The Teacher Burnout Podcast

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[00:00:00] In today's episode, I'm going to share how you can fall in love with teaching again. That's all coming up next right here on the Teacher Burnout Podcast. Stay tuned. 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, I want to talk about the struggles that teachers face when they have lost their passion for teaching and how you can fall in love with teaching again.

I remember being a brand new teacher and just The passion and the love I had for teaching. It was so incredible to just have a job that I was excited to go to and that it felt like not only work, but [00:01:00] a hobby, something I love to do. I loved planning lessons and learning about the curriculum and teaching kids and watching their growth.

It just was such a great feeling and As challenging as teaching can be, it is such a rewarding profession, and it's really sad when teachers lose that passion, and it does happen, you know, throughout your career that you're not going to have the same passion that you did when you first started, but knowing what that felt like, it can be really hard when you lose that passion.

So today, I want to talk about the biggest issues that get in the way of being in love with teaching and having that same passion that you had when you started. And some symptoms I notice from teachers or things I notice that teachers go through are they feel overwhelmed by state and federal mandates.

So teachers find themselves with all of these mandates they have to incorporate and it can be really frustrating because it's not [00:02:00] always ruled out in a time frame that is manageable and actually. is reasonable and where teachers can do it in a meaningful way. And so that can make teachers feel overwhelmed and take some of that joy away.

Also, teaching can cause fatigue and it can cause burnout if boundaries aren't set. So the demands of teaching are a lot, right? There can be long hours if you don't have boundaries set. There's grading, there's lesson planning, and It's just a physically and emotionally exhausting job when you're working with kids and, you know, other humans all day that you're responsible for and you have people relying on you all day.

That is emotionally exhausting and it can be physically exhausting as well. And then After you've been teaching for a while, you can lose some motivation, right? You used to be so engaged in teaching and loving it. And when you have students who lose engagement, sometimes teachers lose engagement because [00:03:00] you feel like you're not making the difference that you wanted to make as a teacher.

Also, you might feel like you're not good enough, which leads to self doubt and burnout. If you're constantly doubting your decisions and doubting the things that you do and you don't feel good enough, that takes the joy away from teaching. And if you lose a connection with students, when you're super overwhelmed or you feel like you have a lot going on, then you become more frustrated and that can put a divide between your personal connections and relationships with the students, which are the things that initially inspired you in teaching and made you so excited about teaching.

Also, student discipline can be challenging. If you have extreme behaviors, that can be really hard to handle because I remember my, it was my second year, I got some students with some extreme behaviors and I did not know how to handle it. It was a learning experience, but you know, you don't learn in college how to handle those extreme behaviors.

[00:04:00] You just have to experience them and do the best that you can. And also in education and in teaching now there's so much pressure of the job with standardized testing and there's just a lot of pressure to make sure students are performing well. Even if you're a kindergarten first or second grade teacher, you don't have that standardized test, but there is a lot of pressure to make sure that they're making progress.

And I do think that's a good thing, but it does take away some of that joy and passion if you're stressed out about it and worrying so much about things that you might not be able to control. And when teachers feel overwhelmed and have all of these things going on, They become distracted by the challenges and the noise in the field of education, and sometimes one mistake I made as a teacher when I would get frustrated, I would try to implement new strategies into my classroom to reignite my excitement, but I didn't.

For me, that would often lead to overwhelm or self doubt [00:05:00] and which would spiral into just more stress and overwhelm. But I want to give you hope that you can fall in love with teaching again and you can find that passion that you first had as a teacher or even in your student teaching. Think about the difference between a new teacher and a veteran teacher.

A huge difference between them is their thoughts about teaching, and your thoughts come from experiences and what you know about teaching, but if we change our thoughts, then we can change our emotions and we can change our actions. And so, just knowing that you have the power to change how you think about teaching is a really powerful thought.

That's pretty amazing. So just having that hope and knowing that it can change for you is really important. And I've seen teachers who were burnt out come back from burnout. As long as they were aware of what was causing that burnout and they were willing to put in the work, because I think one of the things we see is that people love teaching [00:06:00] and love education because of all the breaks we get and the days off and the snow days, depending on where you live and.

Those things are great, but if you're not still passionate about teaching, those things are not enough to keep you in education. And those things, those breaks, the days off, they're not going to help you overcome burnout. You have to have strategies in place to help with your mindset, and they're not going to help you love teaching.

So, today I want to share five actionable steps that teachers can use to fall in love with teaching again. So the first thing is to revisit your initial reasons for wanting to be a teacher. So I want you to take some time and go back in your brain and think about your student teaching experience or your first year as a teacher.

When you were new, I even go back to some of my field experiences and really think about what you loved about teaching. I love to think about those moments when I felt so proud to just be able to walk the kids to their specials. Like something so [00:07:00] simple as a new teacher, I just thought was amazing that they left me in charge of all these kids and I got to help them, even if it was something as simple as navigating them to where they were going.

Like, I love that. I loved every little aspect of it. And so when I think about those little moments, it helps me. Become more grateful of the journey and the path that it took me to get to where I am. And it helps me remember that I got into teaching because I love kids. I love helping kids. I love watching kids grow.

And so just taking that time to really think about those specific moments, those specific experiences that inspired you to become an educator. You know, Remember the joy you felt when you made a positive impact on a student's life or saw them light up. They had a light bulb moment because they understood something.

I can remember student teaching and I had this moment where my cooperating teacher was not there that day. [00:08:00] So there was a sub, but she just left me in charge to teach and the students didn't understand a lesson and the lesson went terrible and they went to specials and all. During specials, I was figuring out how I was going to reteach this lesson.

And when the kids came back, I retaught it and they got it. And it was just the best feeling that it was like, okay, I was teaching it in a way they weren't getting it. I was able to change what I was doing and I helped them get it. It was a difficult concept. And so just thinking about moments. Like that.

It's just exciting to know that you have the power to make such an influence on a kid. So connecting with that again, connecting with your passion, and just connecting with subjects or areas of teaching that excite you. And we're exciting to you as a new teacher. Number two, rediscover your purpose for teaching. Create a personal purpose statement that really gets to what your mission is as an educator.

And I think thinking of a [00:09:00] personal purpose statement is really important because I like to say my purpose statement as I'm walking into the building. That way, if it's a really hard day or I'm struggling to get to school because we all have days like that. We can think and go back to what our purpose is and use that as we're walking into the building.

Use that as we're struggling. So I wanted to just give two examples. So a purpose statement can just be a sentence. It can be longer than that if you want to explain it. But two examples are I'm here to inspire a love for learning and foster a supportive environment where students can thrive. And the second example is my purpose is to ignite a passion for math.

and empower students to excel in the subject. So you could have a general one and then one that is more, based on the subject that you teach. But you really want to think about what values and principles you have that guide your teaching philosophy and why you became an educator. And also visualize the kind of teacher you want to [00:10:00] be and think about the impact that you want to make on your students lives.

Visualization is a wonderful technique for making things happen. There's actually research that when you visualize something enough, It's the same as doing it. So when you visualize yourself teaching a lesson successfully or helping students, it is going to be easier to accomplish that. So think about the legacy you want to leave behind in the field of education.

What do you want kids to say about you? You know, humans need to feel like they have meaning and purpose in their life. So how do you want to get that from education? What do you want that to look like? Take some time to reflect on that. And that is going to help you really rediscover your purpose and why you're in education.

And number three, focus on growing and changing. I think it's so important that we're always learning and growing as human beings. So keep learning the newest teaching strategies and trends in education. I know sometimes that can be difficult. In the elementary grades in [00:11:00] Ohio, we've been rolling out the science of reading.

And I will say that has been a difficult shift for people. And one of the reasons for that is It's a totally different way of teaching reading than we were taught in college, and that's a hard thing to think about, that we were teaching something the way that it really shouldn't have been taught, right?

We beat ourselves up about that, and we want to take all the blame, but it's just as we keep learning things, we just have to keep growing and changing. So instead of worrying about that or beating ourselves up about things, we just need to keep growing and changing. Don't get stuck teaching the same things.

We don't want to be teaching the same lessons each year, year after year, that align. You want to be changing the things that you're doing. If you need to, change your grade level, change the role that you're in.

Maybe you have a specialization like in math or reading that you can be a coach. Maybe, you know, you've lost some of your passion in teaching because you're ready to take the next steps. I know for me, [00:12:00] When I was a teacher, I started to just get bored with it a little bit because I was ready to make a bigger impact.

You know, I could see the bigger picture for the school and I wanted to make a bigger impact. And so I knew I was ready to step up to administration. And so if you're feeling like that and feeling stuck, maybe you just need something different in the path of education and in your career, because If your purpose is still to help kids, there's so many ways that you can do that.

And then also continue to do not only professional development, but personal development and keep growing in your personal life. When you're growing personally, it's going to create overall happiness. When I work with my private clients, we work on things like health and fitness and weight loss because when you're thriving in those areas, you're also happier in your teaching career.

It all goes together. It's not one or the other. We're a whole person and so we have to look at ourselves as a whole person and [00:13:00] focus on growing and changing as a whole person. and the fourth action step is to explore engaging and enjoyable teaching strategies. So think about the teaching activities and the subjects that bring you the most joy.

What can you do that you think is fun and just engaging for kids that you love? For example, for me, it's read alouds. I love reading to the kids. I love having discussions about books. And so if I'm having a rough day or, the discipline is rough, then I would Transition to reading a story.

That always brought me back and kind of grounded me in what I love about teaching. And so think about what those activities are for you. And if you have activities that are like that, but they don't align with your current curriculum or the standards you're teaching, try to brainstorm creative ways to incorporate them in.

But find those activities that you find engaging and enjoyable and want to teach, and that'll keep you wanting to teach and help keep that passion for teaching. [00:14:00] And then number five, cultivate healthy habits. Like I said, we have to look at ourselves as a whole person. And by prioritizing self care, it's setting boundaries, it's ensuring a healthy work life balance.

And so self care is include your exercise, your mindset work, um, your nutrition. And when I'm talking about your mindset work, I'm talking about meditating to slow down your mind, journaling to get out your thoughts, reframing your thoughts, taking negative thoughts and making them more positive thoughts.

So there's a lot of different things you can do in self care. And then also make sure that you're organizing your tasks efficiently and managing the things that you need to do so that you're reducing feelings of overwhelm. So having healthy habits are really important for this. And exercise is a way that helps with my overwhelm so much, because if I take that time to even just walk, it helps slow down my mind, and it helps me think about different things.

[00:15:00] So having things that you do for yourself Where it's your time, it's, you know, time to focus on being a better version of you is really important. So again, use these five steps to help you fall in love with teaching again. So number one, revisit your initial reasons for wanting to be a teacher. Number two, rediscover your purpose.

Number three, focus on growing and changing. Number four, explore engaging and enjoyable teaching strategies, and number five, cultivate healthy habits. So thanks so much for joining us today for another episode of the Teacher Burnout Podcast. If you want to take the next steps in falling in love with teaching again, you can go to my Instagram at barbflowerscoaching.

and download my Fall in Love with Teaching resource that I have. Just click the link in my bio, and it includes tips, positive affirmations, and a goal setting sheet. So you can dig into this topic a little bit deeper, and I'll put the link in the show notes as well.[00:16:00] . If you love the show. If you're listening on Apple, scroll down in your app and leave a review. Thanks for listening and we'll see everyone next time.