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Today’s EveryDay Learner post focuses on how to reduce our level of tension and stress so that we can be better teachers and learners. Stress certainly doesn’t make it easier for us to help others, so how can we improve our sense of calm?

I can do hard things. How many times a day do you say that to yourself? I say it all the time. I have a crafty little piece of décor that says it on my dresser. I have multiple Facebook pictures with that caption. I receive and send that text all the time. I can do hard things.

The first time I heard this phrase my freshman RA said it on the eve of the first day of college. My fellow freshman friends and I laughed at the “stupidity” of the phrase. Then about a month into college I used it. It was used as comedic relief for my roommate’s stressful midterms. But it worked. We continued to use it sporadically throughout the year. It was a great saying that I quickly forgot.

Then, four years later I was in Australia. I had just flown a grand total of 19+ hours and it was only the early afternoon of the same day I left. I was on a study abroad. A cool one. The kind where you camp for 6 weeks in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. This was a trip that I was made for. The kind I dreamed of. My tentmate and I were assigned randomly. We hit it off immediately after meeting at LAX. We were pitching our tent along with everyone else in the group. But why were they getting it so much faster? Finally I said, “Courtney, we can do hard things.” And we pitched our tent.

For the next 6 weeks we probably used that phrase daily. We used it when we learned the water we were standing in had leeches. We used it when we stayed at a spider and snake infested campsite (seriously, ever had to go to bed at 7 pm to avoid being bitten?) We used it when we were swimming in water that had crocodile warnings and when we went scuba diving at night with sharks swimming in our point of entry.

It got us through the frigid black water rafting and carried us through our countless miles of kayaking. It comforted me through my coral reef injury and gave us the mind over matter we needed to eat the horrible food we were given. We were able to face fears of squatters, spiders the size of our hands (not exaggerating) and endure hauling bag after bag after bag of dirt. We did hard things. And we are better people for it. And we had more fun because of it.

The phrase “I can do hard things” is engraved in my soul. I use it to survive horrible days and it got me through the inevitable question of “what am I going to do with my life?” Listen, life is tough. And there’s not much you can do about that. Except change your perspective. I think people are more resilient than they know. They have stamina they can’t imagine. Life is tough but there’s no need to get a helmet. Just remember that you can do hard things. The next time you think you can’t, stop and say to yourself, “I can do hard things” and do it. Power through. You’ll be a better person because of it. And you’ll have more fun through it. But never forget that YOU CAN DO HARD THINGS!

BAHH!!! Its June already!! The way time flies, makes me sick! But not really, I love livin’ the dream!!

Yesterday, I said that to a group of friend and they  rebounded with, “What’s the dream, Deb?”

I of course responded with something really clever like, “Um…something awesome!” or “It’s what I live” or “Duh! Do I have to answer that?”

But, the question  brought out the scientist in me and I decided that I wanted to research “The Dream”

I began my research in the most obvious place…Instagram.

1.       I searched all the tags called “#livingthedream and found 10,048 photos where people had consciously decided to tag, or title, their photo as an example of their version of Living the Dream.

2.      I coded the first 100 pictures I found under the categories of People/Relationships, Food, Travel, Life Events, Things.

Pictures included the following:

3.      The results are shown in the table below. Each category reflects what these individuals define as a part of their “dream.” Because this is a very amateur study, I’m not going to delineate the meaning of each category. That is left to individual interpretation.

4.    The Findings: These data show that in general, people mainly are satisfied with life when they have people in it. “The Dream” involves people and relationships. Another interesting finding was that, of the 100 pictures I coded, only 7 actually used the “living the dream” tag in a negative or sarcastic way. Hopefully this means that overall we are generally happy people when thinking about our lives and future.

The second source of my research were some individuals that I interact with regularly. I performed a one question survey (are those even reliable?) and asked them what they defined “The Dream” as.

These were their responses:

• Channy H. said, “I guess the dream would be making a difference, even a small one.”
• J.D. Cleak said, “The dream is constantly changing – but generally it has to do with women, in a boat, on a lake.”
• L. Karsle said, “Living the dream is having goals and achieving them.”

Some responses are better than others, perhaps, but I think the point between both super scientific research projects is to live in the now, strive for excellence and enjoy it!

There is enough sad, disappointment, hurt, pain and bad luck in the world. Lets try to focus on the happy, the good, the joyful, the future, the vision, or as the cool people say, lets focus on just livin’ the dream.

Here is me and some friends, doing exactly that.