How self-awareness can improve our work, life and wellbeing, with Gail Swift

Teacher Wellbeing

In this episode of the Teacher Wellbeing Podcast I have a really interesting conversation with Gail Swift from Plans to Prosper Coaching. Gail is an educational guide and Kolbe Index Consultant who works with schools and teachers in the United States on bringing out their best when everybody is free to be themselves.

Gail shares with us about something called conation, which the dictionary says is ‘the mental faculty of purpose, desire, or will to perform an action’. Gail explains how conation is different to cognition and also personality, but how all three are needed for success. We talk about how this plays out in classrooms and staffroom, and how understanding our ways of working can help us get along better. Gail shares some advice for school leaders trying to motivated disengaged staff, and we have a great chat about rethinking the way we approach staff meetings to make them more effective, efficient and engaging, which I’m sure is something we all want. Ultimately this episode is about closing the distances between us and building understanding, and learning to get along better in our families, teams and communities and I hope you enjoy this conversation with Gail!

Reminder: now is a great time to put your name down on the waiting list to work with me when I come back from Maternity Leave in 2022. I’ll only be back part time so it will definitely be a case of first in best dressed and the waiting list for my 1:1 coaching or for the Resilient Teacher Group Coaching Program will be notified first when spots open up in my calendar: https://mailchi.mp/33f69a083043/work-with-ellen-waiting-list

There is also a waiting list for School Wellbeing Champions too. In 2020 and 2021 I’ve run a number of meetups and workshops for School Wellbeing Champions, who are the amazing educators and staff members who are driving wellbeing initiatives from the ground up in schools. And in 2022 I plan to run some more of these, with options for both PD relating to wellbeing initiatives you can run in your school, and opportunities for networking, connecting and learning from Wellbeing Champions around Australia. So if that sounds like you, pop your name on the interest list at selfcareforteachers.com.au/wellbeingchampions and of course the link will be in the show notes and the description of your podcast app!