#gratitude180

Sharing my #gratitude: #PDBytes presents #Gratitude180 online mini conference

/ Mrs. Shannon Steimel / Leave a comment

In the summer of 2017, I began a journey toward positivity with a daily gratitude practice. I decided to call this project #Gratitude180 because there are roughly 180 days in a school year, and I believe that you could truly have a 180 degree change in attitude by focusing on the positive. You can read more about my #gratitude180 journey here.

This year as Thanksgiving was approaching, I decided it was the perfect time to reflect upon those people who have truly changed my thinking in an area of education and have made a visible difference in my teaching practice in the last year. So, I reached out to them to record conversations about what I had learned from them and why I was grateful to them.

I am sharing these conversations with you via my YouTube channel PDBytes in the hopes that you might also be inspired by their work, and perhaps you may also take some time to reflect upon the educators who have influenced you and let them know how they’ve helped you.

It is my pleasure to present the #Gratitude180 Online Mini Conference. I hope to release a new video every day this week along with questions to get you thinking about your own #gratitude. Hope you will join me!

Today’s conversation is with Dr. Amy Peach of Lindenwood University. Dr. Peach and I talk about Action Research. Tomorrow’s guest is Carolyn Allen, a librarian who inspired me incorporate Makerspace & STEM activities tied to state-award nominated books into my library. On Wednesday, Matt Miller, author of Ditch That Textbook, will be here to talk about the terrific virtual PD he offers every December called Ditch Summit. Thursday’s conversation will be about Mindfulness in the classroom with Michelle Benedict. And, Friday will wrap up with a conversation about Digital Citizenship with Dr. Kristen Mattson.gratitude180

I’m recommitting to my #gratitude180 #happinesshabit thanks to #DitchSummit Day 2

/ Mrs. Shannon Steimel / Leave a comment

I started this school year with a simple idea. Inspired by a TED Talk from Shawn Achor (), The Happy Secret to Better Work, I worked to retrain my brain to scan for the positive by tweeting out 3 things every work day for which I was grateful. I used the hashtag #gratitude180 because there are roughly 180 days in a school year, and I liked the connotation that one could do a 180 degree turnaround in attitude by focusing on the positive.

I tweeted faithfully for 21 days. And, I will say, it was the most positive start to a school year I can remember. But, then I quit. And, I’d been feeling bad about it ever since.

That is, until I watched the Day 2 video for #DitchSummit, a free, online conference.  Matt Miller (@jmattmiller) author of Ditch That Textbook interviewed Kim Strobel (@strobeled), education consultant and happiness coach about The Science of Happiness for Teachers and Students.

As I watched Kim talk about the science behind happiness, it felt like I had been on the right track. So, where did I go wrong? Then, as Kim was talking about perfection, it hit me. I realized that tweeting everyday had become more about keeping up a perfect record of gratitude tweets than the gratitude itself. As Kim pointed out in her #DitchSummit talk, “social media magnifies the pressure of being everything to everyone.” I needed to give myself permission to be imperfect. Kim suggested a technique from Brene Brown (@BreneBrown), author of The Gifts of Imperfection. Brene says you should write yourself a permission slip on a post-it, giving yourself permission to be imperfect in whatever way you need.

So, here’s mine.

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I also realized that I might need to take my gratitude journal a little more private. This was part of why I had been feeling bad. I had run into a former colleague who made a comment about how much I tweet, and I had started to worry that I was clogging up my followers’ Twitter feeds with gratitude tweets that were probably only meaningful to me.

According to Kim, “The human brain has 50,000-70,000 thoughts a day and on average 80% are negative. 95% of the negative thoughts are on repeat throughout the day. We
need to find ways to break this cycle.”

I had let a negative comment about my tweeting play on repeat in my head and suddenly #gratitude180 was backfiring. I was letting cynical win.

So, I’m recommitting today to my #happinesshabit.

To Achor’s original suggestions–

  • Make a list of three positive things from your workday
  • Journal about one of those things in order to relive the memory
  • Start your day off the next day by writing a thank you email or note expressing your gratitude to someone

I’m adding some of Kim’s ideas–

  • Write yourself imperfection permission slips on post-its
  • Have a phrase or mantra that affirms your values (could also be on a post-it) that you go back to throughout the day
  • Take 10-15 minutes of uninterrupted time in your day that is just for you
  • Be mindful to keep your cup overflowing and only give away “the excess” so you don’t deplete yourself
  • Scale back and play more

I’m also going to start using the hashtag #gratitude180 again, but this time I will use it a little more selectively.  I’ll share my progress in my journey toward a #happinesshabit and share great ideas I hear to extend the gratitude. I invite you to join me! And, I encourage you to checkout #DitchSummit for more info about this topic and the rest of the great PJ PD you’ll find!

 

Best #BacktoSchool EVER thanks to my #Gratitude180 #HappinessHabit

/ Mrs. Shannon Steimel / 1 Comment

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The beginning of the 2017-2018 school year has been my best back to school ever, and I think a lot of the credit for that goes to the #happinesshabit I have been cultivating thanks to a T.E.D. Talk I watched from Shawn Achor, The happy secret to better work. Last Thursday marked 21 consecutive work days for me of tweeting out 3 things from my day for which I was grateful using the hashtag #gratitude180. I chose the hashtag #gratitude180 because there are roughly 180 days in a school year, and I also liked the connotation that one could do a 180 degree turnaround in their attitude by focusing on the positive.

According to Achor, if you want to be successful, you shouldn’t wait for success to make you happy, you should focus on being positive in the present and take time to reflect on the positive experiences in each day. He says, “90% of happiness is not determined by the external world but by how your brain processes it.” I love my job, but in the past I have often let stress or minor setbacks get me down and become the focus of my day. By following Achor’s simple advice, I’ve felt much less stressed and much more positive.

And, I’ve realized I have so much to be grateful for! From capturing little moments like the funny and wonderful things that come out of my students’ mouths, to realizing what a wonderful support network we have at the school, my gratitude is abundant.

So, are you ready to cultivate a #happinesshabit? I challenge you to try #gratitude180 for 21 days, and then let me know if you are seeing a transformation in your work life.

#gratitude180 Choose #Positivity for 2017-2018 school year

/ Mrs. Shannon Steimel / 2 Comments
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By SnoShuu (flickr)

I love my job. I’ve never been happier professionally than in my five years as a Library Media Specialist. I love connecting with students and teachers about books, information literacy and technology. Yet every job has its setbacks, and life and lesson plans don’t always go as planned. It can be easy to get caught up in your day to day work life without stopping to reflect upon all of the positives.

When I saw a TED Talk from Shawn Achor (), The Happy Secret to Better Work, I was inspired.

Achor suggests doing the following:

  • Make a list of three positive things from your workday
  • Journal about one of those things in order to relive the memory
  • Start your day off the next day by writing a thank you email or note expressing your gratitude to someone

According to Achor, doing this for 21 days will create a #happinesshabit that will train your brain to notice positive experiences. But, why stop at 21 days? After all, we have roughly 180 days in a school year. So, my idea of #gratitude180 was born. I’m going to make 2017-2018 all about focusing on the positive and sharing my gratitude.

My plan is to tweet my three things using the #gratitude180 hashtag, to write a quick, private journal entry about one of those things (or at least take some time to mindfully relive the experience if not in writing) and to start off my next work day by thanking someone for one of my three things from the previous day. I will also periodically take one of my journal entries and turn it into a blog post when I have something I want to share.

I’ve already started! Since I worked 3 days for summer registration last week, I used those days as a trial run. It really made me happy when my staff email thanking our maintenance department for how hard they work in the summer getting the building ready started a chain reaction of kudos from other staff.

So, I invite you, my fellow educators, to join me in tweeting your #gratitude180. Let’s make 2017-2018 all about #SpreadingPositivity