The Teacher Burnout Podcast

Mastering the Art of Setting Boundaries: 3 Key Steps for Success
[00:00:00] And today's episode. I want to talk about how to master, setting successful boundaries with three key steps. 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 help you master, setting successful boundaries. I think this is such an important topic, and I'm so happy that we are talking about this as we get ready for the beginning of the school year, because I think that the beginning of the school year is such a great time to revisit what boundaries you have and think about what boundaries needed to be set last school year, that maybe you did not set boundaries. And focus on setting those boundaries this school year.
So boundaries are really important for helping us maintain [00:01:00] our mental health and have that work-life balance. And when I speak of work-life balance, I'm not talking about we're at work 50% of the time, and we're at home 50% of the time, but I'm talking about that we mentally can be present and be where we're at.
When we're at work, we're present with our work. And when we're at home, we're able to be present with our families and with our friends. Benz and ourselves and have that time that we need to focus on ourselves and our family. Instead of being at work or in the work mindset all the time. And having those boundaries. Helps you so that you don't get to the point of burnout. When you don't set boundaries, you get to a point where eventually you will get burnt out. It might be later on, you might think you're doing fine and you don't need to set boundaries, but eventually you'll get to a point where you realize you should have set boundaries and you're going to get burnout. The first thing I want to talk about is the problem I see with most people and setting boundaries. , there's a misconception that it's too late to set a boundary and I've been guilty of this too, is something [00:02:00] happens.
And you're like, oh, I should've set that boundary. And you feel like it's too late to establish that healthy boundary, but I just want to let you know, it's never too late. If you notice that something needed to be set, you can always go back and set that boundary. Another problem I always see is. , people who are people, pleasers are afraid of hurting people's feelings.
So they want to people please. And they say yes to things, even if they don't want to do them because they don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. And so they put their own thoughts and feelings aside to please others. And the problem with that is it really messes with our own self care. It messes with our mental health.
It leads us to feeling overwhelmed when we do that. And it messes with that work-life balance. So making sure that you are setting boundaries and not just focusing on other people's feelings. So now I want to talk about three key steps to successful boundary creation. So step one is to identify the boundary being broken and why it's a problem. [00:03:00] Start to recognize when you're feeling signs of stress, overwhelm and potential burnout.
You really want to be aware in your body and your mindset and your mood. How are you talking to people? How are you feeling? I think sometimes we get so busy that we don't even slow down to think about how overwhelmed or stressed we are. As I've been doing a lot of mindset work , and have been working on my own coaching. I can now start to notice like, oh, I'm not in a good space.
Like I'm,, doing too much. I'm feeling like I'm inadequate. . Like I'm never going to get all this stuff done. And I can now catch it because I know what it feels like to be in that space. And when I catch it, I can talk myself down and get to a better place. So you need to be able to recognize those signs of stress, overwhelm and burnout. And you have to analyze, why do you have so much on your plate?
So for me, when I noticed I have a lot on my plate, I start to think, okay, so what's causing me the stress what's causing me overwhelm. What things can I take off my plate? Are there things that I need to be saying [00:04:00] no to. And a lot of times what you find is that you've been saying yes to things that you really don't want to do. So find those tasks that you want to say no to what are tasks that don't align with your priorities or commitments that don't serve your goals? So figure out what specific boundaries you need to set.
Is it with a particular person? Is it regarding a certain commitment that you've signed up for? , think about various aspects of your life and what boundary you need to set. So, in my experience, when I was a teacher, when I first started teaching. I also was an exercise instructor in. I was at a gym where I had a lot of friends there.
I was in a group at the gym. I had a free membership. I had an amazing boss, so motivating great relationship with her. I learned so much from her, the drawbacks to this job was it was additional stress. It was stress after teaching and me working all day.
And then I had to think about going to another job. I wasn't that confident in teaching exercise classes, [00:05:00] because I really didn't spend the time that I needed to practice and get better at it because I had so many other things that I was doing. So then when I taught, even though I enjoyed it because I enjoyed exercise, I was constantly nervous.
And I just, I had this feeling like when I was doing it, it wasn't fun. I had friends who were exercise instructors. They loved it. They practiced all the time. That just wasn't me. However, I still continue to do it because I didn't want to tell people that as much as I love to exercise, I didn't love teaching it that much or. I felt like I needed to help out the gym because I had so many friends that work there and I was part of this community.
And so what happened was it created this stressor on me. I'd be working and teaching and thinking about how I had to go teach kickboxing that night at six o'clock or yoga. , and so it just, wasn't another stressor that really overwhelmed me, but I did it for a couple of years because I did not want to tell anybody that I didn't want to teach anymore.
I didn't want to let people [00:06:00] down. And so it did have this high toll on my mental and emotional health. And I didn't realize that until now, looking back. But if I could tell my younger self something, it would be to set that boundary and to not do it and people please, because. I was not doing it out of a love for teaching fitness.
I was doing it. Because I had friends that did it and I was pleasing others. And so my reason for doing it was not a great reason. I also think about teachers when they sign up for committees, right. You always want to sign up for a committee that really aligns with your goals as a teacher. When I was early on in my career. As a teacher, I actually have been an administrator longer than a teacher, but I knew I wanted to be an administrator.
So I signed up for committees that were leadership, committees that aligned with my goals. So for example, I was a department chair. For my grade level. I was on our building leadership team committees. That really would help me in my future of being a principal.
But there are some teachers in the school that I was in. Who didn't have [00:07:00] that. They didn't want to be a principal. They didn't want to be a leader, but maybe. They wanted to help with our spirit committee or maybe they wanted to help with PPIs because they loved helping kids with difficult behaviors. Right.
So find a committee that really serves your goals. What you want to do in the future is something you enjoy and it aligns with your priorities in teaching. My second step is to change your mindset about addressing boundaries. So like I said, that idea of people pleasing. We have to stop and realize that how others react to you, setting a boundary is not your responsibility.
It's not your problem. You have to develop confidence in prioritizing your mental wellbeing. And that's where coaching has made such a huge impact on me is that I've realized that, I am in control of my confidence. I'm in control of my mindset. And so I have to do things that are right for me.
And if it's not right for other people, I'm sorry, that's not my problem. Right. It's kind of like that saying that other people's opinions of you are not your business. It's the same [00:08:00] thing. If you set a boundary and people aren't happy about it, it's not your business. Not your problem. , So I wanted to give some examples of some scenarios that might happen as teachers and then ways that we can reframe them.
So think about if you're asked to work on a committee, that's unpaid. And you don't want to do the committee. Well, maybe you have this thought. If I don't volunteer for this committee, my principal will think I'm not dedicated to the school. And I've heard this a lot. So if you have that thought, I want you to reframe. By focusing on my core teaching responsibilities, I'm making sure I deliver the best possible education for my students.
So if you have this thought about, you know, your principal's going to be mad that you're not on the committee. I reframe it to, I would rather spend that time focusing on being the best teacher I can be for my students. And if you have that thought. You start to think, well, what principal wouldn't want that?
Right. So really reframe that thought. Another one, , that I hear a lot from teachers is not responding [00:09:00] to emails or messages after school hours. So if your thought is parents are going to be upset with me. If I don't answer their emails immediately. Even if it's in the evening and I'm with my family, I want you to reframe it that by maintaining a work-life balance, I'm modeling healthy boundaries for both students and parents and ensuring I'm refreshed and fully present during school hours.
If you take that reframe what parent wouldn't want their child's teacher to come in. Having healthy boundaries, feeling refreshed, feeling present during that school day. I've had conversations with my teachers too, because during teaching I would come in and they're on their cell phones and they're not texting, you know, friends or family, they're messaging parents.
And I said, think about that. If I'm a parent, would I rather, my child's teacher be messaging me when they should be teaching because they feel they need to respond right away or get back to me six hours later because they're teaching and they're doing a good job being present with the kids. And teaching them. So you really have to reframe [00:10:00] that. ,
I want to give an, a, another example of school supplies, maybe their school supplies that you want for your classroom, and you have the thought I have to buy these school supplies, or my students won't be able to learn, but you don't have the money to buy them, or you don't want to spend your personal money.
I want you to reframe that. I'm going to talk to my principal or whoever is in charge of purchasing and see if I could get these school supplies. If not, I'm going to have to hold off. That's a hard reframe, but I remember this as a new teacher or a younger teacher where I didn't have a lot of money.
And there were teachers who had been teaching for years and could spend money on their classrooms. I did not have the money to spend. And I always just felt like my kids need that I have to buy it, but what if you reframed it to. I'm going to talk to a person who can purchase that. As a principal. I can say my experience with us as. Sometimes they didn't know what teachers needed.
And I would say we do have a budget for that. And you have to let me know what you need. So reframing can really help you change your mindset about where you need to set boundaries and [00:11:00] what those boundaries mean. And so if I go back to my example of the exercise classes, I finally set a boundary with the exercise classes, but I started small.
So first I set the boundary. I will only be put on the schedule to sub and I'll only sub once a week. Okay. And then when I set that boundary, my boss was fine with it. She was like, okay, whatever works for you. And I realized that that fear that I had was my own thinking about it. It had nothing to do with her.
It was my own thoughts about pleasing others, about others. And really, I thought I was so important that I was like the only exercise instructor that could be there teaching right. There were so many other exercise instructors. That could teach the classes. So I just was putting it on myself that I needed to be there.
And I couldn't set that boundary.
Step three, my third step for setting boundaries, be clear and consistent about the boundary. So make sure you communicate what the boundary is and you're consistent in maintaining that boundary. Once it's set. So [00:12:00] my example of exercise classes, right? I said, I will be a sub for exercise classes once a week. When I create that boundary, what's really important is that I stick to that boundary.
I was clear about it and then I need to stick to it. So if people ask me to sub and I already committed to one class that week, I need to say no to the other classes. And, you know, that can be really hard to say no to people, but I need to say no because it's good for me and my mental health and my wellbeing.
And so making sure that you're consistent with those boundaries is going to be the most important way that you're going to be able to keep those boundaries in place. Because as soon as I say, oh, I'll teach two to three or I, one week I sub two to three classes
then what happens is that people don't believe my boundary.
When I said I'd only sub one exercise class. They don't even believe it because they've seen me sub two or three a week. So making sure that we stick to those boundaries and we're consistent with what we say is really important. We know that working with kids, right, we have to be consistent with kids [00:13:00] and we have to be consistent with others when we're setting those boundaries.
So I just want to review our three key steps to successful boundary creation.
So step one. Identify the boundary being broken and why it's a problem. Step to change your mindset about addressing the boundary. Step three, be clear and consistent about the boundary. So whatever boundary you need to set, start small. Like I said, with the exercise example, I started small by subbing.
And then once I did that, I subbed a little bit and then realized I didn't even want to do that. So then I felt confident enough to say, Hey, I no longer want to teach. And I just stopped. And I never taught again. So, And it really made me happy as a teacher because I could work all day and didn't have to think about going to teach exercise classes at night. So I just encourage you that wherever you have a boundary that needs to be set, address what that boundary is and set it. And like I said, at the beginning of the school year is a great time to really think about last year and maybe some boundaries that should have [00:14:00] happened and set those for the beginning of the year.
Parent communication is a great boundary to set for the beginning of the year. The number one thing you have to do though, is stay consistent and follow through with that boundary. Because remember having those boundaries are going to help your overall wellbeing, it's going to help you reduce overwhelm. And it's going to help you mitigate burnout.
So I really encourage you to think about those boundaries and stay consistent.
I also want to invite you into the resilient educator academy for more opportunities for coaching on setting boundaries. In this academy, what I do, it's a group coaching program. It's a membership. And so every month I have two membership calls right now I'm offering a special where you can get two one-on-one sessions with me when you purchase a resilient educator academy.
So we'll meet, we'll talk about specific things to you and I'll help you address those challenges. So if boundaries are a challenge for you, Join me in the resilient educator academy, you can get some group coaching. You can get two one-on-one sessions. And we'll address the [00:15:00] issues that you're having.
And I can coach you through these people, pleasing tendencies, if that's the issue. And really help you to set those boundaries so that you can have better overall health and wellbeing. Thank you so much for joining me on another episode of the teacher burnout podcast. Make sure to follow me on Instagram at bark flowers, coaching.com.
If you like the show, share this episode with a friend. Keep in mind, you have the power to shape your life. According to the mindset that you choose. I hope you have a great week and I'll see you back here next time.