Flex the Optimistic Muscle

i'm brian martin a second grade teacher who find so much joy and fulfillment in what i do being in the classroom for almost 20 years i know all about the time effort and energy that you are continuously pouring into those you serve that's why each week i'm going to bring you an inspiring message to give you a little joy and help fill your cup back up thank you for being here and welcome to the teaching champions podcast what's going on everybody i hope this finds you striving and thriving and doing absolutely amazing today i want to talk about optimism and how we can help our students strengthen create and become more optimistic now a few years ago there's a commercial by the foundation for a better life and the commercial starts out with a young boy around 10 and he's walking out to the baseball field by himself and he's carrying bat in a bucket of boss and he walks up to home plate he sets the bucket of balls down takes out a ball he shouts out i'm the greatest hitter in the world and he throws up the ball swings and he misses strike one he picks up the ball shouts out i'm the greatest hitter in the world tosses the ball up in the air swings and misses again strike to hear justice hat picks up the ball again fixes his grip on the bat and shouts out i'm the greatest hitter in the world and he throws that ball up and he swings and he misses strike three young man puts his head down he pauses looks at the ball lying next to him then he looks up smiles and shouts i'm the greatest pitcher in the world optimism matters the way that we view the world the way that we handle our problems that life throws at us is important and there's so much evidence out there that shows the benefits of being optimistic some of them include increased lifespan it lowers rate of depression lowers the rate of distress it provides better coping skills during hardships it leads to greater confidence and persistence when things aren't going our way and with there being so many benefits to being optimistic it's something that we cultivate and strengthen in our students now there's a gentleman by the name of justin sua and he's a mental conditioning coach for the tampa bay rays and he has this daily podcast called increase your impact and it's absolutely phenomenal check it out and he has a book called pep talk for parents and in it he discusses how to build these optimistic muscles and he talks about three different strategies that we can use to help teach our children to be more optimistic and first justin says we need to focus on the bright spots because so many of our students they get caught up on what they lack where they need to improve what they're not good at and they struggle to identify their strengths if all they do is focus on what they're not good at it leads to frustration depression a lack of motivation and it also causes them to miss out on their successes and these successes fall into their blind spots and they miss out on seeing the progress that they're making so what we want to do is we want to make these bright spots visible tool we want to help our students identify their successes and we want to bring to the forefront the progress they're making and we can do that by having conversations with them what if we took time at the end of the day and we talk with our students and we ask them a couple questions and we have them tell us what was some good to happen today or What did you learn today? And what is something that you're going to do better tomorrow by creating a habit of focusing and recognizing the bright spots, or helping them in the future, being able to see the successes that they're having. Another way that we can flex those optimistic muscles is helping our students reframe their situations. Dr. Wayne Dyer once said, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. So we need to teach our champions how to take those difficult situations, and not just look at the hurdles and obstacles. But look at the opportunities that lie within those situations. We also want to help our students understand how to frame their mistakes. From a young age, we're hardwired to see mistakes is a negative. We put such a negative stigma on mistakes, that people end up holding themselves back. They don't want to make them they're afraid to look like they don't know what they're doing. What we should be doing, though, is normalizing failure. And as podcast, Justin Sewell will always say, the mistakes they're just progress in disguise. So we need to ask ourselves, are we sending that message to our students? Do we vocalize to our students, their mistakes our progress in disguise? Do we normalize that failure, teaching our students how to reframe challenges and look for those opportunities within them. It's critical, showing them the situations only make them stronger. They give them new lessons, that they make them better in the long run, helps those optimistic muscles grow. The third thing that we can do to help flex those optimistic muscles is looking the obstacles right in the face. Sometimes we view optimists as people who sit around and see the situations that they come their way is all rainbows and butterflies. But it's not being an optimist is sometimes saying this is the situation. These are the hardships, these are the obstacles, it's time for me to roll up my sleeves, look at what's happening, form concrete action steps that I can take and start taking action. being optimistic is about focusing on possibilities. It's about understanding, there's going to be setbacks, there's going to be failures, there's going to be problems, there's gonna be obstacles, in this understanding, that is about what am I learning? How am I growing, it's about saying I can fail. And I don't have to feel like a failure. So if we talk about that, if we normalize it, the more likely our students are going to learn from it. So let's have our students identify the things that they're good at. Identify the things that they're afraid of the things that hold them back. And let's help them set goals. And think about the obstacles that stand in their way, and what they can do to get past those obstacles. All of those things. They help build those optimistic muscles, focusing on those bright spots. Learning how to reframe the situations that we face, and focusing on looking the obstacles right in the face is going to make our students more optimistic, it's going to make them stronger and better. And it takes time it takes conversation, it takes commitment. But there's so much scientific proof about how beneficial being optimistic is, it's definitely something that we need to look to bring into our classrooms. Because we know from our own lives, that there's gonna come a moment that our champions are going to have two strikes on them. And they're gonna pick up that ball and they're gonna throw it up in the air. And they might swing and they might miss. And are they gonna look down? The ball on? Are they gonna say, I'm the worst hitter in the world? Are they going to pick their head up and say, I'm the greatest pitcher in the world. Let's help them build that optimistic muscle, my friends. And I just want to say, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you. It's all about serving each other. And if you think there's someone that would benefit from this podcast, I'd truly appreciate it if you would share it with them. and always remember doesn't matter if we're from rural america to urban america to canada to spain to bahrain we're all on that same team we're all on that same mission and we're always better together my challenge for you this week is i want you to take a step back and reflect what are the bright spots in your own life that you're missing take some time and see the amazing things that you're doing right now we're so good at seeing the mistakes we're so good at the things that we're falling short on that those bright spots often fall into our blind spots so you take some time this week for yourself and see the amazing things that you're doing because there's so many of them keep being amazing my friends and as we go out into this week may step into your strength may step into your shine and let's build these champions up have a great week everybody