Teacher Burnout : 5 Signs to Recognize Before It's Too Late

 All right teacher friends, today on the podcast we're talking all about the big B word, burnout. So  really it's the difference between having a bad day, which happens to all of us, that nobody is immune. I don't care what district, what wonderful students, how excited and passionate you are about, not every day in the classroom is a great day, right?

So everybody has a bad day. But what when that bad day starts being  what some people might start to think is maybe a bad attitude, right? That constant sense of being exhausted, stressed, overwhelmed, feeling like it's never going to get any better. So when does that tipping point happen where we go from teacher tired, which is normal, into tired of teaching?

That's burnout. Okay. So in this episode, we're going to talk all the things, the five warning signs before it's too late. And because I'm all about the empowerment, what can we do to make it better? Cause it is possible. Cannot wait. For you to listen to this episode, it's a good one. 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. 

Okay. So burnout, what is it? It is chronic. Okay. Not just like I said before the bad day, maybe even the bad week, but it's the chronic exhaustion you feel cynicism,  um, creeping in you feeling to think that you're not even effective anymore. Right. And it's not just a problem for, um, work. For school, for campus, for, oh my gosh, my professional life.

It actually becomes a life problem. You know what? It just sucks the life force out of you.  Sometimes when we're really stressed we think, oh my gosh, you know, I live for the weekend. But, you know, when you really have burnout, you don't.  When the weekend comes you don't even participate in it, right? Like you just are trying, you're in survival mode, you're not enjoying it even when you're not at work, you're worried about work, you're stressed about work, right?

So,  um, I don't know if you listened to episode 16 where I did a big deep dive in the difference between compassion fatigue and burnout. Okay, so there are two different things. Some of the overlap, they might feel the same, but they have two different causes.  And so this one's going to be all about the burnout.

So let me just give you a brief recap on that. But again, it was episode 16. You can go back and listen. So the compassion fatigue is really the emotional and physical exhaustion that comes from chronic. Exposure to others, trauma and stress, right? It's sometimes called secondary traumatic stress, right?

And so that's just, you know, absorbing and worrying about your students, all of their trauma, their abuse, um, things that they've been going through that, you know, they're going through and resulting in challenging behaviors, which is maybe even making trauma for yourself. Right. And so what you have then is increased anxiety, right?

You're dreading going to work. You're hypervigilant. You're on the lookout for all of this. And then you just start to get decreased empathy, right? You just, your capacity to be empathetic anymore has just gone. Um, you have mood changes, right? So that's compassion fatigue and that is  based on, you know, like I said, I taught in a Title I school for 16 years.

There was a lot of trauma those kids had and we're really taught, you know, oh, trauma informed teaching, like a lot of us have those skills, social emotional learning, but what about us? Who takes care of us, right? So that's a different issue. Go back to, um, episode 16 if you're interested in that. What we're talking about is burnout, right?

So again, the chronic workplace stress, right? It's characterized by exhaustion, cynicism, um, you start feeling detached from work, you're irritable, you feel loss of purpose, right? And it's really Based on work conditions and a lack of work life balance, right? It's prolonged work and overload, prolonged stress, and just this whole lack of balance in your life, which is what this podcast is all about.

Okay, so here are the five signs, right? I promised you five signs to watch out for before it's too late. Now the good news is you can all of this. We can, we can move beyond, okay. I'm all about the empowerment. So  stick around for the rest of the episode where I give you some tools, some strategies, some tips to overcome the burnout.

But first off,  let's talk about the signs. Cause you, you might not know that you're going there, but the very first thing I want to tell you is. First off, let go of the stinking shame, right? We get no training for this. Burnout in education is an occupational hazard.  Any other job where there was an occupational hazard, you would get trained for it, okay?

Let's say that you work in a kitchen, okay? You would have training on proper handling, you know, of food. Um, of not contaminating things, of how to, you know, hold knives properly so you don't cut yourself. You get what I'm saying? All the things. Now, at the beginning of the year, a lot of us have to watch safety videos, right?

Hours of this thing, blood borne pathogens. How many times have I sat through that? You know, 20 years of sitting through that training, you know, basically put on gloves. I mean, I don't know what else to say about that, right? Um, about grooming of students, about just all the things that we sit through. I don't, you know, I'm in California.

Maybe we sit through more of them than in other states. But, you know, in our insurance company for the school made us sit through a lot of stuff. None of them really approach or talk about burnout. We should be trained to recognize the signs. We should have resources to help us overcome this. We do not.

So let go of the shame, right? It's, it's, it's how are you not going to get burnt out at some point based on all the things that you need to do, which have nothing to do with the job that you signed up for, right? Okay, so that's number one, to get the shame out the way. Don't, like, if you're like, uh oh, I feel like I'm getting burnt out, you know, that, that, how could you not?

Okay, but here are the signs. So the first one, of course, is the physical and the emotional exhaustion, right? You are just Teacher tired, right? Teacher tired all the time. You feel like, I remember feeling like I used to drag my carcass, um, to school. I used to walk to school and sometimes my feet would just drag, right?

Like, oh my gosh, how can I be this tired? Even though I went to bed and I didn't get proper rest, right? So physically I'm exhausted and emotionally I'm just worn out, right? Okay, so that's sign number one. Sign number two is you. get this kind of cynicism  and you start really detaching, right? So you tend to maybe isolate.

You feel like you're the only person feeling this way, which isn't true, or else you go in the staff room, right? And you see everybody's happy. I don't know what staff room that is, but if that were the case. Then you would start, you know, feeling bad and wanting to eat by yourself. What I think is more prevalent is showing up at the staff room and being very cynical and everybody's standing around admiring the problem, right?

What's admiring the problem means. It means complaining about all the things that are wrong without really being open to any kind of solution. Right, so at the same time you're participating in that group cynicism, but at the same time you are starting to kind of isolate a little bit. Right, if there was a really cool school culture and everybody excited about, um, you know, working hard and having fun, especially, you know, maybe enrichment after school things for students where the fun happens, you know, try and isolate from that.

You burn out, you don't want to participate. Right? So that's kind of warning sign number two.  Warning sign number three is you are just starting to not feel good at your job.  Right? It's the worst feeling in the world, right? You starting to feel ineffective and incompetent. Like, can I even do this job anymore?

Am I even good at it? Right? Um, a lot of this comes from  just when you burn out, your radar is set to the negative. Right? You know me, your energy teaches more than your lesson plans and you get what you're looking for. Right? So if you're looking for evidence, right, your brain is a pattern seeking device and it wants to reinforce with evidence, uh, the story that you're telling it.

Okay, that's neuroscience. Don't want to get off on that tangent because, you know, that'll be a 20 minute tangent for me that I'm real excited about and everybody else, their eyes are glazing over, okay? So just take my word for that, right? That your brain when you, there's so much input, sensory input, all kinds of input, and that your brain is function is to filter out and just, and, and go with the bare minimum, right, because it can't take all the input.

And so it's gonna try and make you seem like you're not crazy. So if you're like, none of these kids listen to me, uh, none of these kids care,  those are the kids you're gonna notice. You're gonna stop noticing the students who are working really hard, who are really have some great classroom community.

Going out of their way, helping other students be successful. I promise you there are some of those in your room and you're just not noticing them because you're noticing the five students who are competing for Class Cloud. Right? Who's going to win that award today? Who's going to be the biggest distractor?

Right? So what happens then is that you start to feel ineffective because that's the evidence that you're finding. Right? So that's sign number three. So sign number one, physical and emotional exhaustion. Sign number two. Detachment, cynicism, sign number three, you're feeling ineffective and incompetent. 

Sign number four, uh oh,  reduced tolerance, increased irritability. This is where it comes in, I say this is not just a work problem, at school problem, this is a life problem. This is going to start affecting all parts of your life where you're showing up stinking grumpy,  right? If you are so burnt out on work, You would think that when you got home, you would be overjoyed.

Thank God I'm not at work anymore. Let's have ourselves a good time. And that's not how burnout works at all. It becomes a life problem. Even when you are not in the environment that. You are starting to feel as toxic when you go home, you're bringing it with you emotionally, right? You still the physical effects of being exhausted and overwhelmed coming with you. 

And so it's becoming a whole life problem. Now, here's the thing, you know, what a vicious circle is, right? Is you have reduced tolerance and irritability. You are short tempered. You're not showing up as your best self.  Once again, your energy teaches more than your lesson plans, what's happening? The students are kind of sensing that, and they're gonna remember my, the whole episode about co regulation, about how that happens in the classroom, is they're gonna test the boundaries, and, um, rise to the occasion of not being their best selves.

You're gonna be.  Less patient with it. You're going to be more reactive and less proactive. And that's going to make for a terrible tension in the classroom. And it's just going to become this vicious circle of everybody having a crappy day in the classroom. You know what that looks like. You know what it looks like.

When you're in the middle of it and you just want it to change, but you know you can't change your energy. That is like the worst feeling. That was always, um,  The worst for me when I knew things in the classroom, like students were feeding off my energy. It wasn't good. Um, I was short tempered and, um, the behaviors were not good.

It would just spiral, right? Okay, so that's sign number four is just in general, you're less tolerant. Irritable. You're tired. You don't have the patience. And not only that, you're just being real reactive, right? Everything's a trigger that's setting you off. It's just not a happy place to be. Alright, so that's sign number four, reduced tolerance and irritability.

And then sign number five.  Disconnection from purpose and meaning. What happens here? Firstly, you're forgetting why you even went into teaching. And you're getting very despondent that it is ever going to get any better. Right? You start questioning your impact, your purpose, you feel very unfulfilled. You know, that person who's shown up with that shiny credential, if you have one.

Um, with your hopes and dreams. I remember thinking that kids were going to sit at my feet and it was going to be magical when I read them stories. And it was, but that was a very naive version of teaching, right? Maybe you're looking back and you're thinking that version of yourself. Yeah. How naive.  Such a long time ago, and you cannot reconnect to that fire, that burning that you feel, oh my gosh.

Education, educating people, giving them critical thinking skills,  making students feel respect, challenging them, helping them feel successful. That is the foundation of solving every problem in the world, right, is an educated workforce with critical thinking skills, knowing how to evaluate and judge for bias, all those things, all those things that you're so passionate about, like you're feeling disconnected from them and you're feeling just down on education in general, then you, my friend, are burnt out.

Okay, so there were the five signs.  Let me tell you, not all hope is lost. Okay? What can you do about it? Now, I know that, you know, burnout drives a lot of teacher turnover. And so, um, you know, I know that in the past, people have been motivated to try and fix this problem. I don't believe it's because they massively care about teachers.

It's because they massively care about turnover being really expensive. Right? And so, I I did look up some research and  in 2022 was the most recent I found was a randomized controlled trial, right, where they took,  over the course of a year, um, a bunch of scores and they made changes to the work environment.

They actually listened to the teachers and said, what is it that is burning you out and what can we do? So, it was things like reduced class size.  It was  taking teacher input before you adopted new policies, right, and curriculum that  we know aren't going to work, but nobody asked us about them, right?

Mentorship programs, right, for new teachers being partnered with more veteran teachers. Okay, so putting these programs in over the course of the year resulted in 46 percent lower rates of educator burnout. Okay, that's what that study found.  Are we surprised? Of course not. If people are listening to us, yes.

If we had smaller class sizes, if we have more support. If people took our input on policies, right, if we had some kind of mentorship that was positive, of course, it would reduce burnout. Now, that's fantastic, but here's the problem. We can't wait for the educational system to improve.  If you're burning out now, you don't have time to wait for, like, some magical, um, thing to happen.

We all know that, um, in most states, the budget is balanced on education. What does that mean? It means if the budget is in good shape, education gets money. And if the budget, the state budget, is not in good shape, then that's one of the first places they cut money back. We have zero control over that, right?

So there are so many things that we can't control. And that  Mindset of like I'm helpless is really one of the trademarks of burnout is that you feel completely  that nothing is in your control you feel disempowered okay so I am the empowerment coach here let me tell you  that If you focus on the things you can control, um, you can make some improvements.

You know, is it magically going to go away? Absolutely not. But it is gonna get better. So here's the first thing. Um, you're,  the answer to burnout that your admin or your school district will tell you if you go to them and say, I'm burnt out, is we all know those two words that got stinking weaponized,  even more so since COVID. 

Self care. They're gonna tell you to prioritize self care, like somehow we are just stinking careless, like, oh, you're just not taking care of yourself, like somehow the fault is on us, which the fault is not on us, and of course the idea of self care, um, that is promoted it. Culturally, um, is really, um, treating ourselves mani pedi, bubble bath, Netflix and chill, uh, having, you know, a beer to unwind.

You know, these are, you know, distractions. They are not things that really, uh, fill your cup in the long run.  So that's, you know, a whole podcast episode there. What is authentic self care? I talk about that a lot. But authentic self care really It is being intentional  and prioritizing balance,  boundaries, right, connecting with your power instead of arguing for your limitations, such as, Oh my gosh, I have no control over class sizes, right?

I have no control over the students who are in my class, okay? You can control your mindset, you can control how you set your priorities, you're not going to do everything. There is no way a teacher can do everything that's thrown at them and you're burning yourself out trying to do that. You need some framework and some structure and some vision around how you decide what you're gonna do and what you're just gonna let fall away.

Okay? You have control over that. Okay? Um,  look at my echo framework. Okay? The E in my ECHO framework is your energy teaches more than your lesson plans, we know that, right? The C is control what you can control. Stop giving away your power. When you focus all your time on all the things that you cannot control, when you're standing around in the staff room and you're admiring the problem, you've given away all your power.

You have told yourself that there is nothing that you have agency over and that is so not true. So not true. You can learn to set boundaries. You can learn to do less. You can learn to have difficult conversations  that may seem difficult at first, but once you learn the scripts and once you practice them, that advocating for yourself and your time and prioritizing,  leaving work on time and emotionally leaving the burden of work at school, right, once you practice those things, your life changes.

Okay. And if you look at the rest of the ECHO framework, the H is happiness can be synthesized. Okay. Not for this episode, but scientifically true. But the big one, the O, other teacher's experience doesn't need to be your experience, right? You go on any campus where really a lot of teachers are worn out and burnt out, you will still find Some teachers who are charting their own course, they are having their own experience, even though they have the same administrator as you, maybe the same class size as you. 

Don't kid yourself that they just have all the easy students or whatever else. There is something they are doing. There are some skills that they have learned and there are mindsets that they're prioritizing that help them avoid burnout. Okay, so there are things you can do.  So, that's one. Is prioritize, balance, intentionally learn, learn some new skills, how to set boundaries, right?

Connect to your power. Right? Here's something else you can do.  Mind who you hang with, right? Mind who you hang with. If you want to be burnt out, hang out with all the burnt out teachers. If you want to be inspired, start hanging out with the teachers who have managed to avoid burnout, who are still purpose driven, excited about what they're doing.

solution oriented, not to say they've got their head stuck in the sand and they're pretending like, you know, Pollyanna, ooh, no problems exist. Like I'm not talking slap a smiley face sticker, right? I always liken it to if the gas tank is empty, sticking the smiley face sticker on it is not helping you.

You're still going to run out of gas, right? You got to find a way to fill that tank up. And being around people who are inspired, who are more positively focused, who are having a better experience, that's going to help. So not only people who you hang with, but what do you watch? What do you listen to? 

Like, what is your mental diet? I mean, what are you surrounding yourself with? Things that lift you up  or things that drag you down? Because, again, burnout is not just, um, a problem that you have too many students, right? Burnout becomes a life problem. And so it feeds into all those areas. Okay, so that's another tip, mind, who you hang with.

And here's  the last piece. Don't feel like you have to do the work alone. There are lots of resources, well that's not true, there aren't a lot of resources, but there are some good resources out there. Okay, you can find coaches, you can find people who are burnout coaches, you can, um,  find people who have a roadmap, who have figured out how to overcome the burnout that they have.

Um, especially, you know, somebody who has recently been in the classroom. Now, for a lot of you, I could be that person. You listening to this podcast? This podcast is free. That's awesome. I make at least one episode a week. You know, listen to that.  Um, if you want more support, you know, I do have programs.  I don't know when you're listening to this, um, but, uh, if, if you're listening to like in real time as it gets published at the beginning of January, my cohort, my January cohort for the Balance Your Teacher Life program, um, is still open.

You could still enroll. I end that. So if you, I'm not, I didn't make this podcast for a sales pitch here today, but go, go look at it. It's, uh, gracestephens. com forward slash balance and see if that program is for you, right? To get some support, some coaching, a roadmap, um, some other educators who are positively focused, trying to make a distance difference and you want to have a cohort with them, right?

These are all things that can help. Okay. But I just want to tell you from the bottom of my heart, let go of the shame.  If you see that you're starting to burn out, be proactive. Don't feel there's nothing you can do about it. There is, but do not feel the shame. It is an occupational hazard,  right? If people, if you've been in education.

Any amount of time for sure at some point you have experienced burnout and the idea is just don't stay there Just don't stay there. Don't feel that it's gonna be like that forever It is not there are things that you can do listening to this podcast and is an excellent start Start asking yourself. Am I worn out or am I burnt out and then Feel empowered to take control.

Don't just be a victim. Don't think it's inevitable. Let's keep, you know, fighting the big fight, which is working hard to get meaningful changes in the educational system. That is really driving our burnout. So at the same time as trying to make larger structural changes, let's take some personal responsibility, stop being a victim, and see what we can do to make life better for ourselves.

Okay, I believe in you,  and as always, create your own path, bring your own sunshine, even if sometimes it's a little shady, and be well.