Jenny O'Fee

Expectations.

Think for a moment about what you expect from yourself, your students, your family, your friends & your colleagues. As an educator I have a lot of expectations, of myself, my colleagues and my students. I would convey the idea that I had ‘high expectations’ – I think wanting to empower myself and others to ‘rise to the challenge.’ Well, looking back now I was mistaken…

During this school holiday period, I enrolled in a 200hr Yoga Teacher Training program at YogaWorks in New York, some might say not quite a holiday! I most definitely had expectations.

Expectations of myself, of fellow classmates, of the teachers, the course and of what my body could do. What I hadn’t expected was to come away with letting go of expectations. I was challenged to ask: Does having expectations actually empower us?

In fact, I have left expectations behind, all of them. For all these years, I have been saying it’s good to have high expectations of yourself and of others, when really, what I actually meant all this time was – BELIEF. I am not advocating letting go of striving for the best outcome or challenging yourself or others to reach their full potential what I am saying is remove the negativity that expectation drags around with it. For me, it took placing myself in the midst of a whirlwind of self-expectation and to be challenged in a completely new learning environment. I was fortunate enough to have an amazing, inspirational teacher and fellow students to enable me to recognize the power of belief.

What a revelation!

Belief in yourself, belief in your students, belief in your family, your friends and your colleagues.

Ultimately, I have learnt how powerful a single word can be.

What a difference to say to a student, ‘I believe in you’ rather than ‘I have high expectations of you’. How much more positive, empowering and supportive. I learnt a huge amount during my Yoga teacher training and I am just realising how much of it will connect back to my work as an educator with young learners.

I will be returning to the school year with a focus on choosing my words carefully; freeing myself, my colleagues and students from expectations and; replacing these with belief. So, believe in your students, colleagues, friends, family and most importantly yourself and see the rewards you reap.

Photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash