Episode 109: From Burnout to Balance

In this episode, I talk about strategies for overcoming burnout and how to shift from burnout to balance. I get into the importance of recognizing possibilities, setting boundaries, and prioritizing tasks. I want teachers to consider alternative careers or flexible roles within education, weighing constraints like salary and childcare. You need to prioritize self-care rituals and delegating tasks to achieve work-life balance. Hopefully if you’re not stressed out now, you’ll bookmark this episode to listen to when you’re feeling burnout.

 

Topics Discussed:

  • Focusing on tasks that you can drop or delegate to someone else

  • Clearly defining your boundaries

  • Hard work is how we learn

Resources mentioned:

Related episodes and blog posts:

 
 
 
 

Read the transcript for this episode:

Welcome to Educator Forever, where we empower teachers to innovate education. Join us each week to hear stories of teachers expanding their impacts beyond the classroom and explore ways to reimagine teaching and learning.

Today I want to talk about what to do when you're feeling burnt out. And I think we all feel burnt out, especially as teachers, but even when you go beyond the classroom, you might find yourself burnt out from time to time. And this episode is going to walk you through some strategies of what to do when you feel burnout, because the best thing you can do is to do something. We don't want you to feel stuck in this feeling of burnout. When we feel like that, we often just feel like we have no agency, that life is happening to us, that there are all these external circumstances, and that doesn't feel good, and so we want to be able to move through that. And I'm calling this episode from burnout to balance. And I almost didn't, because I feel like there's something about the word balance that can feel super flowery, and it can feel like, Oh, I'm going from burnout to everything feeling great, and that's not the goal, right? Like that's not unfortunately or fortunately the reality. There's never going to be a version of your life where everything works out exactly as you planned it to. But balance means that you'll feel balanced when things happen that are hard. You're able to cope with them, you're able to build in joy and resiliency. You're able to have that agency, you're able to see possibilities. So all of that is what I mean by balance, that you feel like you can handle life storms. And so to do that, we have to be intentional. And I really do think it starts with taking back that power that we have, that, of course, we can't control everything or most things in our lives, but we sure can control how we approach our life, and we can say enough is enough when it comes to the things that are making us feel burnout. And so in today's episode, I want you just to remember that we're not going for perfection here. We're going for balance. We're going for agency, and that starts with seeing possibilities. So if you are feeling burnt out, it can feel completely overwhelming. It can feel like there's no way out of this hole, right? Like there's just too much to do and never enough time, or never enough money, or whatever it might be, we can just get stuck in this endless loop. And the first step is realizing that, and realizing that there are so many other possibilities. You could decide, if you're a classroom teacher, maybe you're going to stop teaching entirely and go work at Starbucks, or maybe you're going to go to med school, or maybe you're going to work flexibly in education, whatever it might be, there are endless possibilities. I'm not saying that these possibilities are desirable or easy, but it starts by seeing the possibilities, knowing that you have options. You do not have to be in this circumstance that's causing you burnout. You can really start thinking about other ways and then making decisions. And it always is a process of weighing those decisions, right, of thinking about, Okay, I'm a burnout classroom teacher. I really want to be able to spend more time with my family and have more balance in my life. So what are all the ways that I could get there? I know that I have these constraints, right? Like I need to make at least my teaching salary, or more than my teaching salary. I need to make enough to pay for my kids daycare, like whatever that is for you. And so think about the constraints. Think about what's causing you stress or making you feel burnt out and think about what you want to do. I mean, I think that's a huge part of burnout, is feeling like you're not aligned to the work that you're doing. And I know when I felt burnout as a classroom teacher, it was often because I was doing all this work that didn't feel important. It wasn't the work that was really helping kids, it wasn't the work that was being creative. It was a lot of paperwork and things I had to do, or meetings that were really boring, that were making me feel burnt out. And so after seeing those possibilities, I think the next step is really thinking about or maybe it's in conjunction. Maybe it's not a one and then a two, it's a both at once, seeing possibilities and thinking about, what do you really want to do? What do you feel like in this phase of your life, in this season of your life, if you could focus on anything, what would you focus on? What do you desire? Because I can tell you that when you move into a new field, you're going to be working hard and you're going to be busy and you're going to feel overwhelmed sometimes. But the difference between burnout and balance, to me is that when you're doing something that you really want to do that's aligned to what you believe and what your goals are, that busyness feels totally different than it does when the work you're doing is not aligned to what.


You want to do. And so that busyness can be like fuel, right? Like you're doing the work you want to do. You have agency. You can see the possibilities. And so that really is what's going to get you through without feeling burnt out. And I think that's a misconception sometimes, that people are like, oh, when I'm balanced, I'm going to be very calm and not busy, likely untrue, like we live in a modern society where we're probably going to be busy, but that busyness can hopefully be more aligned to our values, to what we want to do, to the work that's important to us. And so I would really start by thinking about, what are your goals? What do you want to do? What are many ways that you can get there, and what are the constraints that you have? The constraints could be time, they could be money, they could be your skills. And so there are ways to get around constraints, but really thinking about all of those things together can help you start to see different things you might try out.


And then when you're in it right now, like, that's more of kind of like a way to think long term. But when you're in it right now and you're like, I just feel super burned out right this moment, I want you to really focus on prioritizing and delegation. And so identify what do you really need to do, like what is required. And then think about, what could you maybe skip? And this could be professionally or personally. What could you skip? Do you have to go to this meeting?


Do you have to cut out all these things for a school project, whatever it might be, think about, what could you skip, or what could you spend less time on? Maybe you can do an okay job rather than an amazing job on some things, and that will actually make your life easier. And then think about, like, what task can I get rid of completely? Maybe you're on a committee that you don't feel inspired by and you just don't want to do it anymore, that's okay. Maybe you can get rid of it completely. And then think about what tasks maybe at work or at home, could you delegate to someone else? And so I really want you to kind of audit where your time is going, where your effort is going and think about, do you have to do all these things? Is there anything you could let go of and then prioritize the most important things and the things that will get you to your goals? So going back to that kind of like possibilities, and thinking about the long term goals you have, maybe you really want to work as a curriculum developer and have more flexibility, so the tasks that you're skipping are things that don't really lead you down that path. Maybe you're no longer on the Leadership Council at your school, but you are spending time on the curriculum team because that's aligned to the work you want to do long term. And then once you get clear on how you want to spend your time, then stick to it. And that's hard, like I can say that, but it's hard. So this comes down to setting boundaries, you know, clearly define what's the time that you're going to spend doing these things, and then communicate your boundaries. Stick to them. If someone asks you to rejoin the leadership team and you don't want to be on it, say no, like, that's okay. And so I really think that when you allow yourself to go after your dreams, that's how you build confidence. You build confidence from saying no to the things that don't let you up and saying yes to things that you really want to do, those things that you really want to do, though, might not always be super fun in the moment, and they likely will be hard work. So if you're saying yes to the curriculum team because it leads you to a long term goal, that work on the curriculum team might be hard. So I just want to make sure it's not like a too rosy picture here, right? Like hard work is how we learn things, and so we're embracing the hard work, but we're thinking about having control over the skills we're developing and the path we're creating for ourselves. Along with this, it's creating a more balanced view of your life and thinking about what really supports you. And so this could involve having some self care rituals. Maybe you want to make sure every day that you're going to move your body. Maybe you're going to make sure every day you're reading a chapter of a book, or you're calling a loved one. You could think about incorporating mindfulness into your day or some yoga, or just quick breathing, like whatever it is that supports you. And I think this can be an exploration. You can think about, huh? I'm feeling kind of anxious these days. Maybe I'm going to try a routine where I take an evening walk after dinner, and I take deep breaths on my evening walk, and I just see, how does it affect my life? We don't.


Know, until we try it, but trying out these things and thinking about what can you do to really support yourself is super important, and then protecting that time, just like anything else, because as you go on and you create this career path for yourself outside the classroom, and you create balance for yourself, whether you're inside of the classroom or not, you're really going to be creating a new way of living, and we can so often recreate the same old super intense patterns of working in the classroom and just doing all the things, whether we want to or not. And so intentionally, think about what supports you in your life, in feeling good, in meeting your goals and stick to those things as much as you can. And try to think about what else can you get rid of?


And so I will end you with just so much depends on your mindset, believing that anything is possible for you and exploring ways that you can grow and expand in both your career and your life. So this means committing to learning, attending workshops, pursuing professional development opportunities, finding a community that can cheer you on and push you out of your comfort zone, and if you're looking for a community to try, I'd love for you to try the educator forever network, and I'll put a link in the show notes, but the network is our community of educators within and beyond the classroom, creating intentional lives and really thinking about the impact we want to make in Education and the lives we want to lead. So we'd love for you to try it out. We have many different group calls throughout the week. We have our beyond the classroom course, which shows you all these different pathways beyond the classroom. We have a community site and jobs board, and really the best community. So we would love for you to try it out, and we are always cheering you on. You.


Transcribed by https://otter.ai



Lily Jones