Teaching Middle School ELA

Monday Mindset: Just Start

• Caitlin Mitchell

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In this Monday Mindset, we're diving into the power of just getting started. This concept might seem simple, but so many of us refrain from taking our first steps out of fear of not being perfect. I want to challenge you to consider the idea that DOING something imperfectly is better and more helpful than NOT doing anything at all.

Let's explore the power of embracing imperfection and making progress forward, even in small ways.

Here's to another week of intentional living!

Speaker 1:

Well, hello teachers, and welcome to your Monday Mindset podcast episode. These are short, little snippets of thoughts, reflections that I share with you on a weekly basis, that are focused around mindset things that we can do to live our best lives, to live an intentional life, and I invite you to not just listen to these for yourself and how they apply to you in your life, but consider sharing them with other people too. Consider sharing them with your students every Monday and having a conversation about it and doing a reflection together, because I think a lot of these thoughts, these topics, these questions are just a part of being human, and sometimes being human can feel lonely and to know that other people are struggling through some of the same challenges that you are and are benefiting from having these types of conversations is hugely powerful in allowing us to get to be the best version of ourselves, to take who we are and who we be and who we show up in the world as to that next level. So I really hope that you enjoy these Monday mindsets and, if you do, let us know over on our Instagram at Evie academics. Thanks so much for listening and let's dive into our Monday mindset. All right, you guys, welcome back to another Monday mindset episode.

Speaker 1:

Today, we are talking about the power of just getting started, and I think that this topic is going to be extremely helpful when talking about batch planning, especially if you're going to be joining us for batch planning live on August 1st and 2nd. Or maybe you're thinking about joining the EB Teachers ELA portal and learning more about our EB batch planning framework, which is the heart of what we do. We're a fantastic core ELA curriculum, and our secret sauce really is teaching you how to fish, which is batch planning, and then stacking the pond for you, which is all of our curriculum resources, and so I want you to think about this through this lens, as well as other life lenses too Anything that it is that you've been thinking about doing or wanting to do, but you're just not necessarily taking the action in order to do that, and we talked about something last week in terms of forgetting about how you feel and just staying consistent to your goals and just following through with the plan. Well, here, I mean, I think this is relevant to that too and really ties into that, because we're talking about just getting started. So if you have a plan, that's great and you got to do it right, just like Nike's motto of just do it. I want to talk about how taking action can teach you more and propel you further than endlessly planning and overthinking things, and I think that that's where a lot of us get stuck is we just think and think and think and think and then don't do? Or we spend a lot of time learning, learning, learning, thinking that learning is going to help us do the thing, when in actuality, doing the thing is going to help us do the thing more than learning about it.

Speaker 1:

And one of my business mentors used this analogy of like. Imagine if you read a book on how to swim and you read the whole book, front to cover, and you learned how to swim, but then you were thrown into a deep end. Would you know how to swim? No, you got to practice by doing. And so, if you've ever found yourself really stuck in that planning phase, you're thinking through every single possible little detail, every single possible potential outcome, but you never actually take the first step. You're really not alone. So many people fall into this trap of overthinking and this analysis paralysis, and we waste valuable time pondering instead of just doing, instead of just making messy action right, because the truth is is that you are going to learn and grow far more by jumping in and figuring things out along the way, by building the plane as you fly it, as opposed to just trying to build the plane perfectly and then never actually flying. There's just this certain magic that begins to happen when you just get started.

Speaker 1:

I went to a business conference last week and they had us do that activity that I think a lot of teachers use in like STEM classes with younger students, where they gave us pasta noodles, like spaghetti, like dry spaghetti, rope tape and marshmallows and they gave us 10 minutes and said build the highest tower. The highest tower wins. And our team spent so much time thinking and discussing and trying to figure out the best way to do it as opposed to just doing. And the team who got the highest structure their response. When we asked them what'd you guys do? They're like we just did it and iterated as we went and made changes as we went, and it was just so interesting, such an interesting experience, that when you take that initial step, you start to set things into motion, you begin to gain that actual experience that you need, you begin to learn from your mistakes and you adapt as you go and really using that hands-on approach, that's often the most effective way to learn and achieve your goals.

Speaker 1:

I always tell our teachers it's great to learn something. It's a whole other ballgame to put things into action, and so if you're not putting things in action, you're missing out on like 95% of the outcome of the experience, and I know that this is hard for so many of us who are perfectionists. You want things to be absolutely 100% perfect and know exactly how it's going to pan out before you can take action, and that's really hard to move through and I don't know how to advise you on that because I don't have any experience with that. I thankfully don't have that. I'm more apt to take messy action and move the needle forward and move the ball down the line than worry about it being perfect, which I think is to my benefit and a lot of the things that I found in my life. And so if that is something that you hold on to like, if there's anything that you want to go work on to gain personal growth, it's going to be probably in that.

Speaker 1:

My thing is control. That's my issue that I got to spend a lot of time working on. I've been doing it for years. It's a constant personal evolution, so that was a little tangent, but I want to break down why getting started is so powerful. So, first of all, action is going to create momentum, and momentum is a huge thing. I recently did a ton of research around momentum and how it impacts teams and is it actually real. But once you take that first step, it is so much easier to keep moving forward, because each small action builds on the previous one and before you know it, you look back and you're like holy cow, I've made such significant progress. And then action breeds confidence. The more you do, the more you realize what you're actually capable of. It's like every single small victory is going to boost your confidence and encourage you to take on bigger challenges and that self-assurance that is crucial for long-term success in whatever you're doing.

Speaker 1:

So if we're talking about planning as teachers or maybe you're wanting to instill this in your students in the classroom when you start to do things that you didn't think that you could do, or you say you're going to do something and you keep that promise to yourself and you actually do it, you're building trust in yourself. You're building confidence in yourself that you are the type of person who does the thing that you say you're going to do, and that's huge. That makes a big difference in order to start to see progress towards our goals. And then, third, action provides valuable feedback to us. This is what I'm talking about, about iterating on the buildings that we were creating. When you take action, you get immediate feedback on what's working, and you get immediate feedback on what's not working, and that allows you to make adjustments, that allows you to improve your approach in real time.

Speaker 1:

Planning alone cannot give you that kind of insight, and so that's what I love when we're talking about batch planning is when I start to at least plan and put something into action and teach it to my students. I'm going to get immediate feedback on what works and what doesn't work, and then I'm going to learn and I can iterate and make changes from there in the future. And so if you're like, I can't batch plan, it's so hard for me, I'm telling you, I think you're standing in your own way, right. You're creating a story that's not true, because that is not 100% true that batch planning is too hard. It's probably another belief underneath that that's actually causing that thought, and that belief is probably something around perfectionism or control or whatever it might be, which there's no judgment from me, like we've all got our stuff, I've got my own stuff, for sure.

Speaker 1:

So what can you maybe start to do to help you overcome that urge to overthink and just get started? Well, number one if you're a perfectionist, I think just acknowledging that you are the awareness and then doing something about it. I think this is not my point, that I wanna, not one of the strategies. I'm gonna go off on a tangent here, but I think so often what a lot of us fall into the trap of doing is and it's like, that's fine, and let's not make excuses for ourselves, right? Like, if you're okay with being a perfectionist, be a perfectionist, but if you don't want to be, don't allow it to be your crutch or your excuse for not doing the things or accomplishing the things that you want to in life. Right, I could just say well, I'm just a controlling person, I just struggle with control. Okay, that's great, I'm aware. At least I'm aware of it. That's step number one. But step number two is is that who I want to be? Do I want to be somebody who's controlling? Do I want to be somebody who's a perfectionist or whatever, fill in the blank and if the answer is no, I can change. You know, don't fall into the trap of thinking that you can't teach an old dog new tricks, that that isn't true, right, okay, tangent, sorry Side note.

Speaker 1:

So I want to talk about a few strategies to help you take that crucial first step of just doing it, just getting started. Number one set a deadline. Set a deadline. When you give yourself a clear, non-negotiable deadline to start your project, it's going to create that sense of urgency and it's going to push you to take action. So at this moment, I'm going to get started. Number one. Number two break it down. We talked about this last week.

Speaker 1:

When you break it down into small, manageable tasks, you can focus on completing one task at a time versus getting overwhelmed by the big picture, and that makes starting so much less daunting. And this is again with our EB batch planning framework that we talk about. With this we have different stages right Stage one, stage two, stage three, stage four. But even within stage one, there are tasks within stage one that you can break down and make them even more manageable tasks. So, like when we're planning, we teach our teachers. Put all of your vacation days into your scope and sequence. First, boom, easy, small, actionable step that I can take forward without overthinking anything right. So just those small tasks that are manageable for you. Number three this is going to be so hard for some of you, I know.

Speaker 1:

Embrace imperfection. Just accept it that your first attempt is not going to be perfect, and that's okay. It can be a major roadblock from starting perfectionism and I just want you to all remember that you can always improve and refine as you go. If you think about the best of the best of the best at any of their craft are not perfect. It is an unreasonable, unrealistic expectation of ourselves to be perfect. We're humans. We are flawed and it just is. And I think when you can start to accept that that that is the reality, it might help you let go of some of those tendencies.

Speaker 1:

Four find accountability. As always, share the goal with a friend, family member who can hold you accountable. And then, number five, visualize, visualizing success. Take a moment to just visualize how great it's going to feel to have started and made progress. And when we visualize, we have that like positive mental image that can inspire us to take action toward the intended outcome of what we want, what we actually want in life. So I hope that you know, applying these strategies, you can start to overcome just the struggles of overthinking and really take that first step toward your goals of just doing it, because action is the catalyst for learning, it is the catalyst for growth and the more you do, the more you're gonna learn and the closer you're going to get to achieving your goals. All right, you guys, thank you so much for joining me on this Monday Mindset. Share it with somebody who you feel like could benefit from this message. Here's to another great week of living intentionally.