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QUOTE: "Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration, and resentment."
MESSAGE: Has this every happened to you?It’s the end of the school day, the kids just left, and you find yourself staring into space? Or what about when you go for a road trip and you’re exhausted by then end even though you’ve sat in the car all day? That’s mental fatigue. The first example was active mental fatigue, and the second was passive. Active MF occurs with tasks requiring high cognitive load and/or a lot of executive functioning. Passive MF happens when you experience prolonged periods of mental inactivity. I also believe that there is another sort of mental fatigue brought about by emotional overload, like when you’re stressed about a project or an upcoming event, or worried about someone/something. When the project or worry is gone, you collapse in exhaustion. What can you do about it? Mental fatigue can be exacerbated by (among other things) stress, boredom, or a lack of sleep. Go through this 3-step sequence to see if you can lessen its effects:
THIS WEEK, TRY THIS: The important part here is the pause. When your body or mind feels weird or acts in a way that’s not normal, it’s time to take a minute to assess the situation. When you find yourself staring into space, ask yourself why it happened? Without being judgmental, figure out the best way to move forward. DAD JOKE: How Dad are you? How many of these do you say?
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QUOTE: " It's not what you look at that matters. It's what you see."
MESSAGE: Your perception of the world around you is everything. Last week, I was working with a staff around student motivation, and the idea that a student’s perception of relevancy, autonomy, and competence is more important than their circumstance. It’s like this. The other day, my wife and I attended a neighborhood get-together. We are the newbies, so we’re still trying to figure out where we fit in. While we did occasionally split up into the respective gender-specific groups, we did spend most of our time together, so our circumstances were very similar. However, our perceptions were remarkably different. Martha picked up on all the relationship nuances - many of them unspoken - while I remember the house and the food and the stories people told. Martha has that uncanny ability to figure out unspoken truths by asking questions and reading nonverbals (super hard to keep secrets from her!). I’ve done a lot of home DIY and I’m an artist, so I notice those types of things. How we perceive our days is 99% subjective, especially if your self-awareness is low. Someone says something, and it offends one person, delights another, and doesn’t even register with a third. The things that happen in our days are just events that in and of themselves have no emotion attached to them. We are the ones who put emotional weight on our circumstances. THIS WEEK, TRY THIS: The next time something upsets you, take a step back and replay it as if there were no sound, or if you couldn’t understand the language, or as if it happened to plants instead of humans. How does your perception change? Where did your strong emotions come from? DAD JOKE: How Dad are you? Which of these do you say?
QUOTE: "Here's the problem. Most people are thinking about what they don't want, and they're wondering why it shows up over and over again." (John Assaraf)
MESSAGE: As we start out a new year, I’d like to put forward three things to think about:
THIS WEEK TRY THIS: As we slide back into our school routine, align each day with your values as ask yourself each morning, “What’s the most important thing I need to do today?” With that in mind, make sure you do at least that ONE thing. DAD JOKE: How Dad Are You? Which of these do you say?
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AuthorSEL Coach Matt Weld creates and delivers in-person and online SEL-related content. Archives
April 2025
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