Teachers in Transition: Episode 204 – Gaming the System and Facing our Fears

In this episode, Vanessa talks several short games and the lessons we can take from them and even answer some of our questions about ourselves.  She shares a hack to help with decision making in our day-today lives when everything seems overwhelming and it’s hard to figure out what to do next, and we’ll talk more in depth in about fear and job hunting. It can be very scary to consider hunting for a job in this market. 
 
 Our links today: 

The Random Decision Spinning Wheel

Hawkeye and Wanda scene in Avengers Age of Ultron

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.

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 – if you are frustrated with your current teaching position – you are burnt out and overwhelmed, I am here for you. I help teachers reach their goals and dig into what they really want. I provide tips and suggestions to help with stress and mental health, hacks to help your day, and job hunting tips. Today on the podcast we are going to talk how games can help us answer some questions about life, a hack to help with decision making in our day-to-day lives, and we’ll dive deeper when talking about in about fear and job hunting.  Fear is not a new obstacle for anyone.   

I was just working on my Wordle. I like to do that game that's in the New York Times game section where you get six chances to figure out a 5-letter word, and the word in question was a little bit tricky. You pick a word, and Wordle will color code the letters. If it’s green, you have the right letter in the right place.  If it’s yellow, it’s the right letter, but it’s in the wrong place.  If the color doesn’t change, then it’s the wrong letter completely. 
 
 Everyone has a Wordle strategy. Lots of people like to start with a word that has a lot of vowels. My favorite starting word is THURL. It’s a part of a cow. It's spelled T-H-U-R-L, and with that as a starting word, I immediately can get a handle on what kind of letter combinations might be involved, or more importantly, which aren’t involved. I can usually solve the Wordle in three or four guesses. I'm quite proud of the fact that my three-guess rate is higher than my five-guess rate.  This wordle was trickier. After you figure it out (or bomb completely), WordleBot will analyze your strategy.  So on this day, my standard first word left me with 449 remaining possibilities. So then I put in my second guess. My second guess normally knocks out a lot of other possibilities. One time, it was even the of the day, which was really fun. But in this case. It left 93 words left. I looked at the letters and considered the possibilities, and I actually input the name of my dog. Her name is River and in after-play analysis, it told me it was a great choice because it eliminated all but two words. So of course I picked the wrong one next.  Wordle will also tell you how many people made the same choices that you did. 1.7 million people play this game on a daily basis.  As it analyzes my gameplay at the different stages in the game, we get to the end and, it told me that no one else out of the 1.7 million people faced the exact same scenario that I did. That’s Important Lesson #1 today. It is a very important lesson on how uniquely we all approach things. We approach things in very different ways and it is important to remember that there isn't necessarily a wrong way to go about this job hunting thing.  It should also remind you that you are wonderfully unique.

Wordle is not the only daily game I play.  
 The New York Times has another one called Connections. They give you16 words and you have to figure out how to sort them into groups of four.  They always there's one category that's theoretically the easiest, and it works its way down to a last category. You have to figure out how the words are connected. Sometimes they're very tricky, and sometimes they're pretty easy. They color-code  them – yellow is the easiest green is a little harder , blue is a little harder than that, and purple is supposed to be the trickiest. Whether they’re easy or not has to do two things – the person who wrote them and you.  If you and the person who created the puzzle think the same way, you’ll find the whole thing easy. If not, you may not figure it out at all. That’s possible - they only give you four mistakes before it’s over. It’s easy to get fixated on one group and then boom!  The game is over.
 
 And if that isn’t enough, *I* think that the way the squares are first presented is designed to send me down the wrong path.  Now, the first thing I always do when I see before I even look at the words is I hit the shuffle button three times. This way, I am seeing it with my eyes instead of what someone else wants me to see.  I mean, you only get 4 mistakes on this. But it's really interesting to see how many different ways your brain wants to connect words together. 
 
 Lesson #2  is: Just because we see with something one way doesn't mean it's the only way to see it. There can be several ways to look at things 
 
 And while I’m talking about games you know what? I play the crossword too! I do the Mini Crossword, mostly because I don't want to devote a lot of time to the crossword. And I know if I start it, I will feel compelled to finish it so the mini-crossword is nice because you can do it in just a few minutes. And crosswords are fun because they ask you questions in tricky ways. You know - if the question implies a plural, you're looking for an S at the end. Sometimes you can't get the answer because you don’t know it. But!  Because all of the words are interconnected, other words will give you the letter clues that you need to figure out what you didn't know using context, as it were, to make sense of the situation.  Lesson #3 today – your environment can help you figure out what’s going on around you.  Look for all the clues. 

And Lesson #4 – and you can use those clues to see how you are connected to the people around you.  (Networking, y’all).  
 
 And this isn't a New York Times game, but game that I find that I like to do is a called Criss Cross, which is a little bit like crossword puzzles. There aren’t any questions to figure out. The squares are all connected like a web. No questions, they just give you all of the words. The puzzler has to figure out how they fit together in all the crossword looking blanks that you see. What it really is - is  a logic puzzle made of words.  That’s why I like it so much. I love logic puzzles. I find that they focus my brain and they calm my brain down.  After I work on something mentally taxing, I like to do one of those sorts of puzzles as a sort of palette cleanser for the brain.  According to my fitness tracker, my stats even change – my heart rate goes down and my stress levels decrease.  What do you have in your life that does that?   That surprised me because I wouldn’t have told you that I like puzzles.  Jigsaw puzzles aren’t my thing – in fact, I am in awe of families that get together to do puzzles because that is NOT what my family would look like doing one! (laughs).  But I DO Like figuring things out and I find a lot of comfort in logic. You can guess who my favorite Star Trek character is if you know that sort of thing. 
 
 So I want you to be on the lookout for the unexpected things in your life that have that effect on you – they calm you down and help your overloaded boat get back to an even keel.  You might know immediately what this is.  You might have to look around.  AND you might THINK you know, but then you find other things that maybe you didn’t expect that have that effect on you. Take note of that and do more of it.  

 The final lesson in this segment is: Take a few moments and play every day – a little puzzle on the phone, a dance break when you play music.  Something.  Play is healthy for your brain and your body.
 
 And moving to our teacher hack – our teacher hacks are designed to help you create space in your life and your classroom in some way so that you have more time for YOU to spend on YOU  - whether it is for job hunting, or as is very important in the summer, recover from the school year! 
 
 I accidentally stumbled across this wonderful hack this week, and I am so excited that I have to share it right now!  Teachers are known to deal with more decision making than almost everyone else on the planet. Things get very, very busy.  It is not uncommon for us to run from one emergency to another simply because there is ALWAYS some emergency going on.  In those moments I tend to, as so many do, deal with the biggest problem in front of me. The pot that is boiling over on the stove, the squeaky wheel, whatever. The biggest problem is what I will pay attention to first. Unfortunately, sometimes all of the pots are boiling over and it's very difficult to figure out which one to point at first. So here is this wonderful hack that I stumbled on.  Let chance decide.  
 
 What?  Vanessa, have you lost your mind?  No, no, hear me out.  How many of us have found ourselves to be so overwhelmed that instead of doing ANY of them, we lose ourselves in social media (or streaming) and  NONE of it gets done? Chance is certainly more helpful than that!
 
 We all have probably been a part of a faculty meeting or other meeting where there is something to win at the end. Well, the faculty meetings don't usually come with prizes at the end, do they? Just more chores. Anyway, names are fed into a list and they’ll display a big colorful wheel that spins and we all watch the names go by, the suspense building as it slows ever slower and slower, and finally stops on that one slice of that wheel. 
 
 What if instead of names, we put our boiling pots – I mean our competing priorities there?  
 
 So I go hunting around for one of these.  I find there are several apps out there that do this for free on your phone.  Check out Google play or the Apple App store.  There’s a free webpage too, so I have that link in my show notes.  I typed in all of the important things that are in the Must Be Done Right Now category, and I push the button. Whatever task popped up, that would be the task I did.  
 
 Here's why I love this as a hack. The moment that chore popped up on the wheel, I felt a physical sense of relief that the decision had been made, even though it was this colorful spinning wheel that made it for me. And that's the task that I did. I was even able to take care of that task AND its partner task, which was also in the wheel. And I have been putting off getting both of those things finished for months.  MONTHS! How crazy is that? 
 
 So I think I'm going to use this tool a little more often. I think maybe this was so helpful to me because it is like that meme that we've all said that says, “You know, sometimes. I look around at the situation that requires an adult, and I realize I AM the adult and what I need is an adultier adult to help me out.” And just maybe that spinning decision wheel can stand in for that adultier adult. 
 
 I can also see some implications in here if you have children or teenagers in the house, and there are several things that they need to get done which seems overwhelming to them, they can put it in the spinning wheel and let the spinning wheel of destiny pick for them.   The wheel has chosen.
 
 Happy spinning y'all.

 And now moving on to our job-hunting hack:

 I touched briefly last week on fear and I realize I want to talk more about that.  Last week we talked about Chris Evans and Captain America – always a favorite topic for me!  To recap that (pun intended, ha!), he turned down the role of Cap more than once (MORE THAN ONCE!) and ultimately decided that the only thing that was stopping him was fear. I am forever grateful for his decision.
 There are a lot of quotes out there about fear. I like quotes because they give a sense of how other people feel about things. Kennedy’s big quote “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” might be what Chris Evans was thinking when he decided he could be Captain America.  It’s possible.  Certainly. it’s a related theme.
 
Some quotes talk about how we face fear or don’t.  I am going to highlight a few that talk about how we interact with our fears.

Let’s start with the book-that-has-been-made-into-a-movie-multiple-times – DUNE.  Dune has a Litany against Fear.  It goes like this: 

"I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings obliteration.

I will face my fear and I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.

 In this quote by Frank Herbert, it advises to just let the fear wash over, look inside to examine what made it so fearful.  Maybe it isn’t as scary as you thought once you get to the other side of things.  I’ve watched my own kids experience these moments.  And when the fear is gone – you are what remains, and you are stronger for it. 

Jake Canfield writes – “Everything you want is on the other side of fear” and leadership expert Robin Sharma tells us that “The fears we do not face become our limits. The opportunities we don’t seize become our walls.”  – (a lot of implications in that quote for teachers thinking about leaving the classroom)

Even the new Twisters movie comes with the tagline and some advice: We don’t face our fears, we ride them.  This one seems very related to the Dune quote, if you ask me.  Surfing might be a better metaphor.  But speaking of the new Twisters movie due out this summer, I think Mother Nature is very interested in this movie being a success because she sure is doing a lot of free marketing for it! But back to the topic:
 
 

Superheroes are all over this too - Matt Murdock – the man without fear.  Matt Murdock is Daredevil. That title and name would make you think he just wasn’t afraid. The fact is that he faces fear and refuses to let it win. I bet you have a moment like that in the past where you know you were afraid, you took a deep breath and did it anyway.  Remember that the next time you are afraid.  
 
 I think one of best superhero moments in dealing with fear is a scene (linked in the show notes.) in Avengers Age of Ultron.  Hawkeye is in a house with a very scared teenager - Wanda Maximov.  He has to go out and fight an endless array of Ultron-bots.  Wanda is a kid.  She has just realized that she and her brother originally aligned themselves with Ultron – who manipulated their idealism and anger to work on his plan to fix the earth by eliminating humanity.  That’s a lot to absorb in a short period of time.  We know NOW that Wanda is one of the more powerful beings in the MCU-verse, but she didn’t know that then.  She was just a scared kid. She is curled up in a very protective stance and Hawkeye leans over and says to her: 

“Doesn't matter what you did, or what you were. If you go out there, you fight, and you fight to kill (the bots). Stay in here, you're good, I'll send your brother to come find you. But if you step out that door, you are an Avenger.”
 
Then Hawkeye takes a deep breath, addresses his own fears and slams the door open with arrows blazing.  
 
Wanda does step out a moment later and her first moments as an Avenger are awesome.  I recommend viewing the link
 
I bet you’ve heard this one:.  

“Fear is the path to the dark side.  Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.  – Yoda
Six Star Wars films are devoted to the Skywalkers and their influence.  We see the consequences of decisions made from fear in every episode.  And we watch as fear leads to anger, hate, and suffering. And then there are 3 more in the saga that shows how these decisions are STILL echoing down through subsequent generations andjust how much it takes to put a stop to it all.  Unfortunately, life isn’t as clean cut as a movie, but it is remarkable how true this quote is. 

Which leads me to this meme  “Fear has two meanings:  Forget Everything And Run, or Face Everything And Rise.  The choice is yours”  
 
 I wrote something a long time ago, about the first half of that message – Forget Everything and Run – Running can actually be a good way to cope with fear – assuming that one is actually running as a form of exercise because of all the good endorphins and chemicals the brain creates in that situation.  
 
 And as we know it is important to face fear– because as we’ve told it to countless students – ignoring a scary situation doesn’t fix it.  It just turns into a bigger, scarier, thing.  I know that fear is a big engine behind many decisions.  It can’t **not** be. Sometimes we’re afraid of what WILL happen and sometimes we’re afraid of what WON’T.
 
 The question becomes – what is fear doing for you?  What is it preventing you from doing?  Absolutely, this job market is worse than the recession in 2008, but remember – there are jobs.  AI is changing all the rules but that doesn’t mean that there are no rules.  
 
 Fear that doesn’t get channeled becomes anxiety. Anxiety absolutely holds us back. Action is the antidote to anxiety and faith is the antidote to fear. 
 
 So I am asking you to have faith in a very amazing individual – you.  Let the fear wash over you and through you, ride the fear, face it, or whatever works for you – but you are still going to be there. You don’t have to face those fears alone. You are full of untapped potential and talent whether you’ve taught a couple of decades or just a couple of years.
 
 One action step you can take is to reach out for a complimentary discovery call to see if working with Teachers in Transition is something that can help you reach the goals you set for yourself. You can book a session on the website at TeachersinTransition.com, or you can call and leave a message at 512-640-9099 or you can email me at TeachersInTransitionCoaching@Gmail.com. 
 You can also connect through our Facebook page – just look up Teachers In Transition Podcast Club, but there’s also a link in the show notes.  
 
 Let’s step through the fear and examine something better.  I believe in you.
 
 

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!