Teachers in Transition - Episode 58 - The Power of Positive Affirmations

We are all dealing with the challenges of COVID-19 even if the biggest challenge is cabin fever and wanting to go places that aren't open yet.

In this episode, Kitty offers that sometimes using positive affirmations can help. If you start to feel yourself spiraling into negative thoughts, try to be aware enough of your thoughts to stop them in their tracks and replace them with something more positive.

And to help, she is offering a free ebook on positive affirmations for success and happiness. To download your copy, click here (no email needed):  https://kittyboitnott.coachesconsole.com/uploads/supplements/the-power-of-positive-affirmations-for-success-and-happiness-pdf_d6f20e2c926e0.pdf

If you enjoy the ebook or have questions about positive affirmations, email Kitty at kittyboitnott@gmail.com.

For a transcript of today's episode, click here:  https://www.temi.com/editor/t/rdLoPQTy_0i_7d-N8YJdqkQVjQoQsO5lKlY9QdB74kPdgfDXChAJMF2GgfVjavvtxYRrIgOD67zIUjovm5Ok5FkENqU?loadFrom=SharedLink

Transcript

Kitty Boitnott: 0:01

Are you a teacher who's 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 some other kind of job or perhaps pursuing a whole different career, but you don't know what else you're even qualified to do? You don't know how to start a job search. You just feel stuck. If that sounds like you, I promise you're not alone. My name is Kitty Boitnott. I'm a career transition and job search coach and I specialize in helping burnt out teachers just like you deal not only with the stress and overwhelm of your day-to-day job, but to consider what other careers might be out there waiting for you. Join me for"Teachers in Transition." In some episodes I'll be speaking to stress management techniques and how you can manage your stress on a day to day basis. In other episodes I'll be talking about career transition. What tools do you need to be successful in a job search when you're moving from one career into a totally different track? These are questions that you need answers to and I can help you find those answers. My name is Kitty Boitnott. Welcome to"Teachers in Transition." Welcome back to episode 58 of" Teachers in Transition," the podcast and the YouTube channel. My name is Kitty Boitnott. I own Boitnott Coaching and I operate Teachers in Transition, a company that's intended to help burnt-out teachers who are ready to make a change in their lives, look for more fulfilling work using their education experience, expertise, their aptitudes, their skills and their abilities in a brand new line of work. And if you have ever listened to this podcast before, you know that I alternate topics each week. One week I talk about stress management strategies because I am a stress management coach and I offer workshops on stress management on occasion and I'm also a career transition and job search coach. Been working in that space for the last seven years and I've helped hundreds of teachers look for and find new careers using their abilities, talents, and skills in new and exciting ways. This week the topic is stress and how to better manage it. Using the power of positive affirmations and this particular episode is probably going to be pretty quick and short and sweet because what I've got for you is a free gift, one that I would invite you to download. It is a short ebook called the power of positive affirmations for success and happiness. It includes 365 days of positive affirmations to transform your life. And you can use these affirmations any time for any reason. They will have a positive impact on you in a variety of ways, whether it's on your physical health, your mental health, your emotional health, or perhaps even your financial health. And I invite you to take advantage of them because I am a firm believer that positive affirmations can lead to positive changes in your life. Um, and the fact of the matter is that everything that takes place in your experience, your, your whole life experience is the result of a thought that either you or someone else's hat. And just think about that. Everything in your life is a result of a thought you have had or a thought that someone else has had in your life. Um, even as children, we were impacted by either the positive messages that we picked up from our parents or the negative messages when we were in school. We either picked up on the positive dispositions of our teachers or the negative and those emotions and the actions driven by those emotions all with each individual, with every single person you've ever come into contact with, they're all driven by the thoughts of that individual. Everything has its start in the germ of a thought and we have thousands of thoughts a day. Many of them are random, many of them we don't remember from one minute to the next, even from one second to the next. Part of the reason people complain that they can't meditate is that they can't shut off all the thoughts in their head. And yet people who do meditate say that it gives them a greater sense of peace and harmony because they are able to shut down all the negative messaging that they would otherwise receive during that meditation period. I have been using positive affirmations deliberately in my life since 2001 that is when I started a particular study of philosophy that teaches that everything starts with a thought and that we have a responsibility to take control of our thoughts and that when we catch ourselves going down the negative spiral, and we all tend to do that on occasion because human, but whenever fear starts to take hold of us or whenever we begin to let our imagination go wild about what the future might hold, whether we have any real thought, feeling or understanding of what the future might hold, and we tend to get scared and yet we can, we can stop those thoughts. We can stop them in our, in their tracks if we get, if we get disciplined about it, we can catch ourselves in the grip of a negative thought and turn that thought around. And as you practice it, you can do it more and more easily. So I would invite you, whether you believe in the power of positive affirmations or not, to give these a try just for a few days, maybe commit to reading an affirmation a day while you are being impacted by the effects of the pandemic. Whether you are still asked to shelter in place at home or whether you are asked as an essential worker to go out and potentially expose yourself to the virus every day, whether you are a mom trying to work from home as a telecommuter for a change and you have your kids at home also trying to distance, learn using whatever resources you may have available for them so that they can do that. I mean we, we've, we've been through a uh, interesting and in a lot of ways, very stressful time these last few weeks. Um, nothing is shaping up this spring the way we thought back in January and early February that it would, uh, graduation. Weekends are coming up and there will be no formal graduations. Those will all be online now and they're not the same. A lot of people are having to make changes in their wedding plans. Um, if you're expecting a new baby, you're having to think about how that plays into what's going on in all the hospitals. People are getting sick, not just from covert. I mean that's just one of, one of the things that can be wrong with people. And so you know, there are a lot of things that you could let yourself get worked up about and get anxious about. That would be perfectly normal and yet it's not really all that helpful to get worked up about it. Is it certainly not helpful to be angry about it when it's not something you have any control over and that's where positive affirmations can come into play. They can remind you of the things that you do have control and the things you've done and being able to separate the things that you do have control over from the things that you don't have control over can give you a whole lot of inner peace. You begin to realize that there are only so many things that you have direct control over. But I want to suggest to you and I want you to consider the possibility that your thoughts are one of the things that you do have control over. Okay. At first it might seem difficult, but the more you do it, it's like working any other muscle. The more you practice it, the easier it becomes, the more it becomes part of your go to strategy for dealing with difficulties in life. And let's face it, we all have difficulties. Nobody is immune from problems. Nobody has the perfect life. Nobody. Money doesn't solve all the problems that people have. And you know, if my mom used to say, as long as you had your health, you have everything. And that's part of the reason we're staying locked down, isn't it? That we want to preserve our health for ourselves and for our loved ones. We don't want to, you don't want to suffer from the virus or any, any other ill effects of the virus. And we don't want to be passing the virus onto any one. So we're all trying to do the best we can, but that that just means we're all doing the best we can at the end of the day. Thinking positively about the situation that you're facing as opposed to thinking negatively about it can make a huge difference in how you feel and it can even impact your health, your physical health. Because if you're feeling well mentally and emotionally, you're going to take better care of your body and vice versa. When your body is in physical good physical shape and you're keeping your body well nourished and hydrated and exercise, then it's easier for you to feel emotionally balanced and mentally stable. So it's all interconnected. So the gift for today is the power of positive affirmations for success and happiness. I hope you'll enjoy it. Hope you'll decide to download it. Give it a try. One powerful positive affirmation a day for the days remaining of you're locked down. And then if you like the affirmations, if you find them useful, continue them on until you've gotten to the end of the 365 days and then simply start over. I do believe that can help and they can help to address the stress that you may be feeling, the anxiety you may be feeling, all of which are legitimate feelings to be having, but you can help to minimize and alleviate some of those feelings by trying to look at things from as positive and angle as you possibly can, and that's the purpose of the gift for today. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you will find the affirmations useful. Please feel free to share them. If you have a friend or family member who could benefit from having them, it's totally free and you don't even have to give me an email address that if you like it, you can email me to tell me that you like it. You can offer a review for the podcast or the YouTube channel. I would love to have that and anytime you have any questions, thoughts or comments, you can email me at kittyboitnott@gmail.com I'd love to hear from you. That's it for today. Have a wonderful week. I'll see you next. So there you have it, an episode of"Teachers in Transition." I hope you enjoyed the information and I hope you'll plan to come back. Please subscribe to"Teachers in Transition" so that you can be alerted of future episodes. And let me know if you have any questions or topics that you would like me to specifically cover in a future episode. I'm more than happy to help with individual questions as well. So email me at KittyBoitnott@BoitnottCoaching.com. If you are interested in finding a new career or just enjoying your life more, this is the place to start. Hi, I'm Kitty Boitnott and this is"Teachers in Transition."