I've been teaching for a long time and it's been quite the roller coaster for me, and I know I am no different to many teachers out there - I was once told by a principal that I could not speak for all teachers when I voiced my concern over the growing unrest and dis-ease I was observing in the online space, and within the school grounds: "Just look around," he said, "there are many teachers here to appear to thrive in this role!" I was then told that I was, "Lucky to work
here and that I should just focus on myself!"...
At this stage in my career I was burning out over and over again and I just could not figure out why. Moving from the state system into the private system meant that I finally had all that time I was so desperate for; I thought that my lack of time and the sheer amount of work I had to do was what caused me to burn out, but when I finally had that time, as well as incredible support available, I was gutted when my burnouts continued to roll over me time and time again. I just didn’t understand. I thought it was just the workload!
It took a lot of soul searching for me to realise the impact I was having on it all. My relationship with my job, my relationship with myself and years of being a perfectionist is really what caused me to burnout. Teaching is a HARD job, I do not deny that! We are faced with so many freakin' challenges and a crazy to do list that never gets any smaller, we move fast making a million decisions a day, we work out buts off to get to know our kids and give them the absolute best of ourselves and I do believe the system is designed in a way that we are set up to fail - everything that is expected of us is impossible to truly pull off because at the end of the day, we are human. We are not robots, we are not machines, and we are not capable of doing ‘it all’ - even when we desperately want to; but, somewhere along the way we have been tricked into believing that we should be able to handle it and do it all, so that when we can’t we blame ourselves for not being good enough, we beat ourselves up for not handling the stressors of the job and we get angry at ourselves when we feel like we are failing our kids.
The system is not going to change in a hurry - I believe it will, one day, but that won’t be tomorrow, or the next day, or the next - but it will, one day. We don’t have much control when it comes to the policy makers, class sizes, the changes to the curriculum, sadly we have people making misguided decisions for us that are not in our better interest, or that of our kids, but I have faith that one day, things will change.
They won’t change, however, if we don’t change. If we continue to neglect ourselves, we will continue the cycle of burning out. If we continue to neglect ourselves, the education system is going to lose the incredible people doing this incredible job, we see it happening now, people are leaving. Teaching can be a career where you can thrive, I am testament to this. Once I figured out the true cause of my burnouts (surprise, it wasn’t my workload) I was able to turn it all around.
I love my job, well most days I love my job. Somedays I hate it, but more than not, I love it.
But to be honest, the biggest shift I had to make was learning to love myself. I did not change my relationship with my job until I changed my relationship with myself.
I have spent many, many years on this journey. I was able to turn things around for myself once I figured out how I tick, I worked out the things that triggered me, I learnt how to become aware of how I was speaking to myself and I noticed that I had become my own worst enemy. I was an unhappy human, which meant I was an unhappy teacher. I worked my ass off to change my relationship with myself, and it made me turn my life around.
I have the most incredible 8 week group coaching programme where I share some of the steps I went through during my ‘self-discovery’ process and I want to share it with you. I know how much of an impact this kind of work can have on a teacher, because I have witnessed so many others walk beside me and do the same. I know you are time poor, and I know the cost of living is high but I also know the cost of continually putting your head in the sand and avoiding the issues that need facing. You do not have to suffer in your work; my work has not changed, but I changed and in turn this changed the relationship I have with my work. Teaching is bloody hard, yes, I know this, but we make things harder on ourselves when we lose ourselves to all the things going wrong and focus on all the things we do not want; when you change that perspective and begin to focus on what is going well and put your attention on what you do want to have happen, the world around you will change.
If you want to take part in term 2s group session, I have taken 40% off the price (which brings this course down to $33 p/w - use the code SELFCARE at checkout). I don’t want cost to be a barrier - you deserve this knowledge and I want to share it. I just want to help those who want help, because it makes life just so much more enjoyable when you let yourself enjoy it. I know what I offer will not be everyone's cuppa tea, but for those who feel my vibe, it can be an absolute game changer. I do this work because I love teachers, I want to help you find your feet again. I want to help you find the parts of yourself you might have neglected or lost. I want to help you find your spark for life again, because I know what it’s to lose it, and I know what it’s like to reignite it and I want that so much for you.
Have a look around my website, there may be other ways I can help you help yourself, either through my book Cracked Open: a teacher’s battle with perfection, or my self-coaching guide.
You are doing a hard job and you very much deserve to do it feeling happy and confident within yourself. You deserve to feel peaceful, you deserve to live with ease and you deserve to be a human being and have a life beyond your work.
I hope you have a restful non-contact period. You deserve to have everything you desire, you just need to believe it first.
