The Big P: Patience

Patience.

The ability to wait.

Shakespeare: “How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?"

Benjamin Franklin: “He that can have patience, can have what he will.”

Most days, I find myself to be a very patient person. I interact with hundreds of people a day: my husband, my 2 children (7 & 3.5), my 2 dogs (9 & 6 months), my students (90 per day on average, ages 11-14), and my colleagues. However there are moments that my impulses prevail and I react before I think or breathe. I honestly think there is a set amount of patience per day, and when that runs low I no longer have the ability to be proactive.

My go-to method for Patience is BREATHE. Simply take a breath before responding. Easy to do, but challenging to remember at times. Sometimes I add COUNTING in some way to the breathing. Count to 5. Breathe in and out 5 times. Count to 10.

Something I need to do is to figure out my TRIGGERS. When I do lose my patience, is there a pattern to the situations? Is it what is being said? Is it what is being done? Is it a time of day?

Two tips that I will start using to help with Patience: HUMOR and FORGIVENESS. When I feel impatient, I can use humor to defuse the feeling. Laughter can truly be the best medicine. And I should remember to forgive myself for being impatient. It will be impossible to be patient 100% of my life, so I need to take it easy on myself.

It will be interesting if I remember to use these tips this week and I find myself a little short on Patience.



Resources:
http://www.tinatessina.com/practicing_patience.html
http://www.wikihow.com/Be-Patient
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43383729/ns/today-today_health/t/type-hurry-learn-patience-heres-how/#.UPLPxUQZwnU
http://www.positivityblog.com/index.php/2010/09/16/patience/
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTCS_78.htm

Summer Goals - Week 2

One week of summer break has gone by and it was wonderful!! It was nice to have some time to myself. My husband (also a teacher) and my oldest were both still in school the full week, so I sent the youngest to daycare and enjoyed some peace and quiet. I did achieve my goals for the week (check the update post), as well as did other projects and tasks.

During this summer break, I am teaching music 4 different ways: private flute lessons (one student, 5 sessions, 30-minutes each), a babies & toddlers music class (7 sessions, 30-minutes each), a music camp for ages 6-9 (5 sessions, 3 hours each), and assisting with the New Horizons band (a band for retirees who want to learn to play a band instrument, 8 sessions, 1.5 hours each). Thankfully, most of these sessions occur on different days of the week so I still have a very flexible schedule.

WEEK 2 GOALS:

Personal - Keep up the daily physical activity and include at least 2 spinning (cycling) classes. I went to one class last week: the instructor was awesome, I loved the music choices, and the time of day works perfectly for me! The same instructor offers 3 different classes during the week, so I am going to make time for myself to go to at least 2 of them.

Home - clean and organize the garage, hold a yard/garage sale. I really hope to make a decent profit and clear out our house a bit.

Work - create the overall plan for the music camp, create the daily lesson plans, and begin creating the student packets; post to my music blog. So far, the music blog has been successful, so I need to keep putting my ideas out there and sharing them with other music teachers.

Now these are just the BIG goals for the week. I am not very good at doing "nothing" so there are lots of little things that I do throughout the week.

Summer Goals - Introduction

Being a teacher, I get the opportunity to spend a couple of months refreshing myself and attempting to catch up on tasks that I kept pushing off (until summer). Although those who may not personally know a teacher often think teachers have a "dream" work schedule, those in-the-know realize teachers regularly take work home and rarely work a typical 8-hour work-day (for which there is no overtime!).

Let me step down off my soapbox... sorry 'bout that.

In my district, the last day with students was June 1st and I have one more day in the school building on June 4th, then summer break officially begins! Teachers report back to work on August 16th, so that gives me 10.5 weeks to do all the personal, home, and work tasks that I have set aside for myself to accomplish. I will also have a handful of meetings to attend and music classes & camps to teach during these weeks.

Every Sunday, I will set at least 3 goals for myself: one personal, one home, and one work. I hope this will help me to reach my goals this summer, but also to keep me from over-booking myself or getting too lazy.


WEEK 1 GOALS:

Personal - Do some type of physical activity every day, such as walking, biking, playing with the boys, going to the gym, or playing Wii Fit.

Home - re-organize & move downstairs shelves, collect & clean items for yard sale

Work - create task list (items that need to be completed prior to August 16th), post to my music blog


So once I post this, I am getting off my butt to start working on the shelves, and as soon as my hubby is finished mowing I am going for a bike ride.