Breaking the Cycle of Competitive Misery: Why Teachers Should Support Each Other

  Okay, educator friends, welcome to this week's show. I'm gonna make a big  effort to try and not be so excitable when I talk to slow down because I'm actually really fired up about something. I had a different podcast episode scheduled that I was going to record today and then this one issue has come up with me coaching people three times in the last day and a half and it's kind of I think it's ramping up this time of year and I want us to talk about it, become aware of it, make sure that we are not engaging in it because it's not helpful.

It's about teachers not being supportive of each other in all kinds of ways. But the most kind of insidious one, insidious is that the way that maybe you're not aware of, but I see a lot of it, is this idea of  of competitive misery. So we're going to dive into what is that? Why is it harmful? And how can we be supportive of each other instead?

And let me tell you that there are so many days in education that you feel everyone's against you. And  we need to have each other's backs. We really do. We don't need to be bitter. Besties with everybody we work with. We don't need to, you know, hang out with them outside of work, but in a professional capacity, my Lord, we need to have each other's backs.

So what is competitive misery? We're going to get into it. I will see you on the inside.  Welcome to the Balance Your Teacher Life podcast, where we talk all things avoiding educator burnout, setting healthy boundaries, and achieving better work life balance.  If you're passionate about education, but tired of it consuming your whole life, you have found your home in the podcast universe.

I'm your host, Grace Stevens, and let's get going with today's show. 

I was having a discussion, I actually, I was being interviewed yesterday by somebody and they asked me what is one of the biggest, most positive changes I have taken towards authentic self care, which I laughed because I said, gosh, I just recorded an episode on that and if I'm being completely honest, one of the best things I ever did for myself was step away for social media for a pretty significant amount of time and something that I had loved I had loved, I had really actually enjoyed was being on TikTok.

And I've never been really, barely have an Instagram. My daughter started it for me, I'll be honest. But TikTok, there were so many passionate teachers on there and I really found it enjoyable.  Until I didn't. And I realized that there were these two factions, okay? There was teacher quick talk, and then there was all the teachers who were, you know, all the reasons they're leaving teaching, of which there are many, and which are all valid, and which we should never shame people for leaving teaching if they want to.

Okay, there is no point adding guilt to that mix and that stress on a very personal decision that people need to make. Okay, so there's teacher quick talk and then there's like what I want to call the other side. Oh, the other side of TikTok, which was, you know, hashtag teacher life, which is everybody who is all about teaching teacher style box, you know, teacher drink of the week, you know, being ultra competitive about their classrooms and all those things, which is also very valid.

Wonderful. You know, if you, if you're into hashtag, you know, teacher life, everything about your life is teaching, and that's awesome. I might encourage you to go back and  listen to one of my episodes that I did record on the dangers of that.  How identifying 100 percent your worth with your work is not particularly healthy.

I'll see you next time. But regardless, I had stepped away from social media because of that.  And what really kind of bugged me about that was I felt there wasn't a lot of support, right? I felt like it was one side or another. And I feel regardless, teachers should support each other. Okay. It's hard enough that we have to, you know, feel like we're battling with everybody.

We shouldn't have to battle with each other, whatever choices teachers are making for themselves, their own mental health, their own physical health, their financial health, we should be, you know, Supportive of that. You don't really know what anybody else's life looks like. And you can, two things can co exist, right?

I talk about that a lot. You can love teaching  and be frustrated at student behavior. Right? You can love teaching and be exhausted and get the Sunday night blues and not want to show up in the morning and be literally counting down the hours, the periods until summer break. Okay, so nothing is ever black or white, one or the other.

Feelings coexist. Okay, so that's point number one, but this other thing  that I really want to talk about that has come up a couple of times above and beyond this, you know, you're one camp or you're the other is this idea of competitive misery. Now what is that? That is this kind of, it's not just in education.

Like I first came across it when I used to write about relationships. And I used to, you know, talk about, write about how, if you're keeping your marriage on a spreadsheet,  parents, you know what I mean.  You are counting how many times your husband went out with his golf buddies compared to how many times you went out with your girlfriends, you know, who had.

How much free time, who got less sleep, who has the more stressful job, who has  contributed more financially or spent more financially or who's done more chores, right? You got this kind of mental spreadsheet where you think there's some kind of inequity. Now the thing with if there's a spreadsheet, you know, somebody is winning and somebody is losing.

And in a relationship, I always say if one of you is winning, you're winning. You're both losing. It's a partnership. Okay, but I see that we do this with our teacher friends or our teacher colleagues all the time. It's this kind of one upmanship and here's what it might look like is you run into somebody and they're like oh my gosh and I'm so stressed and you know you won't believe what this kid did today.

And validating I teach a strategy called validate and bounce, and I can talk about it in a minute if you hold on on why I teach that. But, you know, suddenly you're like, oh, well, that's, that's nothing. In my class, I have this. Right? And so what I've been seeing on social media is the same thing. I had belonged to a couple of forums to give support for teachers and also for admins. 

And I would see somebody ask a question and then all of a sudden, Oh, well, you're just a PE teacher or this teacher or that teacher. Like, and it's this big thing about I have way more students than you. And I have you know, way less prep periods than you and I have way more report cards to do than you like really just being competitive about it.

So here's the issues about that, right? First off,  you're kind of normalizing excessive stress and burnout, right? When you constantly dismissing or minimalizing each other's struggles, you're not really.  It's really this kind of toxic culture of competitive misery. Who has it worse? And I feel like on some kind of subliminal me  It perpetuates all of these unrealistic expectations, and kind of normalizes unsustainable workloads.

Like if somebody said to me, oh my gosh, I can't believe I had to write, you know, 200 report cards last night. You know, instead of saying, well, I had to, you know, I teach lower grades and, you know, we just can't get our grades out of the computer. We got to, you know, write something, right? Instead of saying, oh my word.

That's ridiculous. I'm so sorry you had to do that, right? Instead of validating people, we're just piling on. And in this kind of really  not healthy way, it kind of  makes that normal.  Secondly, on a purely human level, that's like a complete lack of empathy and emotional support, right? Everybody's feelings are valid.

I had this conversation with somebody today who was very upset about something And and then they said to me, Oh my gosh, well, I feel really bad about telling you this because, you know, you've had this, you know, big thing in your life that you've been dealing with. And I had to look at her and just hold her hand and say, my God, everybody's trauma is valid.

It's not a competition. My life is worse than yours right now. Like if you're upset about something. You're upset about something, okay, and that is 100 percent valid. Everybody's situation is unique. Everybody's going through different things. Their capacity to deal with things, everybody's is at a different level, right?

Depending on how burnt out, how exhausted, how filled up their bucket is, right? So, being dismissive with other people, really, And that really helps or kind of hinders them from feeling heard and understood. And that really leads to burnout and low morale. Okay. So that's number two, like you just being a crappy human.

I'm just going to say it. Number three is we're really missing out on opportunities for collective advocacy. Right. When we're infighting,  we're not really, you know, uniting for positive change. Okay, we should be uniting for positive change, right? We should, it's getting overshadowed by when we're engaging in this little, you know, kind of one up ship.

And it's perpetuating this cycle of struggle instead of addressing root causes. Okay, can you hear my voice is It's getting quicker is what I said I wasn't going to do because I, I'm getting the red chest. I'm getting kind of annoyed about it. So let me tell you about, of course, we should have a culture of empathy and active listening.

We should listen to other teachers without judgment. We should validate each other's experiences, right? We should offer emotional support without just trying to problem solve, okay?  I know that. We know that, right? It's difficult.  It's difficult. We're all so overwhelmed. We're all so busy. And here's where I'm going to talk about validate and bounce.

There are people genuinely having a bad day.  Genuinely having a bad day. They need support. They need empathy. They need your time. There are people who genuinely have a bad attitude.  Know the difference between somebody having a bad day and somebody having a bad attitude. And the person who's having a bad attitude who always tracks you down and always complains about something and always has a  problem for every solution, who wants to gossip and about other people or how ridiculous things are or just basically what I call  politely admiring the problem.

Basically means just complaining, bitching, okay, that's what they're doing. Okay, those people, yeah, those people can suck the life out of you. You know who they are, you engage with them and when you, you know, let's say I was just bouncing around, being my normal self, living my best teacher life and you know, I, I run into this person and I get caught up with them for like 15 minutes,  you know, and when I walk away, I'm walking like Yoda.

You know, like I'm bent over and I'm like, I've aged. Okay. So, you know, those people, that's when you validate and bounce. So what does that look like? You validate. Oh my gosh, that sounds hard. Oh God, that's terrible. I'm so sorry. And then you bounce. It means you find a polite way of getting out the conversation.

The worst thing to do. is competitive misery. Because if you're like, oh well that's nothing, this happened. Now I used to do that thinking that was empathetic. Thinking like, oh I have the same problem. Like thinking that that would make people feel better. What it came across though, was I was trying to one up somebody. 

Okay. And worse than that is what Hatchley did was just pre law prolong the conversation.  Like you want to get out of there. Okay. You don't want to pro, you know, cause then you're off to the races then. Oh, and then this happened. Oh yeah, that's nothing. And then this happened and then blah, blah, blah. You know what I'm saying?

It's just prolonging the conversation and it isn't coming across as empathy. It's coming across as, you know, the person's getting irritated that you're always trying to one up them or else you're just having this, you know, pity party about how awful everything is, which if the person's your teacher bestie, there is a time for venting.

Okay. There is, but we're not talking about that situation. We're talking about the, you know, the campus negative nelly or negative net. Okay. Validate and bounce. What does it look like? Validate. Oh my gosh. That sounds hard to them. It is. In their mind, they really are having it worse than everybody else.

That sounds so hard. Hey, you know what? I, I gotta be somewhere, but I hope your day gets better.  Right? And you can be sincere about it. Oh  golly, that's a rough one. I'm sorry. Hey, you know what? I gotta, I gotta bounce. But  really, I'm thinking of you. I hope your day gets better. Validate and bounce. Don't participate in  competitive misery for all the reasons I said, okay?

I can't even remember them. I was all like okay, the reasons were, right? Normalizing excessive stress and burnout, right? Lack of empathy and emotional support, like not being a good human. Number three, missing this opportunity for collective advocacy, okay? So, validate and bounce, recognize that different people have different limitations on different days.

As to we all, we are all. human, right? Avoid in comparison, respect personal boundaries, right? And, you know,  just be a good human, all right? So, lead by example, by setting healthy boundaries. And if people seem upset about that,  You know, one person I worked with said, Oh my gosh, you know, these passive aggressive comments I get now that I'm setting  healthy boundaries, you know, and leaving a reasonable hour and somebody else on my team says, huh, must be nice.

You know what,  that's their problem,  right? That is their problem. They are probably jealous. Like how do you manage to get it together? Right. You know, you don't need to be sarcastic and say, yeah, it's nice. But, you know, you can be plain and say, yeah, hey, thanks for recognizing that I've been working really hard on keeping my promises to myself  and my family to leave at a reasonable hour.

Right. I've been working on my boundaries. Thanks for recognizing that. Okay. Have each other's back. Don't be all judgy of the person who leaves every day.  At the right time. You don't know what their life looks like. Maybe they're rushing home to take care of an aging parent, a sick child. You never know.

You know, maybe their dog has a bladder function that only lasts eight hours. If they're not right home at that time, the dog's going to pee on the carpet. You just don't know. And you know what? It's not your business. Right? Stay in your lane. That's where I'm at. Okay. All right. So,  as you can tell, I was a little fired up about that.

It seems to have come up again and again the last couple of days. So, I did want to just make this quickie episode about you, about it. You know, I know everybody, just assume the best intentions. Assume. Everybody is doing the best they can with the skills they have with the situation in which they find themselves.

If you can extend that grace to people,  life gets easier. And I do believe that's why we're all here. We want our lives to be easier, more joyful.  Thank you for tuning in. If you think that somebody else that you know, another colleague, an admin, somebody could benefit from this type of information, please share the podcast with them.

And here's something beautiful you can do. You can help teachers you've never even met. And if you help other teachers, guess what? You're also impacting their students. It's a beautiful thing. Okay. And how can you do that? You can let Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, wherever you're listening to this, know that this is valuable content and they should be sharing it, right?

It's like it's a big secret. The easy way to do that is just scroll on your app. Every app is different. Just make it easy for yourself. Smash the, the bell, the notifications bell or the five stars or whatever. You know that. You know, it's kind of a weird way to spend my day is talking to myself into a mic in a room and then thrown out to the universe and hoping it lands somewhere.

So any tiny bit of feedback that you give me as far as likes or a comment or a review is so treasured and appreciated by me and I really mean that. So if you have a moment to do that I would really appreciate it. But in the meantime, I want to tell you, have each other's backs, friends, and I. Proud of you for showing up and trying to create a better experience for yourself and I believe in your power to create your own path  and bring your own sunshine.

Talk to you next time.