What teaching teaches me

I think a lot. Triathlon gives you a lot of time to go over things in your head whilst training. I go over what my day included, how to do it better and how to do the next day best.

I really strive to avoid being hypocritical too. So for all the things I preach to my students I don't dare to fail to practice. Here is a list of the 5 most important things I observe from my students at the moment that I carry across and practice in my life:

1. The difference between those achieving and those that aren't is a willingness to accept responsibility for achieving.

2. Trying and getting it wrong is as important as trying and getting it right. Sure, if you are so omnipotent that you can get the whole picture every time, then you might never need to get it wrong. But for those "young souls" among us, failure just means you're trying to get better. Just work out what you did wrong and don't make that mistake again.

3. Check that what you are doing is right! Don't just slam through a block of work and assume that you are correct. Check you answers, do time trials, do whatever it takes to assess your objective. Otherwise by the time the test/race rolls around you're going to look like a fool.

4. Just follow simple instructions and you will get far. If you think that for some reason you are exempt from things everyone else must follow and not paying attention as a result, chances are you will fail on your test too or at least just make life harder for yourself.

5. Don't revise the hard questions on exams if you can't even do the easy ones. I've literally taught over a thousand students and I've only once seen this work (and I think it was a fluke). If you can't yet run 32mins off the bike for 10k, don't try to run 31mins. You'll blow up. If you're not hitting your times in races but you're doing more than enough work on it, maybe you're working too hard or on the wrong stuff. Number one symptom of this is blaming everyone else other than yourself, even though you weren't listening to the people you blame in the first place. Yeah, I have a year 11 kid who drives me mental on this - I am now at the point where I try to politely ignore him or else I'll stress myself sick!

I make these mistakes with my training all the time. I was never the perfect student either. They are what I've seen lead to disappointment though. In fact, if you see me doing any of them, remind me and put me in my place!