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Text of the page (random words):
practice mediocrity practice mediocrity search sunday august 29 2010 helping kids to practice mediocrity and still get things done mel levine wrote a book about students the myth of laziness and you don t have to read it to agree or not it is a good book though so i recommend you do read it think about it for a minute do you ever describe yourself or your children or a student or colleague as lazy if so and you truly believe it that these people would rather xyz than do what they know they are supposed to do then you believe laziness exists i don t especially when it comes to kids but i would extend my belief that laziness is a myth to all of us beginning with the belief that we each have impeccable reasons for our behavior one of my favorite mantras as you may know we can start to unravel our own and others lazy behavior for those of us who work with kids it s important to help them see the reasons for their seemingly self destructive behavior such as procrastination there are always reasons in my first blog entry on this site i spoke to the pay off of procrastinating what about other self defeating behaviors why would a girl stay up so late that she is exhausted in the morning well if she is an adolescent there is some gain to that night time that is more important than avoiding the drudgery of the next morning figure out what the gain is replace it in some other way and the night owl may be somewhat subdued if not turned into a lark why would a boy refuse to clean out his backpack locker desk room whatever even though you know it will help him keep track of his assignments my guess is he knows it too but there is some pay off to the chaos and finding it will unlock the mystery boys tend to be highly averse to shame beginning in upper elementary school this boy may feel overwhelmed by the disorganization ashamed of feeling overwhelmed and resistant to asking for help a quiet conversation and some private instructional support for organizing might be the solution in addition having a visceral feeling associated with the consequence of our behavior either reinforces or extinguishes the behavior some consequences feel like touching a hot stove others feel like an uplifting pat on the back helping kids to experience and recognize those visceral feelings is a lesson in emotional intelligence and can be a building block for their future accomplishments we generally need help with initial visceral experiences but eventually we ll predict the outcome feeling and guide our behavior toward the outcome we desire this is not skinnerian purity but a strong belief in the empowerment that comes with self reflection and self determination so what does this have to do with practicing mediocrity well for some kids mediocrity becomes their calling card like labeling themselves as lazy when we recognize the impeccable reasons for our behavior recognize our potential and then choose to stop when we have completed a task rather than scramble toward perfectionism we have mastered the self awareness self acceptance and love of our constant core goodness that underlies truly practicing mediocrity until next time posted by daisy at 6 04 am no comments friday july 23 2010 embracing and letting go today i made a mistake this summer we ran out of time the mistake was missing an appointment of my daughters the running out of time was bigger it was for an application my husband and i had planned to complete by august 1st i don t think it can happen i have to let go part of pm practicing mediocrity is embracing imperfection imperfection is making the mistake on the appointment and not working enough ahead of time to complete the application or not realizing it was biting off more than we could chew it hurts and i feel like a dork like we failed i use the word embracing with intent it s not that we should accept imperfection rather we should embrace it being imperfect is human and real and it is part of what makes us accessible to other humans think of someone you have met who seemed perfect you knew cognitively that they couldn t really be perfect but they sure seemed that way in other words you felt that they were perfect that feeling overrides your cognition that they are not and you probably responded to them as if they were actually perfect it s a loaded relationship at this point weighted heavily on top of you i don t know how you responded to them but i would bet it directly reflected your emotionally based belief that they were perfect in my experience with this kind of relationship i either worshipped felt inferior looked for chinks in the armor or abandoned it all in search of someone who i didn t use as a yardstick what a waste of time energy and a potentially wonderful relationship it could be that i deemed them perfect and it could be that they worked to come across that way doesn t matter the loss is what it is on the flip side you ve probably had a friend who was deliciously openly heartwarmingly human about an imperfection and i bet you loved and connected with them on a deeper level because of it you could probably have emotionally wounded them in the process but you didn t you sheathed your knife and opened your arms when they presented themselves transparently their vulnerability brought out your compassion because it was authentic in embracing imperfection and letting go and saying i can t or i goofed we put out our most vulnerable and human self interestingly though in that act of transparency and human ness we feel very strong and right direction balance not correctness with the world it s not a small thing if you check in with yourself you ll feel it try this at a tiny level practice mediocrity by embracing a mistake or letting go of something you ve assigned yourself and see how it feels be transparent and vulnerable embrace your human self lata alligata daisy posted by daisy at 8 32 am no comments monday june 21 2010 yequana in the 1975 book the continuum concept by jean liedloff the yequana of south america are described in detail their culture is different and therefore so are their assumptions perhaps as essential as the assumption of innate sociality in children and adults is a respect for each individual as his own proprietor the notion of ownership of other persons is absent among the yequana the idea that this is my child or your child does not exist deciding what another person should do no matter what his age is outside the yequana vocabulary of behaviors there is great interest in what everyone does but no impulse to influence let alone coerce anyone a child s will is his motive force p 90 as you read that last sentence those of you with children may shudder if my four sprites were motivated by their will they would be swimming in a vat of chocolate while playing x box and purchasing online products with my money if however they were raised with the yequana they would be doing none of that and it would all work out so don t go the vat of chocolate route in your thinking instead consider the idea that we are each our own proprietor we run our own general store we are the ceo of our lives now add to that the idea that others telling us what to do or using coercion to influence us is not part of their vocabulary what freedoms would we have to be who we are we wouldn t need to measure up because there would be no comparison competition no bitterness probably not living our unique life supported by the interest of others yes cool i may be going out on a limb here but i m guessing none of my readers are yequana so the challenge for us non yequanans is to adopt this concept in our own lives and see if it spreads like the ripples from the stone thrown into a pond if we let go of our ownership of others and our culturally taught tendency to try to influence their behavior and we take the position that they do not own us and we are proprietors of our own lives we may start something if grayson chance can go viral and get a record contract he s awesome btw with ellen then perhaps we can start small and things will change the irony is that the change we may want cannot be pushed but we can be interested in it happening live and let live it s all good posted by daisy at 12 48 am 2 comments monday june 14 2010 pesky visitors have you ever considered the role emotions play in practicing mediocrity if pm is about acceptance and practicing wellness then our ability to accept and potentially embrace the messiness of emotions is certainly involved i don t like to cry it feels out of control and the more i hold back the more the controls slips down my cheek in salty tears and the more my face contorts into an ugly grimace control may be the key word here whenever i open to the uncomfortable emotion whether it be sadness anger shame happiness yes that can be uncomfortable too the emotion loses its power over me and i don t feel out of control i just feel sad angry ashamed happy interesting i remember learning the concept of welcoming the unwelcome and asking the emotion we most want to push aside what it is here to teach us here s how it goes identify your most uncomfortable emotion and a situation where you remember feeling that way ok got it in mind do you kinda feel it good next imagine that emotion as a visitor to your house rather than drawing the shades and pretending you aren t home throw open the door extend your arms and say welcome _____ i m so glad you are here what do you have to teach me if you aren t into this imagery make up your own but make it fun and easy emotions tell us about ourselves and our discomfort with them tells us even more my avoidance of crying tells me that feeling deeply and authentically sad is not an emotion i easily welcome that tells me that i want to remain in control and i don t want to be emotionally messy any more than i want my closet out of order yea fits so if i am to practice mediocrity with regard to my emotions i need to let it get messy once in a while being deeply and authentically sad means i care deeply and authentically about someone or something that s a wonderful quality to recognize in myself and a quality i appreciate in others this week i am sad i ve thrown open the door and welcomed her in and she s planning to stay a while i m sure she ll want herbal tea and chocolate chip cookies and sheets with a high thread count blue posted by daisy at 2 40 am no comments wednesday june 2 2010 finding motto when i started graduate school i knew it would be an uphill battle i m a procrastinator i don t like to hand in anything until i feel good about it i had a new baby i was living in china i worked full time i thought and thought about the attitude i needed to get through graduate school i knew i loved my subject developmental psychology and i knew i could think well enough to do it but i didn t know how to get myself motivated just keep swimmin swimmin swimmin like dory says in finding nemo no that s all fine and good but it didn t address the underlying reason i procrastinate it s scary to put out your best work and have it criticized so by procrastinating i never actually put out my best work and any criticism can be blamed on my not doing the assignment thoroughly didn t have the time it s a devilish fairy goblin procrastination it is birthed from perfectionism and is the grandchild of fear of failure already somewhat studied in human psychology i knew honesty was key to my finding just the right attitude to adopt for grad school i was going for my ph d my parents both have theirs which doesn t help because they either did it in only two weeks was the first in my field amazed all who came within my orbit dad or suffered for nine decades 34 hours per day and was bored the whole time mom i was afraid i would fail i was afraid i d never measure up what i didn t realize is we are all going by different yard sticks and anyway who really cares comparing will only leave us vain and bitter so says that desiderata thing i had on my wall in middle school attitude attitude i needed a motto motto motto then it hit me i needed to get the job done i needed to stop thinking that this was going to define me it was a ticket punch thanks both mom and dad for helping me remember this and whether i do the best job ever or do the worst job ever what was important was doing the job do the job however did not become my motto motto motto i needed a motto that reminded me of my tendency ok i ll admit it my deeply refined art toward procrastination if procrastination came from a slight perfectionist side of me which actually comes from a fear of failure then i must learn to accept no embrace less than perfect from myself i must practice mediocrity ah grasshopper practice mediocrity that was it i typed up practice mediocrity on a nice piece of paper and only went through 15 fonts before choosing and pasted that sucker every place i worked it was on my wall on my desk in my folders peeking out at me from a textbook i stopped short of making laminated bookmarks but i still think it s a good idea if someone wants to go for it as often happens in life the stars align several years later when teaching 10th grade wellness under the guidance of the amazing dr chuck fisher i read a quote perfection is the antithesis to wellness true my practice of mediocrity was for me a practice in not being perfect it was a practice of acceptance i was practicing wellness all the time since then and since finishing yes my ph d i have shared my motto with those who may have never considered the idea of embracing and accepting a less than perfect self i don t think of mediocre as not good because practicing wellness avoiding perfectionism and releasing yourself from ridiculous external definitions of success and failure is a great thing trust me on this practice mediocrity and you will set yourself free i ll be posting here when i want nothing planned nothing perfect i promise later posted by daisy at 9 07 am no comments home 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