The Teacher Burnout Podcast

Breaking Free from Overthinking for Teachers
[00:00:00] Today we're gonna be talking about breaking free from Overthinking for Teachers. That's all coming up next right here on the Teacher Burnout Podcast.
Speaker: Welcome to the Teacher Burnout Podcast, where we explore the challenges of burnout for teachers and share practical strategies to support teacher well being. I'm your host Barb Flowers. If you're a teacher looking for ways to prevent burnout or an educational leader searching for strategies to support your team, this podcast is for you.
Let's dive in.
Welcome back to the podcast. Today we are talking about the topic of overthinking.
And I love this topic because I think so many people can relate to overthinking about different things in their teaching, right? And so today I just wanna start by talking about what overthinking is, why we do this, the problem with overthinking, and then give you some steps to really help with overthinking.
So first of [00:01:00] all. Overthinking is the habit of constantly analyzing something beyond what's productive. And I love the idea of it's beyond what's productive, right? There's thinking about things and reflecting about things. But that is very different than overthinking. When we're overthinking, we keep analyzing something and it's not helping the situation, it's not helping it to become better or be more productive.
And this can happen a lot in education. I think that there are so many situations that teachers are susceptible to this happening. , I think of my own time as a teacher and I overthought all the time. And it can happen in the lessons that you're teaching. Maybe you teach a lesson and it's a little bit.
Controversial or maybe you don't know the content as well, and so you overthink it. You could have overthinking in interactions you had with students. And nowadays, I know there's a lot of thoughts about, oh no, what are they gonna say to their parents? Or parents not gonna support me. , how is a parent going to interact with that?
You might [00:02:00] overthink the things that you say to parents because of how a parent might take something that you say, and maybe even in your evaluation that you get, you might overthink it. Okay, so why do we overthink? , , when we overthink, it really is a lack of confidence in our professional judgment, and that is why most overthinking happens because we are not confident in the decisions that we're making, whether it is lesson planning, we're not confident in that decision.
It's, we're not confident in that student interaction or how we talk to a parent. So again, I felt this a lot. As a new parent, I would overthink conferences or the. Conversations I had with parents. Did I say too much? Did I say too little? Over time, as I became more confident, I stopped overthinking that.
Overthinking can happen a lot for perfectionist. So if you're a perfectionist when it comes to really any area, um, and you want everything you do to be perfect, it's not going to be. So you need to just know that right away. But. I think a lot of perfectionists can overthink things because they want it to be perfect.
They're really hard on themselves [00:03:00] and they just want everything that they do to be perfect. And so if it's not, they overthink it or maybe it is great already and they just think it's not good enough. So there's a lot of overthinking that happens. , and then it could be uncertainty about just making the right choice in teaching, whether it's with.
Data that you're using to guide instruction or lessons that you're planning really making those right choices. I know for me as a new teacher, I taught in a district that we really didn't have great curriculum resources, especially in reading. And when I was in first grade, I felt very confident about my reading instruction.
When I moved to third grade, I. Had a lot of overthinking happening about what I was teaching. Was it good enough because I was planning everything based on the standards and was it to the rigor of the standard and was it what was best for my students? Were they gonna be successful on state testing based on it?
There was a lot of overthinking happening due to a lack of resources and me coming up with. The resources that I thought I needed for students and [00:04:00] being new in that grade level. So there's just so many different reasons that teachers can overthink things and what really happens when we overthink things as teachers is it creates mental fog.
, I just saw a post in a Facebook group where an educator was talking about coming home, feeling so exhausted and having . So much mental fog, and I think that's very true. When we're using our brain so much and we're making so many decisions throughout the day, we can really get that mental fog.
And especially if you think about it, if your brain is overthinking things and it's not productive, it's your, , primitive brain and the, that's in that fight or flight mode, constantly going, it's going to make you feel exhausted. And what happens when you have a lot of mental fog is you lose clarity.
You lose clarity when you need it the most as a teacher. And that's one problem with overthinking. Another one is it really distracts from being in the present, being in the present with your students, being in the present during your lessons with [00:05:00] parents. It makes it hard for you to enjoy those moments and be in the present because you're overthinking, which is thinking about the future.
Or, , maybe you're overthinking something that's going to happen in the future, or you're overthinking something that already happened in the past and you have no control over, but it doesn't keep you in the present moment. And it really can take the joy away from teaching in that present moment.
And then it also erodes at your self trust and it makes you doubt in your own professional abilities. , and that's where that confidence piece comes in. The more you overthink things, you're starting to think, I don't trust myself in this area where I'm not good at it. , you start creating this story, like I said, my example, teaching third grade with the curriculum.
If I overthought a lesson, it. It then trickled. I always saw where I had to bring myself into. I know what I'm doing. I know how to teach. I know what good teaching looks like because of that lack of resources and me constantly, , having to think of the best way to teach and not having a lot of collaboration in that specific scenario. [00:06:00]
And then also overthinking can really complicate decisions that can be pretty straightforward. A lot of times when we overthink, we take decisions that may not even be that hard, and because of a lack of confidence, we make them really hard. Think about that. When you give a student like a simple assessment, it's supposed to be really easy, and then they overcomplicate it, and you're like, , I think you're overthinking this, right?
It makes things a lot harder than they need to be. And then as you overthink, like I said, it can create that mental fog and make you tired. It can take away the joy from teaching and being in the present moment and, , eroding out self-trust and confidence, which then increases your stress and contributes to teacher burnout, which we know is huge.
Which is why this is the Teacher Burnout podcast, right? . Overthinking can lead to that burnout because if you're constantly overthinking, that takes away the joy from everything that you do in teaching. So it's really important that if you are a teacher who overthinks things to really get it in check and think about, okay, how can I focus on being in the [00:07:00] present moment right now?
And so I'm gonna give you three practical strategies that you can use to overcome overthinking.
So the first strategy is identify the root cause of what's causing you to overthink. So really recognize that you're overthinking about something. That's step one is always having that awareness and getting to the cause of it. So think about what's really bothering me about this situation. So it we will take my third grade example of me teaching reading, what's really bothering me about teaching reading, right?
Well, it was bothering me that I didn't have enough resources. It was bothering me that, , I didn't feel like I had the support I needed or that I knew what I was doing. So if I think about , what the solvable problems here, and looking at what I was worrying about all the time, I think I could go back to having a more collaborative approach with the teachers who were there, talking to them, talking to administration, talking to other people, finding out what they're doing, and finding a way to really integrate it into what I was doing.
That was just an example of my specific problem. [00:08:00] What I want you to do for this, for identifying the root cause is really take a minute to journal. I want you to think about, okay, become aware, think about what the specific trigger is in your teaching context, and ask yourself what you're really bothered about.
. Just take time to brain dump. Take time to think about what are the exact thoughts happening. And how are those thoughts creating emotions and negative actions? So for example, I had the thought, I don't know how to teach third grade reading. It was really creating this emotion of overwhelm, , of doubt,
it really led to the action of me planning lessons that weren't as meaningful if I just stuck to what I already knew about what good teaching was. Okay, so that was one. So number one, identify the root cause. Number two, , challenge those unhelpful thought patterns.
So really think about the self-doubt that's happening here and , replace. What if I fail with, what if this works well? So for example, with me teaching and doubting myself and having the thoughts like, I'm not good enough as a [00:09:00] teacher. I don't know what I'm doing in this situation. I don't have the right materials.
Instead of that, replace it with the thought that. I am a good teacher. I know the things to do, and then when I chose something to do, what if I ask myself the question, what if this works well, right? Remember, there are no perfect educational decisions. It's just what you think is best for that group of students that you have in front of you.
So you wanna work on creating a personal mantra, an affirmation, something that helps you during these stressful teaching moments. Planning, maybe it's even talking to a parent, right? You're thinking, oh, if I have this conversation, this is a hard conversation. The parent's gonna be mad at me. And you really overthink what this conversation's gonna be.
And then a lot of times you actually have the conversation. You say the thing and it's fine. I. But you overthink it ahead of time. So what if you just had the thought,, what if it goes well? This parent's gonna be grateful that I'm honest with them about what's happening in the classroom.
So having a mantra, having an [00:10:00] affirmation that you can use for those stressful teaching moments can be really helpful. And then my third tip is to find clarity through decisive action. So you really wanna simplify whatever overthinking is happening. 'cause the biggest thing is overthinking. We make so complicated.
So simplify what's happening if it's in planning. Like for me, what matters most for student learning? Okay, look at those standards. What do I know? What matters most for them to understand the standard. Having clean, simple decisions, that focus on your core educational values and what you know about education.
Break down those complex challenges into just simple, manageable steps. So really what you can do is think about that decision and find clarity by thinking, what is the simplest thing I can do right now?
Simplify that decision. I need to just tell the parent what's the most important thing for them to know in a loving way, right? With data, I always say with data, like people can't argue data. So with data, [00:11:00] with evidence, whatever that is, maybe it's a behavior thing that you need evidence to share. If it's a academic thing, you have the behavior to share.
Whatever that is, break that down. Make it super simple. You're worried to have this tough conversation. You think I have all this data that supports what I'm saying, or I have all this evidence in the classroom that supports what I'm saying, simplify it. Okay, so that's really important when we're overthinking, is that you just simplify the thing that you're overthinking and really, I just want you to think about, overthinking makes teaching so much harder than it needs to be.
You have to trust your professional teaching and experience. The times that I had trusted myself and had confidence in me teaching so much more enjoyable because most of the time I did know what I was talking about. There were times sure I was a new teacher or I was doing something different that I didn't have as much experience.
But overall, I would say most of the time that I doubted myself, I had all of the training and experience that I needed, and it was really me [00:12:00] overthinking it. And if I would've went through the steps. Of making sure I knew the root cause of why I was overthinking. I challenged those unhelpful thought patterns, , and I found clarity and took decisive action.
It could have changed everything for me. So really think about what are the things that you're overthinking? What can you get to the root cause of, and how can you simplify that, right? And have those positive affirmations to help you get there? The goal isn't to be a perfect teacher. But it's to create environments that are meaningful for students and that you enjoy teaching.
And like I said, when we're overthinking all the time, we're taking the joy out of teaching. We're taking the joy out of what we're doing, and we're making it so complicated. And I just wanna really help you think about if there's things in your teaching that you're overthinking. How can you simplify them?
I hope that you found this helpful.
, I would love if you would share this episode with a friend, if you have a teaching friend who you notice overthinks everything. Send this to them. Help them find clarity. Help them take decisive [00:13:00] action and just know that you got this. Whatever you're overthinking, you've got it. You know what you're talking about, and you can do this.
Keep in mind, you have the power to shape your life according to the mindset you choose. I hope you have a great week, and I'll see you back here next time.