Right, actual learning doesn't come easily, and being a good teacher is hard. I was stressed most of yesterday and had a crappy night worrying about teaching a class this morning. Then I got mad at myself for being ridiculous about it, which also kept me up. It's not rocket science, it's a one hour fitness class for crying out loud, but there were some new elements I am not used to teaching and well, new people. And an evaluator doing the class with us. It was okay, but not fantastic and sure as hell not perfect.
I got great feedback about areas to focus on and ways to do it, so why does it feel crummy? That's kind of the point of being supervised - to work at things and improve. I can give my kids an amazing lecture on the topic but can't seem to cut myself any slack. Do ya think they'll pick up on the words or actions, hmm?
Standard theme for me - I have a very developed fear of failure and incredibly high expectations of myself. I read about it and practised it, so why can't I do it perfectly the first time out? I can talk myself out of it but am so frustrated that I have to. I know it was okay, and I'm not looking for a chorus of "I'm sure you did great", I'm just wondering if this is something I'm going to learn to deal with efficiently in this lifetime or not. You'd think I'd have had time to work it out by now.
Side note: If/when I find myself in the role of evaluator, I love giving people a chance to share their own feedback on how things went first. They usually know what their challenges and strengths are and it's liberating for them to be the one to bring them up first. It provides a great opening for discussion on where to take things next without the fear of judgement. My two cents.
