Which Will You Feed?
This week, I came across an old fable that I had not heard before. It started with an old Cherokee chief talking with his grandson. He explained that within the old chief there were two wolves. One who was filled with anger, greed, self pity, etc, and one who was filled with peace, love, kindness, and so on. The grandfather further explained that these two wolves were in a constant battle with each other. The young boy asked, “Well, which will win?” To which the old chief replied, “The one you feed.”
October is typically a tough month in education. We start the year with excitement and anticipation, which begins to dip in October as our workload increases and the days shorten. It is easy during this time to get caught up and begin to feed the wrong wolf; to participate in unproductive conversations; and to focus on problems rather than solutions. It is just an easy trap to fall into.
So, how do we feed the right wolf? Well, we have to retrain our brains to deliberately focus on the positive. This takes practice and consistency, but it is possible, easy to accomplish, and worth the effort. Psychologist Shawn Achor states that the brain at positive is 31% more productive and that 25% of job success is related to IQ and 75% is related to our optimism levels. I am a speak-it-into-existence kind of gal. Just ask Ms. Regina. But, Mr. Achor did provide a painfree way to rewire our thinking if that does not work for you. He states that for 21 days if we will dedicate two minutes of our time each day to journaling about three new things for which we are grateful, our brains will learn to start to scan our environment for the positive first rather than the negative.
I know it may seem silly or a little too out there, but our mindset is a powerful thing. If we can control our thoughts, we can control the wolf we feed.