Even Though I Didn't -- I Still Had a Busy Day

I was given an assignment by my coach to get back on track and be ready to teach. Do three things each day as preparation. Yes, sounds reasonable. Teaching is a new routine. I haven't had to deal with all the preparation, not just actual teaching and traveling time, for a long time.

Teaching isn't just something you turn on when you walk into the classroom. It's like serving a meal. The food doesn't appear instantly. You have to plan and shop and cook and clean up and decide what to do with the left-overs.

The other day, I caught the head of my teachers union on the news being grilled by the ever-obnoxious news show host.

"You get such long vacations!"

He tried to explain how much work teaching is and how physically and emotionally draining. He should have told the woman that here in Israel we teachers are the most underpaid academics. We're well-educated, must constantly take courses to keep up with all the hyper-active curriculum changes, and even working what's officially a "full-time job" must supplement it with more, since the salary isn't enough to survive on.

I've done a few things to prepare, and there's just under a week to go before I meet my students for our first day of classes. So I wrote her a very sorry-sounding excuse:

"I had a busy day and did nothing to prepare for work. But I did cook for Shabbat and take an unexpected guest to the Tel for a tour and went to a wedding later at the Tel and went to the pool and went shopping and..." (Not quite in that order)

Will my students dare make such excuses when not completing their homework?

Organizing My Way To Success

G-d willing, I should add. And I mustn't forget to thank yahoo and its calendar.

I set up a couple of daily reminders which appear at the top of my inbox every morning. One is to send an update to Yehudit, my Life Coach. I've been doing this for a couple of months, and it's very helpful.

As I've blogged before, I start my day at the computer, drinking water and then coffee and then "eliminating." I get up very early, so that I can do all this without pressure. Once I read that you must "eliminate" old food before adding new each day. It makes sense. Constipation is a cause of all sorts of medical problems. People who are too busy and too rushed slow down their biological systems and clog their bodies with toxic poisons.

This gives me relaxed computer time for emails and blogging.

Over the past few years, like many closet/amateur/would-be writers, I've begun quite a few books and never finished any. One got close, but then a computer virus eradicated it.

Recently, with the encouragement of my coach, I prioritized and decided which book should get the focus. But I still had trouble forcing myself to write. Procrastination is my middle name!

Then it hit, I just need to set up another daily reminder. So now, I try to follow it and write a few lines, barely a page, sometimes more and sometimes less, but I write. As soon as I finish my daily lines/chapter, I email it to my gmail account, which automatically goes to my yahoo, too. That way it's stored and saved.

Maybe It's The Coaching?

Last night I had a very strange dream. It's the sort of dream that, in the past, would have caused my day to begin in a total physical panic.

I dreamt that I was in New York and going to a Broadway show. Tickets to these shows are very expensive; heavily discounted they can still cost $60 or more.

In the dream, I got to the theater and couldn't find my ticket. I remembered having it in my hand, but suddenly it was gone. I checked my pockets and bag and pockets in the bag, but I was somehow calm.

"It's only money. It's not the end of the world."

And then I woke up, calm, but curious about why I kept my cool and didn't go into anxiety panic mode.

For the past few months, Yehudit has been coaching me through my anxieties. I still have this week's assignments to do. I hope the dream is a sign that I'm on my way...

Life Coaching, Being Coached

I only heard about Life Coaching when I took a course in it a few years ago. It seemed like a great way of counseling, helping people. But par for the course, or typically me, I never had the guts to go out and do it, open a business.

It's not like I haven't used the skills and techniques over the years to help people, but I always just "did it as a friend."

Now the time has come to start the next phase of my life. I no longer have the physical and emotional strength to control a classroom, not that full-sized classes were ever my specialty. My teaching success was always more in the problem-solving needed to tutor, whether individuals or small groups. I can easily see what skills and knowledge are faulty or missing, and then I have creative ways of explaining/teaching it.

To help me, I've taken a coach, Yehudit. From what I've experienced with her in contrast to the course I took, there's a lot of room for individuality in coaching. Each coach brings with him/her different skills, techniques, personality etc. That's reassuring.

Honestly, Yehudit's coaching techniques, at least as far as we've progressed is extremely different from what I had learned. That's not a criticism, just an observation. Yes, I'm an observer, which is a skill I also use in my political articles. My out of the box mind makes me see things differently from the conventional. Sometimes that's a problem, but I think that as a coach it should be a great advantage.

I've begun my own "internship," stajj, in Hebrew, with a diet support group. I don't take any payment. G-d willing, in a few months, the participants will enthusiastically recommend me to others, and then I can open a business and charge money.

Pre-Coaching Prep

As I had written earlier, I'm going to be coached by Yehudit. This demands work and preparation by me.

When I took a coaching course a number of years ago, I was impressed by the basic premise, technique, that you must stop using the past as an excuse. Look forward and by taking small doable steps, change and improve.

Too many of us are too used to excusing our lack of success/progress etc by claiming that our past has "damaged" us. Or we expect others to change to make our lives easier.

Now, before my first real session I have homework to do.