Are you drowning at work?

Term 2 is in its final weeks and reporting periods are in full swing. It's a busy time and I know that means anticipation of school holidays is high.

Author and Harvard University lecturer Tal Ben-Shahar has written a lot on leadership, happiness and positive psychology. He describes the drowning model of happiness, where a person whose head is forced under water will experience pain, and they will try to resist this pain. Once their head is released, they will experience relief but may mistake this for happiness.

This is similar for people who are drowning in work they do not like, but continue to do so due to a feeling of being stuck.

It is like putting on a tight shoe: we wear it, walk in it and feel uncomfortable all day in it, yet we persist. When we take the shoe off, we experience such relief we think that this is happiness.

In a school context, I often hear teachers running form task to task, doing, doing, doing, and feeling like the system is running them into the ground. They pray for the holidays to come and count down the days. Yet, this is not happiness and this is not living a life of and for our best self.

In fact this is the rat race, followed by relief.

On the other hand, a person who is able to swim, tread water and roll with the waves will actually enjoy the experiences life has to bring and not be centred purely on the school day finishing or the holidays arriving.

At this busy time of term, although it is tempting to look ahead to the school holidays as our only source of happiness, let's try to keep them in perspective and appreciate where we are now, too.

Let's remember it is the relationships that matter, the connections that inspire and shared learnings that improve academic outcomes, not our to-do lists or meeting agendas.

Let's be more human and less robot.

Let's teach children not subjects.

Let's be our best selves to inspire our children to do the same.

Resources you might be interested in...

Here are a couple of resources you might be interested in to help support your happiness at this time of term:

• This video where Tal Ben-Shahar shares 5 ways to become happier today.
• What makes a good life? To find out the lessons of the longest study on happiness, check out this Ted Talk here.
• Ellen over at Self-Care for Teachers is doing a survey of teacher health and happiness this month. Contribute to data about teacher wellbeing in Australia in 2018 and have your say here.

Remember that it's easy to get caught up in the busy-ness of term and put your wellbeing off until the holidays, but that's not sustainable. Don't wait for the holidays, take some time this week to look after your wellbeing and to connect with the people important to you.

I hope you find these resources helpful, and have a great week!

:)

Daniela

The Smiling Mind

Headspace