Welcome to Cycle 6 of The 30 Goals Challenge: Inspire Forward!
Get your copy of Hacking Digital Learning, The 30 Goals Challenge, or Learning to Go. Ask me about training your teachers, ShellyTerrell@gmail.com!
“Instead of saying, ‘I have a lot of problems that I am dealing with,’ you should say, ‘I am a very courageous person, and I always find ways to triumph in all my circumstances in life.’ You are only as strong as the things you say to yourself on a frequent basis.” – Edmond Mbiakay
In Chapter 15 of The 30 Goals Challenge, I reflect on the power of talking to yourself (self-talk) in making you a stronger, more motivated teacher. Mentioned in the chapter is a study by the University of Thessaly (Paul, 2012), which found that sprinters who crafted specific messages and repeated these messages to themselves at critical points, ran faster. Many times in our teaching careers we want to achieve incredible feats. We want to reach those who don’t believe in themselves. We want to convince students to not drop out, go to college, try harder, pass exams, set higher expectations, and so forth. We want to motivate the unmotivated. Striving for all to achieve in our classes can be overwhelming if we don’t keep ourselves focused with our self-talk. Also, we can help our students write out pep talks to give themselves when they begin hearing their negative self-talk.
Complete this goal: Think about the negative messages you often think to yourself. On a Post-It note or memo pad write down positive statements to tell yourself when those negative thoughts come. Stick these statements in your car, at your desk, on your bathroom mirror, etc. so that you remember to give yourself a pep talk daily! Feel free to post these pep talks to inspire others on our 30 Goals Facebook Group, or tweet it to @30GoalsEDU! Receive this Pep Talk badge for completing the goal! Take the challenge further by getting your students to create their own pep talks they can either tie to daily Google alerts or even work in pairs and text to each other daily!
New to The 30 Goals Challenge? Each year, teachers worldwide aim to accomplish 1 to 30 goals that transform their teaching. Join the movement by accomplishing any goal from any of the cycles then letting us know through a blog reflection or status update on our Facebook community or on Twitter, @30GoalsEdu . At our official site, 30Goals.com, find all the goals, participant reflections, badges, and get your copy of The 30 Goals for Teachers: Small Steps to Transform Your Classroom workbook. Find all the 2015 goals here!
