Teaching is tough enough. Responsibilities keep growing.

A new policy now has to take effect. State accreditation is coming up. Reports have to be compiled. Your performance review has new criteria. A new curriculum has to be implemented. You’ve been asked to consider another extra-curricular. You have to teach a course that’s not in your wheelhouse. A parent has another special request. There’s new technology to be learned.

Superhuman expectations can wear you out.

Make you numb.

Blow out our vocational flame. 

In the face of superhuman expectations, Remember Who You Are. It’s hard to say no when you are asked to help address something that really is important—and needed.

If you are good at what you do, you will get asked to do more. Ever notice that people who are not good at stuff never get asked to do more stuff?

Remember Who You Are. There is a specific something about your role as a teacher that aligns with your soul. If you take on more, don’t give up that aspect of the role that gives your spirit the nourishment it needs.

Remember Who You Are. And who you are not. There are some roles that won’t match your skills. Your disposition. Your temperament.

Remember Who You Are. During the formative years of your life, someone gave you good news about yourself. Saw something in you that fit the teaching role. Invited you. Encouraged you. Assured you. Remember what was told to you. Remember Who You Are.

Remembering who you are is the intentional practice of coming back inside yourself to reclaim and remind yourself of what fuels your call to teach. It includes reminding ourselves of whom and what we love and respect. It involves having a conversation with ourselves about ourselves. In this way, we are able to preserve and protect our vocational sources of joy and fulfillment. This practice of remembering who you are helps us distinguish the voice of human needs from the voices of lesser agendas. It is a way of reading your moral compass within the dizzying pressure of superhuman expectations.

It is possible that superhuman expectations will now become a normal dimension of the vocational calling to teach, to lead, to serve. You may not be able to just say no.  We shouldn’t just say no. But when we say yes, it cannot be at the expense of the part of the role that aligns with the soul. Remember Who You Are.