How to Re-focus
There is no doubt about it, working in child care or any care-giving field really, can at times seem overwhelming and heavy. Continually putting others first and sacrificing your needs before all others is exhausting! But, that ability only a short number of us have is a true magical superpower. To be able to fill our cup with gratitude when we can see immediate results of our efforts is indescribable. Sometimes when we are in a situation where the heaviness is long outweighing the gratitude we begin to question our efforts by thinking things such as, “Am I really the right person for this job? How long can I keep doing this? Am I really making a difference or am I making things worse? Am I doing anything right?” and we begin to lose focus. Will we ever get it back? Will we ever be excited and energized about teaching?
YES! The good news is that if you were drawn to this field of work and you have found yourself lost, there are steps you can take to get to gratitude again.
Step 1. Utilize a coping mechanism to get your mindset back to why you started working in child care in the first place. You can meditate, journal, exercise, and even observe in another classroom in order to shift your perspective into a different place to remember all of what drew you in. Ask yourself how you felt the first time you were in a classroom and how excited it was to meet the children for the first time. Were you full of energy on your way home that day and full of ideas and plans for the children you met to enjoy? Could you picture the faces of your peers or parents excited to have YOU in their classroom? Take some time and really dive deep into times when you had energy and determination and stay there for a while.
Step 2. After you have utilized some coping mechanisms and found your “why,” it’s time to let go. Let go of all of the assumptions you have of perfection and the way you think other’s feel things should go too. There is no such thing as a perfect classroom. Our idea of how things should go is what typically causes the most stress in this field. The truth is we are all different and that is amazing. We will always have instances that challenge us and take us off guard and that is life. We shouldn’t expect all of the children in our classrooms or all of our peers to be robots and all act the same way and behave the same way. You might think that sounds great, but trust me, you would get bored real quick! So, let go of all assumptions.
Step 3. Make your list. What are your priorities? It could be a challenging behavior in your classroom or a co-worker that is driving you nuts. But list out the stressors in your day that have caused you to lose focus and ask yourself, “which one would benefit me most to ‘fix’ first?” and start there. When we allow things to pile up in our mind and that negativity monster rage away-we make problems that refuse any idea of solution. However, when we write them down and another of our senses is exposed, it magically becomes less heavy and solutions begin to appear. It’s almost as if time slows down for us to see. So, make your list!
Step 4. Now that you see a clearer picture of your issues, ask for help! Listen, most of us in this field are here because we are also proud. Proud of being able to do things on our own and figure out solutions on our own. It truly overflows our cup with pride, however asking for help isn’t admitting defeat. Asking for help is a sign of strength. Being able to go to someone with a brainstormed solution to your problem and ask their perspective or for their help is doing two things. First, you are showing them you respect them and understand that your knowledge is not all knowledge. There are other’s that can help you and fill their bucket too. Second, you are giving an amazing gift to a child when you work with others. This responsibility that you take on when you are an educator is not ONLY about you and that child. It is about every single person in each of your lives. Think about it, if you get help and things get better-that is what you get to take home to your family. If you get help and things get better in the classroom-each child, co-worker, and parent of each of those children are feeling the benefit of that too! So, don’t be too proud to ask for help-it truly takes a village!
Losing focus in a classroom will happen. It doesn’t make you a bad teacher, it shows you that you are a human being and all of us humans need help sometimes. We all have something to learn at every age. Remember these steps for the next time you feel scrambled in negative thought and give yourself some grace to re-focus.
