One day I decided enough was enough. I didn’t want to just get through each day, I wanted to soar. This is my journey and my call to action.
I am a teacher. I am a hero on a hero’s journey. As a teacher, I was going to make a difference. I was going to change the world one student at a time. I taught and I learned, going back to school and taking more classes. I continued to improve my abilities and my connections with students. I followed the rules and I did my job. I was a good teacher. Then I had my own children. I took time off and enjoyed living in their creativity and wonder. I was excited for them to go to school and to return to the classroom myself. However, when I returned to the classroom and began seeing school through my children’s eyes it was no longer a place of joy and passion. It was a place where they and I weren’t enough. As a teacher, I couldn’t do enough to keep up with all of the expectations placed on me. My children struggled to read and were continuously told that they weren’t good enough. They created less and cried more, and so did I. Now the rules I once followed seemed contrary to what I knew was right for my kids and my students. I hated to get up. I would hit my snooze over and over just wishing that the week was over. Summer would come and we would step back from school, reunite as a family and play again. A new year would start and I would hope things would be better, that this year would be different, but the pattern repeated over and over. I had trouble sleeping and even more trouble waking up. I medicated with a glass of wine at night and caffeine in the morning. I ate anything I could grab. I put on a good face at work and taught the best I could and came home and taught my kids, but I was sick and tired.
One fateful day, my neighbor tragically lost her young daughter. In that moment, I realized I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. Since that deciding moment, my entire journey has changed. I began eating different, which led to feeling different, which led to thinking different. I began to clean out clutter; first in my closet, but eventually in my heart and mind. As I detoxified and decluttered I began to realize that I was enough. I discovered that my children were dyslexic and although different, were enough. In the school where I worked we began talking and reading about innovation. We changed our language from “We can’t” to “How might we…” At work, I was rediscovering my passion and connecting with kids and teachers in new ways.
Then came the day when my husband walked in and told us he was let go from his job. Within a few months I found myself in a new state, figuratively and literally. In this new place, I decided to explore how I might pursue my passion for education and make a difference. I clicked on an e-mail link and began a course for educational entrepreneurs, I started a blog, I moved forward. I struggled with figuring out my purpose and what I wanted to do and how to manage my time. It became easy to hit the snooze or sneak in an afternoon nap. Through a chance conversation with a friend, I found out about the Miracle Morning. I read the book cover to cover that first day and nothing has been the same since. Although not an easy battle to win and one I fight every day, I no longer hit my snooze. My wake-up time creeps up earlier and earlier as I find I want this morning time all to myself. I have read more books in the last 3 months and written more than I think I did in my entire time at graduate school. SAVERS has connected pieces of things I was trying to do in my life like exercise, meditation, writing and reading and put it into a format that I can stick with every single day, no matter what. There are days that I shorten up my routine and there have been days that I don’t pull it off, but over and over I continue to see how this practice changes everything. Although I haven’t been able to get my family on board, it’s changed the way I start our mornings which changes everyone’s day. I’m not rushed and crabby and worried about not getting my things done because I’ve already done my most important work of the day. When my dog recently passed away, I was able to avoid the depression and work through the grief because I had a solid practice and habit on which to lean. New connections and new ideas seem to fall into my lap and my biggest struggle is not what am I going to do, but how am I going to get to do it all. I’m seeing little by little, day after day how this one small change, one hour of my day, is opening up my mind, changing everything. This is what I want when I teach. I want to inspire learning and develop habits that support learning.
We don’t need a system that leaves teachers, students and parents feeling like they are not enough. We need tools that inspire us to invest in ourselves and commit to our goals. We need a shift from what we don’t have and what we don’t know, to how might we use our strengths, talents and resources in order to create something new. I believe the Miracle Morning is the ripple that education needs to start a Tsunami. I believe every teacher is a hero, but much like me, may be trapped somewhere in their journey feeling sick and tired. This is my call to all teachers. Maybe you have forgotten that you are a hero or are so beaten up that you don’t feel like a hero anymore. But when I send my kids to you, I need you to be their hero. When I work alongside you, I need you to be a hero with me. Teachers, I challenge you to join with me in changing education one morning at a time. I know your mornings are busy. You have families and commutes and morning meetings. I know this seems crazy, but I bet you’re a lot like me and you go to work each day knowing something is not right, knowing you are not your best and feeling sick and tired. You spend much of the year thinking you’ll catch up and you’ll get better in summer. Most teachers I talk to feel like this. And it’s not going to get better. We can’t wait for school to get better. It’s not going to happen without us. Teachers are heros, but we’ve lost our superpowers and it’s our kids who are suffering.
Recently I was talking with a colleague about how school seems to be sucking the life out of my children and I was told, “you can’t change the system.” I refuse to accept that reality anymore. I can and I’m going to do it one morning at a time, one teacher at a time. Miracle Morning is our superpower. Teachers, read the Miracle Morning and start your first morning. Join me in the Miracle Morning community. Invest in yourself and the effects will multiply exponentially. You and I started teaching because we wanted to change the world. It’s not the system that needs changing, it’s us. Let’s change the world together, one morning at a time.
Not a teacher? Tell a teacher you know “thank you” and give them a copy of Miracle Morning.
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