Teachers in Transition – Episode 213 – Bedtime Routines and Four Tendencies

In this episode, Vanessa talks about how to go about creating a bedtime routine to improve!  In our tips and hacks section, I’ll introduce you to a quiz and a book to help you better gauge the people you work with – of any age – and how to increase their productivity!  And finally in our job hunting segment, I’m going to explore how your internal and external expectations are helping or hurting your job hunt (and probably other areas of your life too!) 

Create Your Own Bedtime Routine

The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin 

And the Four Tendencies QUIZ!  What’s your tendency? I’d love to know!

Learn more about Gretchen! 

A link to our Facebook Page! Join us!

And remember to send your comments, stories, and random thoughts to me at TeachersinTransitionCoaching@gmail.com!  I look forward to reading them.  Would you like to hear a specific topic on the pod?  Send those questions to me and I’ll answer them. Feel free to connect with Vanessa on LinkedIn!

The transcript of this podcast can be found on the podcasts’ homepage at Buzzsprout. 

Transcript

Are you a teacher who is feeling stressed out and overwhelmed? do you worry that you're feeling symptoms of burnout - or are you sure you've already gotten there? Have you started to dream of doing something different or a new job or perhaps pursuing an entirely different career - but you don't know what else you're qualified to do? You don't know how to start a job search and you just feel stuck. If that sounds like you, I promise you are not alone. my name is Vanessa Jackson; and I am a career transition and job search coach and I specialize in helping burnt out teachers just like you deal with the overwhelmingly stressful nature of your day-to-day job and to consider what other careers might be out there waiting for you. You might ask yourself, What tools do I need to find a new career?  Are my skills valuable outside the classroom?  How and where do I even get started?  These are all questions you deserve answers to, and I can help you find them.  I’m Vanessa Jackson. Come and join me for Teachers in Transition.  

***Hi!  And Welcome back to another episode of Teachers in Transition. I am your host, Vanessa Jackson – I’m a career transition and job search coach who specializes in helping educators just like you. I am here to help you reach your goals and figure out how to translate your teaching skills into skills for your next career. I provide tips and suggestions to help with stress and mental health, hacks to help your day, and job-hunting tips.  If you are frustrated with your current teaching position – you are burnt out and overwhelmed, I am here for you.  You’ve heard me mention it on previous podcasts, and today on the pod we are going to talk about how to create a bedtime routine!  In our tips and hacks section, I’ll introduce you to a quiz to help you better gauge the people you work with – of any age – and how to increase their productivity!  And finally in our job-hunting segment, I’m going to explore how your internal and external expectations are helping or hurting your job hunt (and probably other areas of your life. ) 

Since I know how tiring it is to go back into the teacher routine, today we’re going to start by talking about creating a bedtime routine.  

Actually this reminds me of that joke that says “the same things that were a punishment when I was a kid are now my life goals – going to bed early, not leaving the house, cleaning my room - and I am sure there are more.   

But a bedtime routine is important.  After following this for awhile, it signals your brain to going through a process that allows sleep. Going to sleep has always been very hard for me.  In fact, I do not know what this “go to sleep “ means.  I have so many thoughts in my head of what isn’t finished today and what needs to happen tomorrow that I just can’t.  Sleep has to sneak up on me and whack me over the head with one of those sleepy sheep. 

Before we get too far into this, it is very important to note that you’ll need to figure out what works best for you.  I’ll take a shower as an example.  There are those people out there (my grandmother being one) who HAD to shower at night. No two ways about it.  Other people workout in the morning and shower after.  Some of us out there wake up a sweaty mess and prefer to shower in the morning. Your mileage may vary.  So make sure to test some things out and develop the best plan for you. There really aren’t wrong answers out here unless it’s not getting sleep.
 
 Let’s break this into categories.  Decide what things belong in your evening routine.  Here are some suggestions:
 
 Category #1 involves things directly related to you:
Take a shower
Brush your teeth 
Wash your face and moisturize
Wrap your hair

Take any medication that you are supposed to take before bed
 
 

Category #2 involves things that might make the morning easier.  I say this because weird things happen in the mornings to throw us off out game.  Just a few days ago, I was awakened with not the usual “good morning” from my husband but rather “the dog found a skunk”  needless to say THAT morning was much different than planned!  
 
Pull out what you want to wear tomorrow 
Make sure that what you have to take in the morning is all in a pile near the door.
Make sure that anyone else who rides in your car in the morning does the same.
Prefill your water bottle 
Prep the coffee maker or supplies. 
Locate your keys

Category #3 – things that make sleep easier 
Make sure any pets have had their needs attended to.  This can also apply to the other people in your home. 
Have a plan for electronics – experts say the best plan is to have them nowhere near you while you sleep.  This might be helpful if it is also your alarm. 
Make sure that the room is set how you like it – this includes temperature, level of darkness (some people like it dark, some people like a nightlight), and noise level (some people like a fan going and others do NOT).

And Category #4 might be things that are totally unique to you. This could include things like 
 Reading a book
 Journaling
 Brain dumping (getting all those ideas and worries out so your brain doesn’t have to worry about remembering them
 Stretching
 Meditating
 
 I have created a sheet that you can copy and customize as you create your own routine.  The link to that is in the show notes. 
 
 Now that you have your list of things, put them in order.   Order is what makes a routine.  You’ll know it's routine when it flows from one thing to the other with minimal thought.   Not all of these things I have just mentioned will be in your routine.  And maybe you’ll add things that I didn’t think of.  
 
 You have your list, you have your order.  Now post it somewhere you can see it – maybe one by the bed and one in the bathroom.  Remember we’re trying to avoid screens here because the light in the screen can disrupt sleep patterns. 
 
 

This next part gets HIGHLY personalized, so I’ll set the scene with some scenarios. 

 Let’s imagine for a moment that you want to be in bed by 10:00 so you can read for 30 minutes. You know that it takes you 45 minutes to go through your routine.  Set an alarm in your phone for 9:00.  This becomes your cue to wrap up whatever you are working on and start your bedtime routine.  This allows time for wrap up and time for routine.  If you finish before 10:00, you either get extra reading minutes in this scenario or sleeping minutes.   
 
 My dad used to say that every  hour of sleep you got before midnight was worth two hours of sleep after midnight.   But don’t use that in your sleep math – aim for an actual eight hours! 
 
 And when that alarm goes off, make a promise to yourself to stop what you’re working on .  There is always more work.  it’s endless, and it will be there later.  Your sleep is important and you deserve to get all that you need. 

And moving on to our teacher hack – our teacher hack is designed to help you out and make your life easier in some way so that you have that brain space or extra time to devote to the things you want to do in your life and this week is it is to take a quiz.  It’s a quick quiz, I promise.  This quiz is linked in the show notes and it is the Four Tendencies quiz found at GretchenRubin.Com. Once you know what your tendency is, you can understand a little more about yourself and how you respond to internal and external expectations.  This is great knowledge because it can help you as you go though not just your job search, but also your life.   
 
 And if you have the opportunity to pause the podcast and go take the quiz, you should absolutely go do that because as we move into our job search segment, we are going to talk about those four tendencies further!
 
 "The Four Tendencies" by Gretchen Rubin is a book and framework that I love. It has been extremely beneficial to me over the years with my coworkers, my bosses, and my former students – and even my family!  Basically, it can help you interact with other humans. In fact, taking the quiz helped me understand more about myself. I even had my husband take the quiz, and we realized we have different tendencies.  Because we have different tendencies, we approach life and respond to expectations in completely different ways. Just knowing those differences  has helped us to “speak the other one’s language” as it were, and it has been more effective than marriage counseling could have ever been.  The hardest thing ever is to realize that not everyone thinks like we do or approaches life as we do. And it can be extremely difficult to see things from a perspective that is so alien to us.  

Gretchen Rubin is an author who studies happiness and other topics that catch her attention. In addition to happiness, she has explored Habit Formation, the Five Senses, Color, and Organization  She has a website, gretchenrubin.com, and if you visit gretchenrubin.com/quiz, you can find all of the quizzes she currently offers based on her writings. Because, let's face it, we all love a good quiz. 

Now, there are four tendencies: Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, and Rebel. An Upholder readily responds to both internal and external expectations. This means that you can tell them something, and they get it done. They can also set their own expectations and meet them. A Questioner, on the other hand, questions everything. A Questioner will not do something unless it makes sense to them. Essentially, a Questioner turns every expectation into an internal one, pushing back against anything that seems arbitrary.  A Questioner will never respond well to the phrase “because I said so”

The Obliger is the largest segment of the population. An Obliger readily responds to external expectations over internal ones. If you’re nodding along here, you might be an Obliger. This group of people can accomplish things if others are counting on them, but if it’s something just for themselves, it often doesn’t happen because they tend to put themselves last.

The last group is Rebels. Rebels push back against all expectations, both internal and external. This can be both a good and a bad thing. Rebels have this ability to see things in completely different ways and to blaze their own trail. They have an extremely strong sense of identity and the key to getting them on board is to tap into that sense of identity. 
 
 While I’m thinking about it, all of the tendencies have their pros and cons, and it’s great that we have all of them. One of the things I appreciate about Gretchen Rubin is that when she talks about this, she is always quick to emphasize that different people respond differently – and there’s nothing wrong with that!

A Questioner views the world through the lens of questioning—everything must make sense and have a "why." An Upholder doesn’t necessarily need the "why," an Obliger doesn’t either, and a Rebel frankly doesn’t care. So, the "why" doesn’t matter to most of the population, but it matters very deeply to the Questioner.

I highly recommend this book. It’s available in Audible, Kindle, hardback, and paperback formats. It’s a great way to understand how this framework works, how to interact with people who have different tendencies, and to learn a little more about yourself in the process. Gretchen Rubin also has a podcast called Happier with Gretchen Rubin. It’s a fun podcast that I listen to regularly. I’ve heard every episode. She talks more about "The Four Tendencies" early on in the podcast and does deep dives on each one in episodes 35, 36, 37, & 38.  She has authored more books and I’ve enjoyed all of them.  I’ve linked all of that in the show notes for you, so please enjoy.

The reason this is in the job search and teacher hack section is that once you understand how these tendencies work, you can tailor your expectations and requests in a way that resonates with almost everyone. For example, if I’m trying to get students to complete a particular assignment, and I just say, “Do the assignment,” the Upholders and Obligers will do it. If I say, “Complete the assignment because you’ll need this information for a fun activity we will  do later,” now you have the Obligers, Questioners, and Upholders all on board. According to Gretchen’s numbers, that’s about 84% of the room right there. The trick with Rebels is to offer them information, choices, and consequences. For example, I might say, “I need you to do this assignment because we’re going to do something fun with it later. If you don’t complete it, you won’t be able to participate in the fun activity.” The key here is that when a Rebel doesn’t do the assignment and misses out on the activity, they learn from it. For Rebels, it’s all about identity—are they the kind of person who wants to participate or not? They really need those consequences.  Be strong!  It will make your life SO much easier later on!

This is a topic I could talk about for hours, so I’d love for you to take this over to the Facebook group and share . So: What is your tendency? You can come to our Facebook group by searching for the Teachers in Transition Podcast Club, or you can email me. I would love, love, LOVE to know your tendency. 
 
 And as for me, I’m a big ol’ Questioner.  I have to know the Why behind everything, and I am generally well-researched when talking about a topic.

How does this impact your job search specifically?  As an Upholder, you may not need much.  Here’s a roadmap now go forth and do what needs to be done. You may want to work with a coach because you know that having a guide is a great idea on any trip.  As a Questioner, you may research everything on that roadmap from multiple angles, but once you’ve satisfied your understanding of it, you’ll move forward with an almost alarming dedication and focus. You may want to work with a coach to help answer all the questions you have that come up and to help you debate all the different pros and cons with your choices. When you’re an Obliger you need a system of outer accountability to stay on track. Working with a coach is great here because they provide that accountability in the form of sessions, check-ins, and checkpoints. And you Rebels will likely look at the roadmap and then decide that you’ll blaze your own trail to get where you want to go. 
 

If you are stuck in your job search, or are having trouble getting started, reach out to schedule a complimentary discovery call with me to see how I can help you pivot careers and find the job of your dreams. Meanwhile, take this new-found knowledge of the Four Tendencies to better communicate with your students, colleagues, and administrators. I got you. 
 
 

Remember that if you are thinking of leaving the classroom that these searches generally take longer than you are used to when moving from one teacher position to another.  It is the best idea to start early  In fact, the best time to start your career transition was six months ago. The next best time is now. 

That’s the podcast for today! If you liked this podcast, tell a friend, and don’t forget to rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts. Tune in weekly to Teachers in Transition where we discuss Job Search strategies as well as stress management techniques.  And I want to hear from you!  Please reach out and leave me a message at Teacher in transition coaching at gmail dot com.  You can also leave a voicemail or text at 512-640-9099. 

I’ll see you here again next week and remember – YOU are amazing!