Overcoming Self-Sabotage: Helping Teachers Thrive

I’ve worked with educators my entire career. In fact, I’ve spent my entire life with educators: my mom was a special education teacher, and my dad was a vocational teacher. All their friends were teachers, too. I grew up listening to stories of school-based struggles and successes. After university, I followed in their footsteps and became a career counsellor and work-based learning instructor at the same school at which my dad had taught. Most of my closest friends were in education (and still are).

So, after opening a private coaching practice, it was no surprise that most of my clients were educators. They were smart and dedicated to student learning and wellbeing. They took work home and were passionate about their subjects. They got frustrated with the systems that didn’t support real learning nor the teachers who were asked to teach, counsel, and parent their students.

Sometimes they felt undervalued, overwhelmed, overloaded, disempowered, and silenced. When they knew better, but weren’t given the agency to make needed changes, some even thought daily about leaving education. They knew what stress was but felt like they didn’t have power to influence the source of their stress, whether they believed it to be the school system, collegial conflict, student behaviour, or inadequate working conditions.

Their energy was focused on external stresses, and it was easy to see how they could spiral into a storm of negativity. Most of what stressed them they perceived to be outside their control. They knew that their wellbeing must come first in order for them to show up as the teachers they knew themselves to be. They did yoga, practiced mindfulness, exercised, socialized. They did their best to be good parents, friends, partners, community members, yet there seemed to be a disconnect between those activities and the moment they were confronted with their stressors.

As a coach, it became my mission to bridge all those supportive self-care practices they already had with a technique that would allow them to access that restful, positive state even in moments of stress and conflict found in daily life. This is where POSITIVE INTELLIGENCE® enters the scene.

POSITIVE INTELLIGENCE® and the concept of the Positive Intelligence Quotient (PQ) were developed by executive coach and CEO Shirzad Chamine. Increasing our PQ allows us to embrace the gift and opportunity in life’s challenges, to feel less pain and more peace, less judgement of what should be, and more acceptance of what is, while still being able to take clear-headed, laser-focused action. 

Originally designed for CEOs and the corporate world, this comprehensive, neuroscience-based approach to mental fitness is now finding its way into schools, families, and youth organizations. Along with neuroscience, this program pulls from positive psychology, performance science, and cognitive behavioural psychology.

Neuroscience tells us our brains have the capacity to keep learning and changing until we die. This means we can make new connections that shift the way we experience our lives from old negative patterns into new more positive patterns that lower our stress levels and allow us to enjoy, appreciate, and deeply experience our lives, regardless of circumstance.

POSITIVE INTELLIGENCE® focuses on connecting the two regions of the brain that help us thrive and survive. Chamine calls these the Sage Brain and the Saboteur Brain. The program framework involves strengthening three major “muscle” groups referred to as:

• Saboteur-Interceptor Muscles
• Self-Command Muscles
• Sage Muscles

All three muscle groups need attention in order to enjoy strong mental fitness. Next, I’ll give you a brief description of each and a few tools to get you started on your mental fitness journey.