TL;DR:
- Our weekends are already happy, but how can we make them happier?
- Ideas to be purposeful in our recharging over the weekend.
A few weeks ago, I ran an after school workshop. It was a cold February day, and since it was a Thursday, most of us were tired. Downright weary. Limping toward the weekend. To rally the group, we began with a routine I like to call, “Let’s start this thing happy,” and took 2 minutes to prime our tired teacher brains with something positive.
I asked, “What are you are looking forward to this weekend?”
Responses ranged from, “I’ll see my daughter’s dance recital”, to “My family is visiting from out of town”, or “I have book club tonight and I know I will laugh the entire time.”
All of these are perfectly expected responses, right?
And then one colleague nearing the end of her teaching career blissfully shared, “My husband and I treat every weekend like a spa weekend. We wear fuzzy robes, make mimosas, order in delicious food, and relax for the entire weekend.”
Everyone looked at me. And then each other. And then let out a collective sigh and silent eye roll.
Robes? Luxury? Turn our home into a temporary spa? I don’t know about you, but I am in a pretty busy season and I imagine you are too. My weekends are generally spent shuffling my 2 kids around, running 27 errands, trying to get my family of 4 ready for the upcoming 5 school and work days, all in 48 hours or less. It’s exhausting to even type those facts.
If we don’t prioritize, preserve, and protect our time, our weekend turns into a hurried blur filled with lots of tasks like laundry and list making and lesson planning.
We find time for what we have to do. But we need to make time for what we want to do. Click To TweetWeekend Happier
The term “weekend happier” seems redundant, right? But I think if we weekend happier, we will teach happier, parent happier, partner happier and friend happier.
We can accomplish this by asking one question: What is my weekend wish?
This has been a small shift my husband and I ask each other every Thursday night. We simply ask, “What is your weekend wish?”
It gives us a chance to envision what we need to feel re-energized, rested, and rejuvenated with the precious time and space we are given in the upcoming weekend.
Oftentimes it is such a small wish – I’d like to go for a long run on Saturday. I’d love to grab coffee with Corinne and catch up. I want time to be alone and just read for an hour.
The beauty in this question is that it takes less than a minute to decide our weekend wish. The magic of this question is when the wish later turns into action and honors what we need.
Asking is an opportunity to vocalize this wish to ourselves or another person and then commit to it.
When it’s “one of those weeks” and I feel tired by Tuesday I will ask, what do I want or need to do with my time this weekend to regroup and rejuvenate?
[scroll down to keep reading]
The Effects Are Real
According to positive psychology, when we have something to look forward to, whether short term or long term, we become happier. It can actually be measured through brain imaging. Once again, we are reminded that we have tremendous influence on our own levels of happiness.
We find time for what we have to do. But we need to make time for what we want to do.
We must make time for ourselves so we can get back into our classrooms Monday morning feeling more energized than we did when we staggered out Friday afternoon.
All we have is time. So here’s to squeezing the heck out of our weekends and showing up for our students every other day of the week.
If you love your students, take care of their teacher!
Small Shift
How can you proactively add some positivity into the time and space you will have this upcoming weekend? What is your weekend wish? Imagine it, share it, plan for it, and do it!
ABOUT SUZANNE DAILEY
Suzanne Dailey is proud member of the Teach Better Family! She is an instructional coach in the Central Bucks School District where she has the honor and joy of working with elementary teachers and students in 15 buildings. Suzanne is Nationally Board Certified, a Fellow of the National Writing Project, and has a Masters Degree in Reading. She is dedicated to nurturing and developing the whole child and teacher. Suzanne lives in Doylestown, Pennsylvania with her husband and two children.
