Next Play Mentality! Next Lesson Mentality!

What's going on everybody I hope this finds you striving and thriving and doing absolutely amazing. Todayy I'm going to take you to basketball practice. I'm going to drop a little knowledge, a little technique that I've learned from my 15 years as an assitant Coach. Now, have you ever had a lesson where you've planned it out, you have all the bells and whistles, it's ready to roll. And for some reason or another it falls apart. The technology crashes one of your champions is having a rough day, maybe you get that phone call from the main office of the nurse's office, and that little disruption, just throws the whole flow of that lesson off. There are a 1,000,001 different things that can happen that can throw off a whole lesson off. And let's be honest when our lessons get thrown off that blood pressure shoots up, those unpleasant negative feelings engulf you. And one of the tough parts about teaching is we can't call a timeout. We can't just blow a whistle mid lesson, call a time out, and tell your students "I'm out. I'll see you in 5." and go gather yourseIf. Our world just doesn't work like that! Your left there in front of your kids, you have to pick up the pieces of your lesson, transition to the next lesson or period and carry on. This hard. Especially when your stressed out. But, when we hold onto that stress. All those negative emotions from the last lesson. It feels like we're carrying a thousand pound weight and it affects the next lesson. And it affects the enthusiasm, the joy, your effectiveness. It affects your whole classroom community. That's why it's important that we bring a little strategy, a little mindset from basketball into the classroom and it's called Next Play. I've been an assistant basketball coach for 15 years and the program that I've been involved in has been pretty successful at the high school level. During my time we've won 12 sectional championships, been to the final 4 6 times, and won two state championships. We've had some amazing student athletes come through the program. And the coaching staff is absolutely phenomenal. And when I say that let me be honest I had nothing to do with it. My whole role with the team is to hand out the water bottles, clap real loud, and give a pregame speech every once in awhile. So that's what I do. So when I say we're successful. It has nothing to do with me. But being around a successful program. I've seen a lot of small things that are build into the teams culture that are actually really big things in making a team great. And one of those things is it's preached to the kids from the beginning of the season, all the way to the end of the season about the next play mentality. And what Next Play means is when you watch a basketball game is continuous, is there's a ton of possessions is up and down. And it's guaranteed that each player that there's gonna be mistakes inside that game. You can turn on the NBA, you can watch LeBron James. It is a guarantee that he's gonna make a mistake. What's important though, is how you handle those mistakes. How you handle it when your frustrated, angry, and upset. See if you come down the court on a breakaway looking to score and you come down the court and dribble the ball off your foot, you make a terrible pass, or take a shot and it comes no where close to going in. You have two choices. You can let that mistake affect you. You can hang your head. You can jog back on defense. You can put off horrible body language. And stop playing. Or you can forget about that last play. Run back on defense, get in your position and do what you're supposed to do. That's called the next play mentality, because the only thing that matters. The only thing that matters is this possession right here. You can't change that airball, dribbling off your foot, or the bad pass. But you have full control of this moment right here. And I can choose to give into the emotions and let myself and the team down or I can step up and play great in this moment. And we can take that next play mentality into the classroom. Because there are going to be moments when our lessons don't go as planned. When something happens and that throws everything off. And in that moment We can hold on to those negative feelings, we can be up et at ourselves, upset about the effort soem of the champ ons put in, we can go to our olleagues next door and complai and hold on to that frustra ion. Or we can let it go. And ocus on the next lesson. It's no easy. It takes practice. But you can do it. Think of things that help calm you, that help r mind you of the joy that teachi g does bring. Maybe you try a de p breathing practice, you hav Always remember we can't change what already happened. That's in a post it on your computer wi h a quote that resonates with y u, or your word that you chos for this year. Maybe you can ing a few lines to your favori e song. Whatever helps bring ou back, refocus and recenter you. Because when our lessons f ll apart we have two choices. We can hold onto those negative em tions, that 1,000 pound weigh and let that affect our mood the past. But that next lesson. I can effect that! .So choose our energy, our effectiveness. Or we can let it go. We can ocus on that next lesson. he lesson that we're teachin right here, right now. We can b that next play mentality. And that's your basketball lesson for today. That's 15 years of coaching summed up in a few minutes. I appreaciate all of you so muc. Thank you for being par of this teaching championsc mmunity. Would appreciate it i you would subscribe, leave a eview, or pass this on to a friend. it's all about eing there for each other. Se ving each other serving our c ildren. And whether you're from ural America to urban America fr m Canada to Bahr And my challenge for you this week, my friends, is adapt that next play mentality. The next time the lesson doesn't go your way focus on making the next lesson the very best lesson. A bigger challenge for you though is the next time something happens to you in your life outside of school. Stay in the moment, don't let frustration, anger, resentment hold you back. We can't control what happened in the past, but we can affect the right here, the right now! Keep being amazing my friends! . And as you go out into this week, may you step into your strengths may you step into your shine and let's build these champions up. Have a great week everybody.