Recently, I was watching Good Morning America. Yes, the (mostly) mindless entertainment talk show at 8am on ABC. They started throwing around a phrase I had never heard before: The Sunday Scaries.
Maybe you’re already familiar, but if not, they described this phenomenon as the anxiety about Monday/starting the work week that starts creeping in and ruining your weekend - and your Sunday night sleep schedule!
This obviously comes in all shapes and sizes for different people, but for working musicians (myself included), this could apply to upcoming gigs, songs you need to chart out and learn, trying to squeeze in time to practice, and of course, teaching music lessons. Or maybe you teach lessons on top of a 9-5, which takes up evenings and maybe even weekend times. No matter who you are, thoughts of the impending Monday morning and subsequent work schedule can swirl in our minds and cause stress on days that we’re trying to relax.
BUT it doesn’t have to be this way! I’m going to give you four things that will not only help you get one step closer to teaching stress-free music lessons, you can transfer these principles to whatever you do as a musician or throughout the week:
1. When you start getting the “Sunday Scaries”, lean into them and start thinking about your lessons. This may seem counter-intuitive…aren’t we supposed to avoid stress? I say take a different approach: get specific, in your head or on paper, about the things that are stressing you out about upcoming lessons (Tough students? Feeling unprepared, as far as what to teach each one? Students who have repeatedly not practiced? Overbearing parents who want high achievement and success?).
GO WAY BEYOND JUST YOUR LESSONS! In my experience, stress is a compound equation. If I’m stressed about a big project on Thursday, I’ll have a hard time focusing on my lessons Monday through Wednesday. But if I take a few minutes and lean into my scaries, I’ll start to realize that if I plan time each day to work on that project and plan for my lessons, that stress starts to go away!
2. Plan time to practice what your students are working on - remember you are the expert! Part of fighting off the scaries is having confidence in yourself, and having confidence in yourself as a musician and teacher starts with knowing what you’re about to teach that week, inside and out. Like I said in the first video (here’s a link), write down names of your students and list out each exercise they’re working on. Then think back to when you were first practicing those things so that you’ll know the best way to teach them to your students.
Recently I realized I was playing 3 notes completely incorrectly on a waltz I’ve been teaching a new piano student! I had been taught how to play it incorrectly (yikes), so I sat down for 20 minutes, listened and charted it out. Take 2-5 minutes per student and make sure you know what you’re teaching each one this week. Then schedule 5-10 minutes to practice through the things they are working on, which will build your confidence and reduce your stress level. I know this may be tough for you full-time instructors with 40 or 50 students per week, but hopefully they are doing some similar exercises!
3. Ok, let’s say you’ve done all of numbers 1 & 2. Here’s the simple but sometimes not easy part: put EVERYTHING in your calendar. Take this extra step so you don’t forget anything! Hopefully your lessons are already in a google calendar or something similar - if not, do that first! Then plan for the other stressful things in your life as well - for example, my wife and I are going out of town for a wedding this weekend, and we have a house sitter coming to watch our (adorable, amazing, awesome, aussie…) pups. That means that, for me, on top of teaching my music students, I’ll be cleaning all around the house, editing audiobooks (strange side gig), listening to and learning songs for upcoming studio sessions and live shows, etc. I don’t list all of those things to brag about all of the amazingly fun things I get to do, and honestly the list feels overwhelming as I’m typing it! But when I sit down for a few minutes and schedule blocks in my calendar like “9am - 11am record and edit CHW podcast”, “12pm - 1pm lunch meeting”, and “2pm - 3pm prep for lessons”, those Sunday scaries start to disappear.
4. This last one is also simple, not easy: STICK WITH THIS! Don’t just have one week of amazing, stress-free music lessons and scheduling and then say “that was great” but go back to being stressed out by the Sunday Scaries. Lean into them, write them down, and make a plan.
Has this blog/podcast/YouTube video been helpful for you? I want to hear from you! Leave a comment or question right here and I’ll get back to you or address your question in a future post (this will also sign you up for the email list to receive future updates).
