Welcome to episode 131 of educate and rejuvenate the

podcast. How to have your best summer yet part

2. As we talked about in part 1, it's all about

finding the right balance of rejuvenating ourselves, and

learning and up leveling ourselves. On Tuesday, I asked you

a whole bunch of questions, and I hope that you got some clarity. But

now you want to know, what do I do with all of this? We're going

to take a look at what we learned about ourselves and our needs in part

1 and create a plan. So, let's go.

Welcome to educate and rejuvenate, the podcast to help you

revitalize your teaching, renew your spirit, and reignite your

passion for life. I'm your host, Kelsey Sorensen, a former

teacher, current homeschool mom, published author, and certified life

coach. Whether you are a teacher in a traditional class room, homeschool

from your kitchen table, or anywhere in between, I am on a mission to help

you not only survive as an educator, but thrive. Get

ready to up level your skills with incredible insights from guest experts

and discover the missing piece, rejuvenating yourself. Are

you ready to both educate and rejuvenate? Let's

go.

If you haven't listened to the previous episode, part 1 of how

to have your best summer yet, I highly recommend

stopping this one now, and going back to part 1, because all of

this is going to make a lot more sense when you have the clarity that

you need to do what we need to do in this episode. In the

previous episode, I asked a whole lot of questions to help you get

really clear on what it is you need this summer, how you wanna feel, how

you what thoughts you might need to rewire, what you want to learn

about this coming summer, what goals and dreams you might

wanna accomplish, what things you might wanna do to rejuvenate your space.

Like, so much we went over. And so, you're going to

want to know what all those things are before we dive into how you're gonna

manage your time, how you're going to do those things, and how you're gonna make

sure you have time for flow, and just really enjoying your summer too. We want

to have all of that, so we can dive in today. It's really important, just

reminding quick, that we do find that balance between

not only rejuvenating all summer. Right? Because if we do that, we're going to, you

know, it's great for us to rejuvenate ourselves. So that's why we want to

focus a lot of our time on it this summer, and potentially even more of

it than during the school year. Right? Or during more

than more time than we spend educating or, like, learning, we're gonna spend

rejuvenating ourselves. We just don't wanna ignore the learning and

growing part either, because the problem is, when we

feel like we have to completely mentally check out, then we might

not be thinking of our future self and what our future self needs, and we'll

be feeling behind already at the beginning of the next school year, And you're just

setting yourself up to continue that overwhelm cycle during the school year. So if you

feel like, I need all this time to rejuvenate from this school year and how

overwhelmed I was, Just believe that there is a way that you can fully

rejuvenate this summer, and that part of that is actually learning and up leveling

yourself too. And then taking what you learn into the school year, so next

school year actually doesn't need to be as overwhelming as the previous ones.

That's kind of our goal here. We wanna take care of our current self. Right?

Take care of us right here in the now, who's in the summer, and take

care of our future self, who's going back to teaching, who wants to

feel excited about something that they get to try, and we wanna

take care of both. We want to make the plan to do those things. And

if you answer the questions that we talked about in part 1, you should have

a list of all the things that you're wanting to do this summer in each

of those areas. What are your top priorities this summer? Well and,

again, I'm almost done with the questions. That is really the question for this

one. What are your top priorities this summer now that you look at that list?

So you can kinda clarify it. What I want us to do is now start

to create a plan. Figure out what is our time management going to be like

this summer, so we can do all those things we need to do. And you

might be like, time management? I don't wanna do that over the summer. I just

want to be loosey goosey. Well, it can be a loose

schedule. It really can. We just want to have some intention. Otherwise,

if we don't, that's when, towards the end of the summer, we had a lot

of teachers feeling regret, like, oh, I didn't get these things done, or I didn't

even enjoy my summer. I was just doing too much. This is where we get

clear, we can make a plan, and it can be as loose or as structured

as you want. We even have some teachers say, I just I didn't have any

structure, and it was so hard because I didn't have the structure I have during

the school year. You can create that structure. So that's what we're doing here, and

you can create it however you want. That's the beauty of the summertime is we

get to create that structure how we want it. And, of course, there might be

some things we don't dictate, like, if our kids are going to swimming lessons or

all those things, we might not dictate soccer games, the exact schedules.

But, again, within the structure that we have, we'd likely have some more

flexibility during the summer. We might have some trips we need to work around, things

like that, but we want to just figure out what

our schedule is gonna look like in the summer. Because a lot of times, we

don't think about it. We just kinda start, we just go, and that's when that

regret comes in that we talked about later on in the summer. I recommend my

biggest thing for summer that I would recommend is I've talked about a lot in

my time management episodes here on the podcast, and we dove even more into it,

educate and rejuvenate last year, and in the club, even most of

all, is creating your ideal week. So that is where we actually

have a free printable that you can use for this on the show notes episode

of this page. But, basically, you'll see it has written out hour by hour,

5 AM to 11 PM is what I believe. And, oh, here it

is. So for those of you on YouTube, this is what it looks like. Again,

these are on YouTube if you wanna actually see me talk, and you totally can.

This is an example. I actually took a picture of this for my upcoming Educate

and Rejuvenate book. It's in the resources for the book, but I pulled out these

two pages for all of you right now to be able to grab in the

show notes of this episode. So you'll see it has

5 AM to 11 PM, hour by hour. And you might have

created this for your school year if you did educate and rejuvenate last summer or

if you've been in the club and you did this exercise. But we

need to redo it for the summer because summer is different. Right? So different

seasons. We need to figure out, okay, my ideal week, what is each day of

the week going to look like? And it is going to change. Right? Because sometimes

you might have a dentist appointment or you might have a vacation or you might

have other things. It's not set in stone, but it's just your average week. When

is it I'm gonna do different things? When is it I'm gonna, like, go and

again, this picture one I have here is for during the school year. You might

probably can't even see it anyways. But I want to figure out when is it

you're going to exercise? When is it you have those things that you have

every week with your your kids or whatever. Plug them in. 1 is that you're

going to, oh, on this day, I'm gonna try to put in a lunch date

with a friend each day. Or what are the things you want to do for

for self care? Put that self care in, like, you know, lunch date with a

friend. Like, ideally, each Friday, I'll have 1 or something. You put it in

there. When is it gonna work on organizing your closet or whatever you wanna do

to organize your space. Like maybe I'm gonna do that on Thursday

afternoon. I'm just gonna plug it in there. When is it that I'm

ideally going to just spend some time relaxing plug that in

there when is it I'm going to work on the side, hustle or hobby

or dream thing that I have that I wanted to make sure I made some

time for this summer and what is it? I'm going to like have some time

to read like a book on something related to a teaching topic. I

want to learn or whatever plug that in there too.

Creating your ideal week is a great way to create that balance

of educating yourself and rejuvenating yourself So you have

that template. You have it, like so when you go in to start each week,

you're kinda like, okay. This is generally what I do. And then you could do,

if you want, you could do weekly planning and be like, okay. I need to

move these things around. But you've got that to start with. Right? And it can

be pretty loose. You can have quite a bit of white space on your ideal

week. It can be really flowy if you want it to be, but still some

structure to make sure that you get the things done that you want, and

that self care to rejuvenate yourself is all built in so you don't forget to

do either. So that's the big thing for this summer is, like, a lot of

people will say, like, oh, there's just such a lack of structure, but let's create

that structure. And that structure can look flowy or it can look, you know, if

you want it more structured like a school year like I really do wanna block

it out more go for it. Whatever is going to work for you. That's what

I want you to create. Okay next we want to make a stress

management plan. Because again, what I hear from teachers, educators,

homeschoolers, anyone who I've coached in the club, is that a lot of times

we feel overwhelmed. And same, I'm here with you. I even today, I'm

like, oh, I've got to I realized that I didn't follow

exactly all the advice that I did here with my time management, and that's why

I'm like, okay. I gotta remind them about this because sometimes in the summer, it

sneaks up on us. This just happened to me. I have a 3 day vendor

booth, and I didn't make the connection. The very next day, I'm going on vacation.

So I'm like, okay, I need to record a bunch of podcasts. So I'm doing

it now, getting it done, but we really need a stress management plan, so

when stress comes up, because it still will come up during the summer, and this

is a great time for us to practice, so then when we're in the school

year, we can know how to handle our emotions, know how to

handle the stress, know how to move through the stress cycle. And we've talked

about that, a lot of those on the podcast. So I'm not gonna be able

to go into detail on all of them today, but make sure that you're

listening to past episodes too. We have so much there, and we have

a lot coming out this summer too. But really what you're going to want is

a balance of mindset tools that's and the big one that is just going to

help you so much is that self coaching model. Now if you

haven't yet, the episode, if you're like, I don't know what you're talking about this

self coaching model. It is a mindset tool that really helps show us that it's

not our circumstances that create our feelings. Right? So if we're

feeling stressed, you're like, oh, I'm so stressed because my husband's doing this or because

my kids are doing this. It's actually there's something in between, and that's

our thought that's making us stressed about it. So again,

the self coaching model really helps with that. And I can't remember the episode number,

but it's called the simple mindset hack that changed my life. If you wanna learn

more about this self coaching model, make sure to go back and listen to that

episode. So working on your mindset, noticing your thoughts, redirecting

your thoughts. We talk about that a lot here on the podcast. So we wanna

make a plan with that. We also want to figure out

what somatic tools do we need. A lot of you, if you're

like me, again, you might be different. Maybe you're like, I was so connected with

my body, and I didn't know how to connect with my mindset. But for me,

the model really clicked right away when I started working with a life coach at

the beginning of 2020. It was January 2020. And I'm so

glad it was 2 months before COVID that I started working with a life coach.

But the model really clicked for me really quick. And then it was like when

she told me to go into my body and feel my feelings, I was like,

I don't know how to do that. I'm getting a lot better at it. I'm

still not perfect. None of us are. But, again, when we connect with

our bodies through breath, through meditation, through,

for me, a lot of times, it's even yoga right now. I've started doing yoga.

Ways we can connect with our body and release stress that way. Like, physical

movement helps us release stress. Breathing helps us release stress.

I've shared a lot about this on the podcast and in my book. So we

want to figure out what is it that you can do to have a stress

management plan. A part of that can be, what is the little routine you can

do each morning that helps you connect with your body, connect with your mind. Do

you do a quick thought download and then do some breathing. They'll get all your

thoughts down and deep breathe. Do you have a meditation app that you turn on

if you're in the educate and rejuvenate club, then stay tuned

because we've got those coming for you included here soon again.

What is it that's going to help you to regularly do little check ins? You

can add it to your, morning and evening routine, which we talked about

in the self love challenge. So again, hop on back to that if you need

to. All of these podcasts are here for you, past episodes to help you learn

these tools. So, again, time management plan for your best summer

stress management plan. Really need a combination of both, so make sure you're

subscribed and pull up those past episodes. And my book is also

gonna help you with when it comes out August 13th. You can preorder that on

the Kindle. And before that, if you're joining us to educate and

rejuvenate, we're going to really dive into these tools. You'll be

able to ask me your questions, interact with me, come on and raise your hand

live for live coaching with me and Chrissy, and likely one of our other coaches

as well during the event. It's going to be such a great time. Now the

final thing that I I truly believe is an

important part of our rejuvenating and educating this summer,

is finding community and connection

with of social circles we have, because sometimes that community and

connection actually helps bring us back into the stress. If everyone's just like, I'm

stressed, I'm stressed, and, like, you know, the energy just, like, bounces to each other.

You're taking on each other's stress. You're, you know,

just wanting to stay in it rather than move through it. Just something to be

mindful of. It's not like you need to kick anybody out of your life or

anything, but just something to be mindful of. Like, oh, is this interaction, is it

helping me or is it bringing me down? So something to keep in mind.

But the reason why it's important is I found this study when I was working

on my book. David McClellan of Harvard, he closely studied high

achievers, and again, I would put all of us in that category for 25

years. He found that the most essential factor determining their

success was their reference group, which is the people they spend the most time

with. And this makes a lot of sense, because as we've learned before on

this podcast, we naturally want to fit in with those around us. Right?

We want that love and belonging. It's something we crave. It's on the Maslow's

hierarchy of needs before even our self esteem and our self actualization.

That is why we want to find some strong connections, some safe connection where we

can feel heard in our stress and everything. Sharing our struggles in a

safe space really fosters that sense of love and belonging that we all

seek. Instead of feeling like we have to please other people by

being anything other than who we are, we are celebrated

for being our authentic selves. So we can educate and rejuvenate together,

not just by ourselves. It's meant to be something we can also do together. You'll

do some by yourself, but also find others to do it with you

and support each other all along the way. And while I'd love for that to

be you coming to educate and rejuvenate, our event this summer, or

joining us in the club. There's no single way to do that.

It can be by sharing this podcast with some friends and

talking about it, Or it can be finding a yoga studio to go to

or a support group. Or there are so many ways that you could find it.

Or even just, you know, having some close friends you text with and chat with,

and make sure you're lifting each other up, or doing a book club where you're

reading like a great personal development book. You can learn and

grow together. So however you decide to find your community, I recommend finding

one because when we come together, we are stronger than we could ever

be alone. And while all our journeys are unique, while we're all trying to have

our best summer yet, and that looks different for everybody, like we mentioned. Right? All

of our needs are different. We're all gonna need different ways to rejuvenate ourselves

and different things we're inspired to learn about this summer, but we also

have a lot in common that we want to do those things however they look

for us. And we all have negative thoughts, feel

stressed, and sometimes we get dysregulated. Sometimes we're people pleasing. It's part of

our shared humanity. One thing we have in common, if you're listening to this

episode, is that we want to create our best summer that we

can. So even hop into our Facebook group. You can

go there from the link in the show notes and share in there, have a

conversation. I would love to hear from you. And let's

just recap a little bit what we talked about today. So the ways that you're

gonna take what you gleaned about yourself in part

1, and implement it, so you can have your best summer

yet, is first by making a time management plan. Creating that ideal

week, we have that free template for you in the show notes. I want you

to grab it, so you can create that ideal week. What is your week going

to look like during the summer? Create that structure for yourself. That's what a lot

of teachers have said, like, there's no structure during the summer, but we can create

it. We can make it, and I can look how we want it to. That

template is really going to help. The next thing is creating a stress management

plan. And that might even just be for now, it might be like, I need

to learn about ways to manage my stress. And then once you've learned more about

them by, like, listening to different episodes on this podcast or joining us to educate

and rejuvenate, you can learn those tools and then make a plan on how you're

going to incorporate it during the school year. So it might

be that you're learning now. You're like, okay. My plan right now is I'm gonna

block off time to learn about these things, and then I'm going to start implementing

it. Or if you've been following a while and you know how to do a

lot of these things, maybe a bit, okay. I wanna start doing this in the

mornings. I wanna make sure that when I feel stressed, I do this. You

know, kinda make that plan so you've made that plan ahead of time. And then

last, but certainly not least, is making sure you have a community around you to

help support you in this. Because when we do it with other people, we're going

to be even more successful. Like, even sharing, like, what your

goal is for this summer with a friend, and you each kind of share your

progress and share with each other. It really, really, really helps.

Okay. So I hope that you found this 2 part

series helpful. And again, if you

did, I would love for you to leave a review on the podcast. And if

you on Apple Podcasts, Take a screenshot when you do, right before you hit

submit. Email it to hello at educate and rejuvenate.com, and we will send you

a $5 coupon that I highly recommend using

on your ticket to educate and rejuvenate, which will make it only $15

for 2 full days of workouts, life coaching,

keynotes with Christina Kuzmic and Gaspar Randazzo, all the

sessions. You're going to learn how to educate yourself

in so many different ways, how to educate on the stress management tools, but also

every core subject you could think of, up leveling yourself as an educator. And again,

you can laser focus on which ones are applicable to you and what you

need. We've got a whole bunch, so for you to choose from.

And then also rejuvenating yourself. And we've really packed both into this event.

It's professional development meets personal development. So we are here for

you. Would love for you to join us there. Leave that review. Get

$5 off. And if you're already going to be there because you've already bought a

ticket or you're in the club, you can apply that $5 to a platinum pass

upgrade or to your next educate and rejuvenate club renewal or to anything

in our shop, like a resource, like our summer review packets or

vacation packets or something for back to school. We've got lots there

too. Okay. That is everything I have for you today,

and I hope that you have an amazing summer and stay

tuned on the podcast. We've got some awesome episodes coming up

next week. 2 episodes a week, I'm going to be here for you,

and we'll talk soon.

If you enjoyed this episode, please hit subscribe so you don't miss the

next one. And, if you're hungry for more, be sure to check out the book

that I wrote. It's called Educate and Rejuvenate, a 3 Step Guide to

Revitalize Your Teaching, Renew Your Spirit, and Reignite Your

Passion For Life. It is scheduled to be released in the summer of

2024. This book takes all the life coaching skills we talk about here on the

podcast and puts them together in one easy to understand guide. Plus,

when you pre order, you'll receive a PDF workbook and additional resources

to deepen your understanding and application of the concepts we've covered on the

book and on this podcast. You won't find these resources

anywhere else. Visit the link in the show notes to join the wait list and

be the first to know when the book becomes available for pre order. Let's

continue this journey of growth and rejuvenation together. Until next

time.