that in order to drive your business forward when it’s your living and whatnot. But also, I feel like teachers need that too. And that’s kind of a forgotten part of so many teacher planners.

And I mean, of course they know because they’ve now made a planner that you’re trying to make sure that you can fit all the pages and everything. But you know what? I’m just like it’s worth it to pay to add some additional pages so that teachers can have these because I feel like you need to be able to set intentions and goals for your life. And so one of the comments during that live that I love said, this planner works as a life coach. And yes, that sums it right up. That is my goal. And that is also my goal with today’s podcast and especially this episode with this mindset hack. I am here today as your life coach to help you kind of get inside your mind, teach you this hack that you can use on your own. You can walk away from this episode, you don’t need to do anything else, and you’ll have this tool in your toolbox and you won’t be able to unknow it once you know it. I’m honest when I say that learning this mindset hack has really helped me up level my life. Like the title of this episode to up level your teacher life, I’m not just like saying that as like some clickbait title or whatever. This has really been what’s helped me reach some big goals such as even launch this podcast or throw our big educate and rejuvenate event for teachers. Certify as the life coach, create the future planner I just mentioned get invited to PD opportunities like the 2024 Teacher Hard Out Cruise. And I just signed a book deal too. This is my first time sharing that. Actually. That was like an hour ago that I signed it. And I’m not saying any of that to brag. I’m just saying that I would not have been able to do any of that if I had not learned this mindset hack because there’s a lot of mind drama that comes up when you’re doing things like this. There’s a lot of impostor syndrome there’s a lot of stressing about all the different little things coming up in the day to day and just so much that goes into it.

And in additional, it helped me in the day to day and in my personal life, being more present with my family when I’m not working. And I struggle with that as a teacher. And I know so many of you do because it’s hard to not think about your students needs or you bring work home because you’re like, I need to grade these, or you’re telling yourself you need to grade these and whatnot. But there’s just so much that goes into life. And if you want to be intentional, like I mentioned in the episode about how to set an intentional schedule and stick to it, if you want to be intentional with your life, this mindset hack is going to help you do that. Okay? So I actually wanted to start this episode, though, with some stories that I promise will tie into it. You’re going to be like, what? Does this relate to this mindset hack? Trust me, it does. So I want to tell you this story. I went to the Taylor Swift concert in Glendale, which was a lot of fun. I was lucky. And we just got face value tickets. I got in the queue and got them. It was amazing. But while we were there, I forgot you had to have clear bags. In the stadiums, you can’t bring just your normal bag. So I had bought a clear bag, but I left it at home. And so what I did is for my driver’s license and credit card, I just stuck it in my phone case.

And it’s not one of those wallet phone cases. It’s just like a regular phone case. And I just kind of stuck it in there. I’m like, this will work, and then just had it in my pocket. But then what happened is after that I was shopping at Walmart and I couldn’t find the card I needed. So I wondered if it was perhaps it’s still in my phone case because I remembered that I had to do that at the concert. And this was like right after we gotten home. And my husband did the driving while I went there and back. And a lot of times he would buy things, well, maybe they’re still in there. I started digging through my bag to find my phone and I couldn’t find it. And I was like, where on earth is my phone? And then I remembered that I have my Apple Watch. And for those of you who are also Apple Watch people, you know that you can do that thing where you ping your phone with your Apple Watch. So you swipe and then you can hit this button and it makes your phone make a noise. And so I did that and I heard it. I’m like, okay, there’s my phone. I hear it. It’s right there. I keep looking for it. Can’t find it. Do it again. I’m, like, looking all around. Can’t find it. I probably did it like, three or four times. And I’m, like, going through my bag. I’m, like, looking around, trying to figure out where it is. And then the guy behind me at the self checkout line, he was like, Are you looking for your phone? I was like, yes, I am. I can’t find it anywhere. And he was like, It’s in your back pocket. So it was, like, right there, and it was easy for him to see. And I’m, like, doing this crazy, like, spinning around, looking for where it went and everything, and it was just right there the whole time. And this also reminded me of this hilarious YouTube video that I just saw. Again, somebody posted it in my certified coaches Facebook group. And I remember this video from, like, nine years ago, and it’s called It’s Not About the Nail. And to just kind of explain the video, we’ll link to it in the show notes because it’s a funny video. It’s less than two minutes, but it shows this woman and this man sitting together on a couch, and it’s kind of close up on her, and it says there’s all this pressure, and sometimes it just feels like it’s right up on me. And she just kind of talks about all this pressure. She’s feeling it zooms out, and it shows that she has this big nail in her head. And then the man was like, well, you do have a nail in your head. And then she’s like, It’s not about the nail. He’s like, you do have a nail in your head. And she’s like, no, don’t. And then she talks about how all her sweaters are snagged and all of these things and how he just wants to fix it and whatever. And there’s so many things about that video that you could dive into, really. In my opinion, it’s quite a work of art. It was really well filmed. There’s a reason it went viral.

There are a lot of things you could talk about with it, like men and women or validation or fixing versus listening. But what I’m talking about today is awareness of what is going on. So it’s kind of like she has this nail in her head, and you can’t tell if she’s just, like, in denial about it. We’re not sure what’s going on. That could be, like, a full on conversation. We could have a full episode analyzing this minute and a half video. But what we’re talking about today is, even if we weren’t changing the circumstance of that she has a nail in her head, but just noticing and being like, oh, this is why this is happening. Because the thing is, sometimes we can’t see what’s going on. We have our blind spots, and sometimes we even see, like, with our own kids or the students we teach in our class, we see what’s right there, but they can’t always and what as humans, our big blind spot is is how our unconscious thoughts drive so much of our lives. And in fact, we often believe the stories our brain is serving us without even questioning them.

So today I want to teach you a tool called Circumstances versus Thoughts. Now I’m going to talk about what each of these are. So a circumstance is just what is happening in front of you and everybody in the world would completely agree on what is going on. It’s like a fact. It could be proven in a court of law. A thought is the story that we put behind it. So it’s kind of like you could even say, like, fact versus story is another way to say this. So here’s the fact. Here’s the story that I’m putting behind it. Our thought is the meaning we put behind it. And that means that not everybody would necessarily agree on it. We might think it’s fact. In actuality, it’s a thought. And we’re going to talk about this a little bit more. And one thing I’m going to do to kind of do this as an example, I did this with wife, teacher, mommy club members on a call a while back when we were kind of talking about the self coaching model we use and the differences between the components. And we really dove in and kind of went through and we did this all together where I would like say what? And they say if it was a circumstance or a thought. So here’s those ones that we went over. I added a few more as well. So if I were to say these students are disrespectful and just kind of think in your head. Would that be a circumstance or a thought? That is a thought because not everybody would look at disrespectful the exact same way. Some might just think, oh, they’re just being kids. Some might not have any problem with the behavior. Some might also agree that they’re disrespectful. Some might even think they’re even more even more than disrespectful, they might think these are terrible children or something. So the fact that it’s debatable means that it is a thought. Okay, the next one I have 27 students in my class. That is a circumstance. You could go in, you could count improve. There are 27 children in here or 27 children on my roster. So that is a circumstance. The next one, I am too busy. We all have said this before, right? And this is a thought I am too busy. And that often leads us to feeling like over wound about everything we have going on. Now, it can be a thought that you like that you want to keep if you’re like, I’m too busy. I don’t have time to add something else. And you’re just like prioritizing then? Yeah, but it is a thought because somebody else might have more things than you technically and think that they’re not busy or somebody else might have even fewer things on their list and think they’re too busy. So just the fact that it’s subjective, all that makes it a thought. A good way to know is if something is a thought or a circumstance is to ask what it means. So could people think about it or describe it differently? So if I were to ask you what does it mean to be busy?

If I were to ask a room full of you, let’s say there were ten of you or 500 of you, whatever, if I were to ask you what busy meant, I don’t think everybody would describe it the exact same way. There might be similarities, but there would be different words and some people would think it is different than others. So that is a way to know. Here’s another one I am so fat again, that is a thought. That is what you’re putting behind the number on the scale. That is not a circumstance. The circumstance version of that might be something like I weigh 400 pounds or whatever. That would be a circumstance, right? It’s more neutral. Just the facts of the situation, not even looking at BMI or any of those things. It’s literally just a number. And another one that I want to say my kids never listen to me. This is a thought as well. What does it mean to listen? Ask different people and they will give a different definition of what it means to listen to you. And you could also be like, is that really true? Are there times where they have listened? Never is such an absolute. If there’s an absolute in there, that’s kind of a sign that it might be a thought. Now, these are some examples, but this shows up everywhere, everywhere in life. And the tricky thing is we often think our thoughts are circumstances without questioning because our brain just quickly has so many thoughts a day. And sometimes we even need a coach to help see our blind spots. Sometimes we just need to get everything down on paper and then we can objectively look at it and be like, okay, which of these are thoughts?

How are these impacting my life and the reason this matters? You might be like, okay, well, that’s great. I have thoughts, I believe them. That’s great. But here is why this does matter. Our thoughts would drive our feelings, which are our emotions, how? The vibrations that are happening in our body. If we’re thinking, I am so busy and you start feeling that adrenaline going through you, you start feeling overwhelmed. The thoughts that you’re thinking are what is causing that. And when that’s happening, we show up in a certain way. What we do and also what we don’t do that we might do differently if we were thinking and therefore feeling a different way about the circumstance. And ultimately the things we do or don’t do create the results that we see in our lives, what is actually happening right in front of us. And this tool brings us that awareness so we can just look at it, so we can be like, okay, this is what’s going on. If I’m feeling overwhelmed, this is what I’m thinking about this. Or if I’m feeling frustrated or if I’m feeling sad or even you can do this if I’m feeling happy, what is it that’s causing that? You can just look at this. And it’s not to beat ourselves up about anything. It’s just to bring awareness about how our thoughts are ultimately making us show up in our lives.

Because the reality is we can’t control everything around us and we can’t control every thought our brain offers us either. The only thing is we don’t have to believe every thought that we think it’ll come up, but you can look at your thoughts and, okay, there’s that thought. Do I actually internally want to believe that generally our thoughts come from our brain trying to protect us so we shouldn’t beat ourselves up about any thoughts that we have we can make. Thanks, brain. Thank you so much for giving me that option. Think of it as like different doors you could go through. You can question it. And that is what deliberate conscious thinking can help us do, is gain leverage and power over the parts that we can control in our lives. And I absolutely love helping my wife, teacher, mommy club members by coaching them every week using this self coaching model. So if you’re a member, be sure to hop on a live call and join us soon. But a wider opportunity for anybody to come and join us is happening at Educate and Rejuvenate. There will be four coaching sessions during the event. I will be doing some and Chrissy Nichols will be doing some. Who. Chrissy Nichols is from the Chrissy concept and the Teacher Talk podcast. And we will both be doing coaching there. So you’ll get not only will you get to join Joe Dombrowski and Christina Kuzmich for their live and hilarious and inspiring keynotes, you’ll get the live coaching from me and Chrissy, and you’ll get pre recorded sessions from so many incredible presenters as you’ve been hearing on these interviews they have each week. I’m just really excited to be joined by so many amazing people for this event. It’s going to be such a great time, and we’re really excited about it. If you need another reason to join us, if this coaching and all this inspiration, everything is not enough, if you’re like, oh, I don’t know if I have $19 to spend on that forever, I’ve got a coupon code for you. Okay? All you need to do is leave a review on this show on Wife, Teacher, Mommy, the podcast on Apple podcasts, and send a screenshot to us at hello@wifeteachermommy.com and mention this episode. And if you do it by the end of May, we will send you a $10 credit that you can use on anything that can be an Educate and Rejuvenate ticket. Or if you’re already a member, we can apply it to your next renewal.

It can also go to anything else. Like if you already have a ticket, it can go towards the Platinum Pass, it can go towards the Planner, it can go towards anything else, just any future purchase. So even if you’re listening to this episode years later down the line, we’ll send you a $5 credit this month, the month of May 2023. It’s a $10 credit. So be sure to do that. And if you don’t have Apple podcasts instead, you can share about the podcast on your social media, send a text or an email to some teacher friends, send us a screenshot of that. Okay, so with that, that is how you can get more coaching. But the one thing I want you to take away from today’s episode, when a thought comes up or you think, I am so busy or I’m not a good teacher, or anything else that comes up, just remember you can question it and pick, is this a thought or is this a circumstance? Is this a story I’m telling myself? Or is this like a fact that could be proven in a court of law? Just try to remember that, because sometimes that can help neutralize it, and then you can realize other ways you can think about it, which can help you feel a different way and show up a different way. But if nothing else, it just gives you that awareness of what is going on in your life and really gives you your power back, so I will talk to you soon. And that is it for today’s episode. It’s a little bit shorter than other ones, so you can use that extra time to quickly go. Leave that review on Apple podcasts and take a screenshot before you hit submit. Email it to us at hello atwitheacheacherma.com and we will get you your credit. Talk soon. If you enjoyed this podcast, be sure to hit subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. And if you’re ready to take the next step, come grab your ticket to join me at Educate and Rejuvenate the education event of the Year on June 27 and 28th, 2023. This year we have two incredible live keynotes Joe Domrbowski, aka Mr. D, and bestselling author and video creator Christina Kismich. We have over 60 incredible speakers speaking on topics such as math, language arts, reading, social, emotional learning, classroom management, homeschooling and tackling burnout. We start the day with a workout together. Each morning we have panels with the presenters and you’ll even get to join live coaching with me and even raise your hand if you would like to be coached. Plus, we give away tons of prizes throughout the event too. It is the best PD you could ever attend. And all of this is happening from the comfort of your own home. It’s just $19 for a ticket. And past attendees have said that this is what finally lit a fire under them to enjoy teaching again and that it was well worth every penny. Go to Educate Andrewjuvenate.com to learn more about the 2023 event, or if you’re listening to this later, that link will show you what’s up next. As we will continue to do events like this, I hope to see you at Educate and rejuvenate.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:00:00]:

You are listening to episode number 81 of Wife Teacher Mommy, the podcast, The Simple Mindset Hack to help you up level your teacher life. On today’s episode, I’m diving into some really fascinating content about what our brains do to get in our way, sharing some funny stories too, and ultimately sharing the Mindset tool that has been a game changer for me and can be for you too.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:00:24]:

You hey. Teacher is all you gotta do. Someone gotta take care of you, whether it’s the time or resources you have. Why Teacher Mommy may have brought your back they’ll bring the galaxy. Galaxy. Mommy.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:01:05]:

Welcome to wife. Teacher mommy. The Podcast I’m Kelsey Sorensen, a former elementary teacher and current homeschool mom. And even though I’ve been a resource creator since 2014, I’ve realized that printables alone aren’t all you need in order to thrive as a teacher or homeschool parent. That’s why I also created this show and got certified as a life coach to help you finally kick burn out to the curb and feel confident with whatever challenges come your way. With the right mindset, strategies and new teaching inspiration, you’re going to be well on your way to your best teacher life. Now let’s go. Before this episode officially begins, I wanted to share a free resource with you that I think you’re going to love. My friend Sarah from the Stellar Teacher Podcast has put together a free private podcast for upper elementary writing teachers. If you’ve ever felt like your schedule is already cramped and you don’t have time to teach writing, or you’re wondering how you’re going to help your students who struggle to write a complete sentence, write that five paragraph essay on your end of year state test, then you’re going to want to check out this podcast series. In her free private podcast, the Confident Writer System series, you’ll learn the five mistakes that upper elementary writing teachers make. Sample routines that take your students from confused to confident and manageable ways to teach writing every day without feeling rushed. This is seriously something that I wish I had access to when I was teaching writing. And the best part is that you can binge the whole thing in under 90 minutes. If that sounds like something you want, then head over to Stellarteacher.com Writingpodcast. That’s all one word, stellarteacher.com Writingpodcast. And sign up for this free private podcast. So the Confident Writer System series episodes are only available inside her private podcast and trust me, you’re not going to want to miss them. Okay, now let’s get into today’s episode. I am so happy to be here recording on the podcast today, fresh from my Facebook live last night that I did with so many of you. It was such a great time. I love when we get to not only I’m talking to you like on the podcast, but we get to connect with each other and I get to answer questions live and see your excitement and it fills me up. It really lights me up and gives me energy. I was just so full of adrenaline when I was done. It just made my day to be able to be with all of you and I always love it and I’m so glad that so many who are watching also loved this teacher planner that we’ve launched. It has all the pages that you’d expect in a teacher planner, but it also has this beginning section where we have all these life planning and goal setting sections that as a business owner, I’ve seen a lot of business planners have this. Yeah, if you’re a business owner, you need to set goals and intentions. You need that in order to drive your business forward when it’s your living and whatnot. But also, I feel like teachers need that too. And that’s kind of a forgotten part of so many teacher planners.

And I mean, of course they know because they’ve now made a planner that you’re trying to make sure that you can fit all the pages and everything. But you know what? I’m just like it’s worth it to pay to add some additional pages so that teachers can have these because I feel like you need to be able to set intentions and goals for your life. And so one of the comments during that live that I love said, this planner works as a life coach. And yes, that sums it right up. That is my goal. And that is also my goal with today’s podcast and especially this episode with this mindset hack. I am here today as your life coach to help you kind of get inside your mind, teach you this hack that you can use on your own. You can walk away from this episode, you don’t need to do anything else, and you’ll have this tool in your toolbox and you won’t be able to unknow it once you know it. I’m honest when I say that learning this mindset hack has really helped me up level my life. Like the title of this episode to up level your teacher life, I’m not just like saying that as like some clickbait title or whatever. This has really been what’s helped me reach some big goals such as even launch this podcast or throw our big educate and rejuvenate event for teachers. Certify as the life coach, create the future planner I just mentioned get invited to PD opportunities like the 2024 Teacher Hard Out Cruise. And I just signed a book deal too. This is my first time sharing that. Actually. That was like an hour ago that I signed it. And I’m not saying any of that to brag. I’m just saying that I would not have been able to do any of that if I had not learned this mindset hack because there’s a lot of mind drama that comes up when you’re doing things like this. There’s a lot of impostor syndrome there’s a lot of stressing about all the different little things coming up in the day to day and just so much that goes into it.

And in additional, it helped me in the day to day and in my personal life, being more present with my family when I’m not working. And I struggle with that as a teacher. And I know so many of you do because it’s hard to not think about your students needs or you bring work home because you’re like, I need to grade these, or you’re telling yourself you need to grade these and whatnot. But there’s just so much that goes into life. And if you want to be intentional, like I mentioned in the episode about how to set an intentional schedule and stick to it, if you want to be intentional with your life, this mindset hack is going to help you do that. Okay? So I actually wanted to start this episode, though, with some stories that I promise will tie into it. You’re going to be like, what? Does this relate to this mindset hack? Trust me, it does. So I want to tell you this story. I went to the Taylor Swift concert in Glendale, which was a lot of fun. I was lucky. And we just got face value tickets. I got in the queue and got them. It was amazing. But while we were there, I forgot you had to have clear bags. In the stadiums, you can’t bring just your normal bag. So I had bought a clear bag, but I left it at home. And so what I did is for my driver’s license and credit card, I just stuck it in my phone case.

And it’s not one of those wallet phone cases. It’s just like a regular phone case. And I just kind of stuck it in there. I’m like, this will work, and then just had it in my pocket. But then what happened is after that I was shopping at Walmart and I couldn’t find the card I needed. So I wondered if it was perhaps it’s still in my phone case because I remembered that I had to do that at the concert. And this was like right after we gotten home. And my husband did the driving while I went there and back. And a lot of times he would buy things, well, maybe they’re still in there. I started digging through my bag to find my phone and I couldn’t find it. And I was like, where on earth is my phone? And then I remembered that I have my Apple Watch. And for those of you who are also Apple Watch people, you know that you can do that thing where you ping your phone with your Apple Watch. So you swipe and then you can hit this button and it makes your phone make a noise. And so I did that and I heard it. I’m like, okay, there’s my phone. I hear it. It’s right there. I keep looking for it. Can’t find it. Do it again. I’m, like, looking all around. Can’t find it. I probably did it like, three or four times. And I’m, like, going through my bag. I’m, like, looking around, trying to figure out where it is. And then the guy behind me at the self checkout line, he was like, Are you looking for your phone? I was like, yes, I am. I can’t find it anywhere. And he was like, It’s in your back pocket. So it was, like, right there, and it was easy for him to see. And I’m, like, doing this crazy, like, spinning around, looking for where it went and everything, and it was just right there the whole time. And this also reminded me of this hilarious YouTube video that I just saw. Again, somebody posted it in my certified coaches Facebook group. And I remember this video from, like, nine years ago, and it’s called It’s Not About the Nail. And to just kind of explain the video, we’ll link to it in the show notes because it’s a funny video. It’s less than two minutes, but it shows this woman and this man sitting together on a couch, and it’s kind of close up on her, and it says there’s all this pressure, and sometimes it just feels like it’s right up on me. And she just kind of talks about all this pressure. She’s feeling it zooms out, and it shows that she has this big nail in her head. And then the man was like, well, you do have a nail in your head. And then she’s like, It’s not about the nail. He’s like, you do have a nail in your head. And she’s like, no, don’t. And then she talks about how all her sweaters are snagged and all of these things and how he just wants to fix it and whatever. And there’s so many things about that video that you could dive into, really. In my opinion, it’s quite a work of art. It was really well filmed. There’s a reason it went viral.

There are a lot of things you could talk about with it, like men and women or validation or fixing versus listening. But what I’m talking about today is awareness of what is going on. So it’s kind of like she has this nail in her head, and you can’t tell if she’s just, like, in denial about it. We’re not sure what’s going on. That could be, like, a full on conversation. We could have a full episode analyzing this minute and a half video. But what we’re talking about today is, even if we weren’t changing the circumstance of that she has a nail in her head, but just noticing and being like, oh, this is why this is happening. Because the thing is, sometimes we can’t see what’s going on. We have our blind spots, and sometimes we even see, like, with our own kids or the students we teach in our class, we see what’s right there, but they can’t always and what as humans, our big blind spot is is how our unconscious thoughts drive so much of our lives. And in fact, we often believe the stories our brain is serving us without even questioning them.

So today I want to teach you a tool called Circumstances versus Thoughts. Now I’m going to talk about what each of these are. So a circumstance is just what is happening in front of you and everybody in the world would completely agree on what is going on. It’s like a fact. It could be proven in a court of law. A thought is the story that we put behind it. So it’s kind of like you could even say, like, fact versus story is another way to say this. So here’s the fact. Here’s the story that I’m putting behind it. Our thought is the meaning we put behind it. And that means that not everybody would necessarily agree on it. We might think it’s fact. In actuality, it’s a thought. And we’re going to talk about this a little bit more. And one thing I’m going to do to kind of do this as an example, I did this with wife, teacher, mommy club members on a call a while back when we were kind of talking about the self coaching model we use and the differences between the components. And we really dove in and kind of went through and we did this all together where I would like say what? And they say if it was a circumstance or a thought. So here’s those ones that we went over. I added a few more as well. So if I were to say these students are disrespectful and just kind of think in your head. Would that be a circumstance or a thought? That is a thought because not everybody would look at disrespectful the exact same way. Some might just think, oh, they’re just being kids. Some might not have any problem with the behavior. Some might also agree that they’re disrespectful. Some might even think they’re even more even more than disrespectful, they might think these are terrible children or something. So the fact that it’s debatable means that it is a thought. Okay, the next one I have 27 students in my class. That is a circumstance. You could go in, you could count improve. There are 27 children in here or 27 children on my roster. So that is a circumstance. The next one, I am too busy. We all have said this before, right? And this is a thought I am too busy. And that often leads us to feeling like over wound about everything we have going on. Now, it can be a thought that you like that you want to keep if you’re like, I’m too busy. I don’t have time to add something else. And you’re just like prioritizing then? Yeah, but it is a thought because somebody else might have more things than you technically and think that they’re not busy or somebody else might have even fewer things on their list and think they’re too busy. So just the fact that it’s subjective, all that makes it a thought. A good way to know is if something is a thought or a circumstance is to ask what it means. So could people think about it or describe it differently? So if I were to ask you what does it mean to be busy?

If I were to ask a room full of you, let’s say there were ten of you or 500 of you, whatever, if I were to ask you what busy meant, I don’t think everybody would describe it the exact same way. There might be similarities, but there would be different words and some people would think it is different than others. So that is a way to know. Here’s another one I am so fat again, that is a thought. That is what you’re putting behind the number on the scale. That is not a circumstance. The circumstance version of that might be something like I weigh 400 pounds or whatever. That would be a circumstance, right? It’s more neutral. Just the facts of the situation, not even looking at BMI or any of those things. It’s literally just a number. And another one that I want to say my kids never listen to me. This is a thought as well. What does it mean to listen? Ask different people and they will give a different definition of what it means to listen to you. And you could also be like, is that really true? Are there times where they have listened? Never is such an absolute. If there’s an absolute in there, that’s kind of a sign that it might be a thought. Now, these are some examples, but this shows up everywhere, everywhere in life. And the tricky thing is we often think our thoughts are circumstances without questioning because our brain just quickly has so many thoughts a day. And sometimes we even need a coach to help see our blind spots. Sometimes we just need to get everything down on paper and then we can objectively look at it and be like, okay, which of these are thoughts?

How are these impacting my life and the reason this matters? You might be like, okay, well, that’s great. I have thoughts, I believe them. That’s great. But here is why this does matter. Our thoughts would drive our feelings, which are our emotions, how? The vibrations that are happening in our body. If we’re thinking, I am so busy and you start feeling that adrenaline going through you, you start feeling overwhelmed. The thoughts that you’re thinking are what is causing that. And when that’s happening, we show up in a certain way. What we do and also what we don’t do that we might do differently if we were thinking and therefore feeling a different way about the circumstance. And ultimately the things we do or don’t do create the results that we see in our lives, what is actually happening right in front of us. And this tool brings us that awareness so we can just look at it, so we can be like, okay, this is what’s going on. If I’m feeling overwhelmed, this is what I’m thinking about this. Or if I’m feeling frustrated or if I’m feeling sad or even you can do this if I’m feeling happy, what is it that’s causing that? You can just look at this. And it’s not to beat ourselves up about anything. It’s just to bring awareness about how our thoughts are ultimately making us show up in our lives.

Because the reality is we can’t control everything around us and we can’t control every thought our brain offers us either. The only thing is we don’t have to believe every thought that we think it’ll come up, but you can look at your thoughts and, okay, there’s that thought. Do I actually internally want to believe that generally our thoughts come from our brain trying to protect us so we shouldn’t beat ourselves up about any thoughts that we have we can make. Thanks, brain. Thank you so much for giving me that option. Think of it as like different doors you could go through. You can question it. And that is what deliberate conscious thinking can help us do, is gain leverage and power over the parts that we can control in our lives. And I absolutely love helping my wife, teacher, mommy club members by coaching them every week using this self coaching model. So if you’re a member, be sure to hop on a live call and join us soon. But a wider opportunity for anybody to come and join us is happening at Educate and Rejuvenate. There will be four coaching sessions during the event. I will be doing some and Chrissy Nichols will be doing some. Who. Chrissy Nichols is from the Chrissy concept and the Teacher Talk podcast. And we will both be doing coaching there. So you’ll get not only will you get to join Joe Dombrowski and Christina Kuzmich for their live and hilarious and inspiring keynotes, you’ll get the live coaching from me and Chrissy, and you’ll get pre recorded sessions from so many incredible presenters as you’ve been hearing on these interviews they have each week. I’m just really excited to be joined by so many amazing people for this event. It’s going to be such a great time, and we’re really excited about it. If you need another reason to join us, if this coaching and all this inspiration, everything is not enough, if you’re like, oh, I don’t know if I have $19 to spend on that forever, I’ve got a coupon code for you. Okay? All you need to do is leave a review on this show on Wife, Teacher, Mommy, the podcast on Apple podcasts, and send a screenshot to us at hello@wifeteachermommy.com and mention this episode. And if you do it by the end of May, we will send you a $10 credit that you can use on anything that can be an Educate and Rejuvenate ticket. Or if you’re already a member, we can apply it to your next renewal.

It can also go to anything else. Like if you already have a ticket, it can go towards the Platinum Pass, it can go towards the Planner, it can go towards anything else, just any future purchase. So even if you’re listening to this episode years later down the line, we’ll send you a $5 credit this month, the month of May 2023. It’s a $10 credit. So be sure to do that. And if you don’t have Apple podcasts instead, you can share about the podcast on your social media, send a text or an email to some teacher friends, send us a screenshot of that. Okay, so with that, that is how you can get more coaching. But the one thing I want you to take away from today’s episode, when a thought comes up or you think, I am so busy or I’m not a good teacher, or anything else that comes up, just remember you can question it and pick, is this a thought or is this a circumstance? Is this a story I’m telling myself? Or is this like a fact that could be proven in a court of law? Just try to remember that, because sometimes that can help neutralize it, and then you can realize other ways you can think about it, which can help you feel a different way and show up a different way. But if nothing else, it just gives you that awareness of what is going on in your life and really gives you your power back, so I will talk to you soon. And that is it for today’s episode. It’s a little bit shorter than other ones, so you can use that extra time to quickly go. Leave that review on Apple podcasts and take a screenshot before you hit submit. Email it to us at hello atwitheacheacherma.com and we will get you your credit. Talk soon. If you enjoyed this podcast, be sure to hit subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. And if you’re ready to take the next step, come grab your ticket to join me at Educate and Rejuvenate the education event of the Year on June 27 and 28th, 2023. This year we have two incredible live keynotes Joe Domrbowski, aka Mr. D, and bestselling author and video creator Christina Kismich. We have over 60 incredible speakers speaking on topics such as math, language arts, reading, social, emotional learning, classroom management, homeschooling and tackling burnout. We start the day with a workout together. Each morning we have panels with the presenters and you’ll even get to join live coaching with me and even raise your hand if you would like to be coached. Plus, we give away tons of prizes throughout the event too. It is the best PD you could ever attend. And all of this is happening from the comfort of your own home. It’s just $19 for a ticket. And past attendees have said that this is what finally lit a fire under them to enjoy teaching again and that it was well worth every penny. Go to Educate Andrewjuvenate.com to learn more about the 2023 event, or if you’re listening to this later, that link will show you what’s up next. As we will continue to do events like this, I hope to see you at Educate and rejuvenate.