...that I worked into my last |*Project Life*| spread.
"What do I do about my job and how much I hate it? What do I do?!", I asked one recent Saturday evening.
The answer, my friends, came the next morning -- from an old Oprah Magazine I saved and from Marcus Buckingham. (Post about that here.)
What Marcus explains in his Career Intervention Course is that as a society we so often push people to work on their weaknesses. Like if you're bad at public speaking, you should work on it and give as many public speeches as possible, so you get good.
However, the problem with this is if you study something bad, and invert it, you just get 'not bad'. You don't get 'good'. Marcus (yep, first name base...I absolutely love him) offers an alternative:
Discover what it is throughout your day that makes you feel strong (your strengths) and go and do that. Do it until you're blue in the face because that's what we're going to expect from you over and over and over and over again.
Bing! Light bulb!
Marcus says, in the pursuit of any job you have to ask the three questions of why, who and what.
Why is this the job I'm pursuing?
Who will I be working with?
What precise activities will I be performing everyday?
He says that you start the job because of the why, you stay because of the who, and you eventually QUIT physically or psychologically because of the what.
He's nailed me, and pretty much formed concrete and cohesive thoughts in support of 'the shift' I wrote about a few weeks ago.
Through his strengths and weaknesses exercise, I've realized the what of my job as a teacher is all wrong...FOR ME.
Why I became a teacher:I became a teacher because I always knew I was good at it. I became a teacher, because in my mind, I imagined it working and fitting with the lifestyle I wanted to lead. I became a teacher because I loved school growing up, and I loved my teachers growing up. I always 'played school' with my friends when I was younger -- making up class rosters and borrowing teacher-textbooks from my teacher-aunts. As I entered my mid-twenties with no clue of what to pursue and confusion at what to do with my film/creative writing Bachelor's degree, I thought that what I should do was to go back to school to get my Masters in teaching.
Who I'd be working with: Kids. I've always been good with kids. My first job was at my local YMCA teaching 3 to 5 year olds how to swim, and I was a camp counsellor for two Summers. I was good at those jobs, and for the most part enjoyed them. I love interacting with kids, so I felt teaching was a good fit in that aspect too.
What are the precise activities that make up my day: ...and here's where it all falls apart for me.
Throughout my day, there are very few moments when I feel strong and invigorated at work. ...and, because work as a teacher has to spill into your off-hours, there has been very few moments when I feel strong and invigorated at home as well.
Marcus refers to weaknesses as activities in your day that make you feel weak or drained. Activities that when you're doing them, you can't wait for them to be over. That while you're taking part in them, time seems to move at a snails pace. Notice the key word here: activities.
I always thought of strengths and weaknesses as qualities about oneself, but he reframes the two terms to mean activities that make you feel strong or activities that make you feel weak. Wow, right? Makes so much sense!
For the strengths and weaknesses exercise, I made one column in my carry-around book labeled "I feel strong when..." and one column labeled "I feel weak when..." Then, throughtout my week, I payed attention to when I felt strong and invigorated and happy doing a super-specific activity, and which precise and pinpoint activities made me feel drained and weak.
What I realized and now had down on paper is that most of the precise activities the teaching profession calls on one to perform, I hated doing. They don't play to what I'm strengthened by.
Some weaknesses (activities that made me feel drained) I wrote down were:
I feel weak/drained when I accumulate piles and piles of paperwork. Worksheets, practice pages, reading passages...all of which the kids do in 2-seconds and toss away anyway.
I feel weak/drained when I have to scrounge for materials and lesson to teach.
I feel weak/drained when I rush and desperately whip things together in the early hours of the morning before work because I was too exhausted to do it the night before or because there's just too much work for me to keep up with.
I feel weak/drained when I have to spend off-hours prescribing lessons for the week into little boxes. 3 lessons x 4 times a day x 5 days a week.
I feel weak/drained when I converse/discuss children's short-comings with parents.
I feel weak/drained when I teach for three hours straight to an unappreciating audience.
I feel weak/drained when there's no gradual flow into weededness (being 'weeded' is a waitressing term meaning 'overwhelmed'...it usually happened at peak eating times when we were most busy)...at 8 'oclock BOOM! My day is go go go go go go go and it doesn't stop, not even for lunch or when I get home, but just when I'm too exhausted to take it anymore.
I feel weak/drained when I have to force things down unwilling throats.
I feel weak/drained when I have to have a 'FUCK IT' attitude just to remain sane. 'If you don't care, you won't stress' kind of mentality. I've realized that veteran teachers have mastered the art of "oh well". They've learned not to do their best work all the time because the amount of work is so great, it's impossible to. I'm a person who cares --- all the time --- about what has my name attached to it. I like a finished and polished product.
There's me. There's my everyday written down above, and it's been causing me to have a daily cry in the bathroom across from my classroom.
On the other hand, the few and far between things I managed to fit into my week that made me feel strong and energized were as follows:
I feel strong/energized when I accurately convey a feeling or emotion through an image-filled with beauty, personality, and a little humor.
I feel strong/energized when I'm thinking up/planning for/working on/completing short craft projects.
I feel strong/energized when I'm planning/hosting/orchestrating lessons or events for enthusiastic participants.
I feel strong/energized when I'm conceptualizing/designing/writing a blog post to look, feel and say what I want it to.
I feel strong/energized when I ride my bike or think about riding my bike.
I feel strong/energized when I decorate...I play with glitter...I play with patterns...I work with paper...I'm zoning out in my craft room.
...and there's me, again...looking at myself through a more focused and clear lens.
Marcus stresses that when you write down a strength or weakness, it doesn't have to mean a thing to anybody else in the whole world. He stresses that we are the authority on our own strengths and if they look trivial or futile to someone else, it doesn't matter. If you look at your listed strengths and know exactly what you're talking about, that's all that counts.
For me and who am I, I'm realizing more and more everyday that teaching is not going to be 'it' for me. What I think is strange is that I'm so miserable everyday in my job because I'm so realizing it's not a right fit, is that if my job were a guy, I'd have been encouraged to leave a long time ago. But, because it's a job, because people know I'm good, I'm encourage to stay, to stick it out. I would never quit mid-year and do that to my darling students who I know need me, but June. Feels. So. Far. Away.
Question is: once June hits, what do I do? I can't do this for another year, waste more time filling up my day with activities that drain me. But then, what do I make of my strengths?
My focus is on that question above. We'll see how it morphs into reality.
I guess with this exercise and with this post I wanted to share with you job-pursuers out there my new understanding. I understand now that you can't picture yourself in a job. You can't have a grandiose vision of yourself 'as a teacher'. Whatever job you want for yourself, or whatever position you want to fill in your life, you have to get on your hands and knees and crawl through the mud to find out what it is that people really do in that position you're looking to fill. However, often the problem is that access to the mud only comes once you're hired.
Need to end now and make an egg&cheese omelet wrap.
Happy Tuesday, and Valentine's Day...whoa!
How romantic this post was! Haa haa!
NOT!
xOxO,
