AND WE’RE BACK!! Last year I wrote a microblog (click here for last year’s blog) about this funny, heartwarming, and amazing show that took the world by storm on Apple TV called “Ted Lasso.” Jason Sudeikis plays the main character, Ted, an American football coach who is hired by an English Premier soccer club to coach with absolutely no experience of what soccer is or how the game is played, in the hopes that his lack of experience will lead the club to failure. I wrote about how my husband and I, and apparently many of YOU went all in on this show during the pandemic because at the time in our world, there was not a lot of hope, joy, or laughter. The world was falling apart, but whenever we would sit down and watch this show, something would shift a bit in our spirits. For one episode every week, we were able to escape to the wild, hilarious, and bucket filling world of Ted Lasso. Known for profound meaningful quotes with a pinch of a dad joke style in delivery, Ted’s quotes hit deep with life lessons for all who tune in. When I wrote my microblog last year, with five Lasso-ism last year, I had no idea that it would be read and hit home for so many of teachers. So I’m here to share five more. Ted 2.0 is live! Below I’ve shared five more Lasso-ism and how I’ve connected them to relationship building AND this time around, teaching in general!
“Belief doesn’t just happen because you hang something on the wall….Believing that things can get better, that I will get better, that we will get better. To believe in yourself. That’s fundamental to being alive.”
In another one of Ted’s famous locker room pregame speeches, he again hits on BELIEF. Ted shares that belief is more than a poster on the wall or an inspiring quote. It’s a total mind shift towards hope. As a teacher, I find anxiety and depression in me grow when I can’t see the end of complicated, long, burning out situations. I think I lose sight of the light at the end of the tunnel and the tunnel gets dark. I’ve noticed, this often happens at the end of a quarter, when I have mountains of paperwork to complete. As a veteran teacher, changing my mindset by telling myself, “This is just a season and it will be better,” helps my belief and hope to see the light. There are seasons for everything in life, seasons of grief, joy, prosperity… Sometimes we get stuck and need extra help to move forward through those hard seasons with self-care, therapy and friends. I do think at the time Ted Lasso came out, the pandemic was one of those seasons. Finding the belief was hard. But I made it. I’m still here.
“You know what I want to mess around with? The belief that I matter, regardless of what I do or achieve.”
What would happen if you lived everyday of your life knowing that you mattered regardless of whether you had a good or bad day, how well you taught, or how much you accomplished or achieved? I think about this and I just wonder if I would go forward with so much less fear. And what if we taught our students the belief that they mattered, because from the core of our being we KNEW it for us and knew it for them. What would that do to anxiety, depression and connection in you, in your students and in your school. When you see “mattering” happening in your classroom to your students, I think our whole classroom culture changes for the better. What does that do to you in your heart as a teacher? I think it would light us all up. Let’s try it!!
“Don’t fight back. Fight Forward.”
Our next Lasso-ism comes from another dad on the show and not Ted himself but what he says is just SO good. I won’t spoil the scene for you, but when some unexpected vandalism crashes a dream of one of Ted’s players, you have to hear what he says. “If you really want to piss off the people who did this, forgive them…. Don’t fight back, fight forward.” I think often in teaching there are unexpected conflicts and circumstances that happen all the time. Someone takes your equipment, people are using your gym without giving you the heads up during the school day, or you get cut from your school instead of getting tenure and I think many of us think, “WHY ME?!” Forgive them. Anger isn’t hurting them, it’s hurting you. Fighting the past won’t help the future, so let’s fight forward. Instead of asking why, ask what. As in WHAT can I do with this situation.
“You’re beating yourself up like Woody Allen playing the clarinet. I don’t want to hear it.” HA. I have to giggle at this, because I have days where I beat up on myself all day long. I’m a type B perfectionist so, yeah it’s a great combination. There are days where I beat myself up so hard my spirit is bruised. Do you ever tell yourself to JUST KNOCK IT OFF?? Sometimes YOU have to call YOURSELF OUT on beating yourself up. You wouldn’t do that to someone you love, so don’t do it to you. I don’t want to hear it! And if you hear someone in your office or department beating themselves up, I dare you to use this quote on them and when they say, “Wait, WHAT?” go on and explain it. The more you call yourself out on beating yourself up the less it will happen. (Sometimes we need therapy to help us with this one too)!
“We got one final game this season against Man City, and our goal is to go out like Willie Nelson, on a high.”
I often ask myself as a teacher, “How do I want to go out?” As in, how do I want to leave my profession? Sitting here, 14.5 years into my profession, retirement is definitely decades away, but I often play the movie forward at the end of every year. In our school, we honor our retirees at the end of their careers by letting them speak, others speaking about them, and then the retiree receives their scaled down metal “Bison” and their professional headshot on the wall (we are Buffalo High School and Buffalo Community Middle School so its fitting). And to be honest, I think I want to leave my profession better than when I was first hired. Part of my purpose, as I’ve found is to have a profound positive impact on the world around me (anyone else reading this an overachiever? I know, too high of standards for myself) and so when I retire, like Ted Lasso said, I want to go out like Willie Nelson, on a high until I walk out the doors for good. I want to keep giving my students and school community my best and never settle for just showing up. This requires me to recognize when I’m getting burnt out (it has happened more than once). I want to leave on a teaching high. What about you? How do you wanna go out?
So to summarize our Lasso-sims: to believe in yourself, that’s fundamental to being alive.You know what I want to mess around with? The belief that I matter, regardless of what I do or achieve. Don’t fight back. Fight Forward. Don’t beat yourself up like Woody Allen playing the clarinet. Go out like Willie Nelson, on a high.
This microblog post was a featured post in #slowchathealth’s #microblogmonth event. You can search for all of the featured posts here. Please do follow each of the outstanding contributors on social media (including 2022 SHAPE America National Adapted PE Teacher of the Year Jen Heebink, the author of this post) and consider writing a microblog post of your own to be shared with the global audience of slowchathealth.com
Pair this blog post with the following:
Unexpected Detours by Ray Ostrowski
100 Ted Lasso Motivational Quotes (Book)
What Would Ted Lasso Do?: How Ted’s Positive Approach Can Help You (Book)
Have you read the latest Book of the Month recommendation?
#slowchathealth 