Knowledge and Skill Base
The concept of thriving means that you are not staying the same; you're stretching and growing. Your greatest asset is your ability to learn and communicate what you have learned. If you are in education, chances are that you highly value education. If so, what have you done lately to boost your own knowledge and skill base? Make a commitment to yourself to continue your education. If you were having surgery, would you want to be operated on by a physician who had not kept up with the latest knowledge in the industry? Probably
Read a book a month, and subscribe to professional journals and hi magazines. Many teachers won't attend a professional development seminar outside is offered by their school or district. Attend seminars, workshops, and summer institutes. Find out what is in your school's or district staff development library. Organize a monthly meeting at your school that includes the movers and shakers to discuss what's new. At one school that I know of, there's a Friday afternoon happy hour group that meets at a local drinks restaurant for and shares success stories from the week. This is one way to keep up the collegial sharing
Knowledge about the brain and learning is exploding at a dramatic rate. If you're not keeping up, you're falling behind. And if you're not building your knowledge and skill base, your market value may be dropping. Learning keeps you excited, motivated, and thriving.
Occasional stress is good for all of us It's the chronic and acute stress that is very bad for us. The constant energy drain of teaching can sap your unless you constantly restore that energy with your own lifestyle energy to choices. In addition simply wearing you out, months and years of stress (chronic stress) has many other very nasty effects: