2 Jan 2017

My #Teacher5aDay pledge

by | posted in: Mindset | 1

You’ve seen plenty of reference to #Teacher5aDay in my blog posts and across my Twitter feed in the past couple of years. Since Martyn Reah hit upon the idea and started the movement hundreds of teachers and people in education have got involved in various Twitter and real-world activities in support of professional wellbeing and general wellness.

As well as the Twitter hashtag, this year a new #Teacher5aDay YouTube channel has been launched with loads of talking head videos designed to inspire and provide a short-sharp-shock of ideas for your wellbeing. It is brilliant.

This New Year some of the #Teacher5aDay followers / disciples / gang have written pledges to do their own activities in the coming year to support themselves and inspire others.

Here are mine – I hope they help and I also mean to make these happen so that I can feel the benefits of positive change on myself, my family and those that I work with.

#Exercise – starting with the BIG one for me. I love exercising. Cycling. Walking. Running (not so much) but it’s the first thing to go in a busy schedule of work and travelling. SO here’s pledge number 1 inspired by Claire Lotriet’s vlog – I’m going to do exercise EVERY day. The very least will be 10,000 steps (my wife bought me a FitBit Charge 2 for Christmas) but I’m going to include running, more cycling and yoga as my joints start to creak a bit more.

Underpinning exercise is healthy food choices and that’s something that I’ll do more of…as it’s been 11 years without an alcoholic drink I don’t need to worry about that but I do need to make healthier choices on quantity of food and less fatty foods…so I will! (I’ve weighed myself and I’ve not been this heavy before – 13stone 12 lbs). *GULP*

#Volunteer – not something I often do except on a small scale. I’ll always offer to help someone locally and we’ve done some charity fundraising and helped at a Street Store a couple of years running in Manchester (I even did some Stand Up comedy to support the Professional Speaking Association Foundation).

This year is a big one for volunteering. My 16 year old daughter Ruby and I are going to Uganda to support the CRMI Children of Hope charity in their medical and educational mission between January 19th and 3rd February. We’ll be volunteering at the field clinics, supporting doctors and nurses as well as doing some work in and with the schools – one completed and one 2/3s built.

I’m sure it will be life-changing and we will both be blogging on our return…including some photos from Ruby as she is going as the official photographer too.

#Notice – an admission: I’m not very good at seeing things from a distance – perspective on my own actions and business, planning, and what the actions cause in other parts of my life. So I often lose sleep and end-up doing lots of back-to-back work without adequate breaks and time to recover. This year I am going to make sure that we in the business are better-managed and that I make sure I have more realistic schedules – including building in time for exercise and relaxation (and writing a book). This will include sleep as one of the great features of the FitBit is that it tracks sleep…I’m aiming for 7.5 hours a day minimum.

Other noticing that I do is the sky…my Instagram feed (also @EnterpriseSBox) includes loads of pictures of clouds, sunsets, sunrises and the local 3 Peaks mountain Ingleborough…so I’m going to keep doing that.

#Connect – where to start with this? I’m TOO connected with Social Media. I’ve written about this a lot in the past but I find myself still not great at switching off. It comes down to habits so I’m going to attempt to tackle them. STOP looking at social media feeds when walking; fewer visits to Facebook each day; noticing when I’ve been looking at the phone too long; stopping filling time with stories about how bad Trump / Boris / Theresa May is and starting to read the newspaper more for political commentary or a book for stimulation. Being super-connected is great, putting it into perspective is better.

Connecting my calendars with colleagues and family members is something I need to connect. I failed last year because Google Calendar wasn’t a successful installation – this is going to be sorted in 2017.

#Learn – the final but most difficult (for me) will probably be overcoming habits, changing my working practices and giving myself more time that I THEN use wisely will all be learning experiences.

  • I’m going to write a book this year – in the first quarter (is my goal) and I’ve never done that before so I’m going to need to learn from others in the endeavor.
  • Delegation and time management is something I need to learn better.
  • Saying ‘no’ when things don’t fit what the business (or I or my family) needs is something else I need to learn.

The great thing about #Teacher5aDay is that there are only 5 simple activities to remember and because we are all only one person, we should find it possible to apply these 5 themes to our daily habits the changes should be noticeable.

I pledge myself to undertake the above #Teacher5aDay activities to support my own and those around me in 2017 and beyond.

What are YOU going to pledge to do differently to support YOUR wellbeing?

Bernie.