How to Prevent Teacher Burnout
Teaching can be exhausting, but you don’t have to quit your job (unless you're actually ready for something new) to survive burnout, and with a few small tweaks to your habits and routines, you can enjoy a rewarding and productive career.
In education (and other fast paced industries that have “busy seasons”––think tax season, grant season, hiring season, performance evaluation season, etc.), it’s typical to go at warp speed for a period of time, and then all of a sudden, everything comes to a screeching halt and... it's over.
One teacher told me it feels like slamming into a brick wall, physically, emotionally, and mentally.
When you’ve been fixated on work for so long, even once your busy season is over, your brain hasn’t gotten the memo, and you don’t know how to turn it off.
Most people will go to the other extreme to cope––they shut down and numb themselves by binge watching Netflix and stress eating comfort foods.
But after a few weeks of being a couch potato, that gets boring, and so you go back into overdrive because it feels familiar and you miss the “high” of scrambling under pressure.
What happens next is you’ll try to get EVERYTHING done that you put off during the previous months, but you’ll be unfocused and all over the place––busy all the time, but not actually getting the important things done.
Without a strategy and a process for recovering from demanding busy seasons, it’s easy to think that your only choice is to just suck it up and continue on, working long, stressful hours while your health declines, your relationships suffer, you feel like an impostor, and you burn out from the insidious effects of chronic stress and people pleasing.
But with the right strategy, you CAN recover from burnout and get through your busy seasons without burning out to begin with.
The most important––and underrated––method is to prioritize basic self care, including adequate sleep and rest, regular exercise, fresh air and sunlight, fun/hobbies, quiet time, and proper nutrition.
For example, a highly successful, busy woman I worked with comes to mind who made a few small adjustments in these basic areas by leveraging simple but powerful strategies rooted in brain and habit science.
She was willing to experiment with and receive my input on finding the best times to go to bed, wake up, rest, exercise, and spend time outdoors or in front of a therapy lamp.
These self care changes gave her immediate results: She increased her billable hours, surpassed her monthly goals, and in her words was “cranking stuff out” without putting a strain on her physical health, relationships, and mental well being.
Maximizing your self care habits is one important area we focus on in my 30-Day Private Coaching Intensive for busy Christian women who want to experience more fulfillment and fruitfulness without burnout so they can live in their Kingdom purpose in every season.
We also 1) identify and replace untrue core beliefs that produce “all-or-nothing” thinking related to self care and the anxiety and guilt that fuel the hamster wheel-couch potato pattern, 2) put in place the accountability needed to build motivation and consistency that enables you to finish what matters most to you and to God, and 3) help you identify a new path if you do decide to pivot to something new.
Contact me if interested in working together to improve your efficiency, fruitfulness, satisfaction, and fulfillment in your high demand career or business. We’ll have a conversation to see what your goals are and if it’s a good fit. If so, you can get started right away.