The Ultimate Teacher Survival Guide: 10 Hard-Won Lessons for Avoiding Burnout & Finding Joy in Teaching

 Hey everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I am making a special episode this week. I am going to be putting the podcast on hiatus for a little bit. There's well over a hundred episodes out there. I feel like I've covered so many things. Anything that you could possibly need, I feel is out there in an episode already.

And I want to just summarize though, going back, thinking of all the teachers I've mentored over the years and all of those who have mentored me, what advice would I give? And I'm not even just saying new teachers. Yeah. This would be great advice. It would be amazing if you stumbled upon this information when you just started teaching, but most of this I have learned the hard way I have to tell you.

So I would like to take some of the bumps out of your journey if I was to go back and give myself a big hug when I was that new teacher. So full of optimism and shiny and bright and sparkly. What words of wisdom would I really have liked? So I really tried to distill this information into one episode.

One that you can come back to time and time again, hopefully, that you can share with your teacher bestie, or if you have new teachers on campus, just to have everything in one spot. There's well over a hundred episodes in this podcast. I feel like I've covered so many things that if you could, you know, do those and think about those things.

It would really be a much easier ride for you, but I know not everybody has time to, you know, go back and dig through a hundred episodes. So I'm gonna make this episode pretty short, but I am gonna make it the 10 top things that I would tell a teacher for making their career sustainable. And as joyful as possible.

And again, if I was to go back and look at myself, oh my gosh, I still have a picture of me that first day of student teaching. Fun fact the lady with whom I, for whom my student taught, is still one of my best friends on the planet. I ended up working with her for many, many years. I took a student teaching assignment and fun fact, never left that school for 16 years.

I did leave for another school eventually after she had retired, but. Anyway, if I could go back and tell myself these things. These were the things, and these were the things that can help any teacher at any stage in their career. These are good reminders for what it takes to win at the teaching game.

All right. We will get right to it after the intro. Welcome to the Teacher Self-Care and Life Balance podcast, where we focus all things personal development to help teachers feel empowered to thrive inside and outside of the classroom. If you are passionate about education, but tired of it taking over your whole life, you have found your new home in the podcast universe, you'll love it here.

I'm Grace Stevens, your host, and let's get going with today's show. All right, here we go. Now, a again, I have over a hundred episodes in this podcast a hundred more than a hundred of my own. And then of course there are guest episodes too. So I might reference some other. Episodes if you want a deeper dive into some of these concepts, but I'm gonna make sure they are most recent ones.

Some of you probably don't wanna go if you what, you know, if you're listening on your phone, I understand it's hard to go scrolling back, you know, back to episode one, so I'll make sure they're recent episodes. But here we are and here's where we're gonna start. These are the 10 things. 10 pieces of advice that I would give any teacher that suddenly appeared before me and said help.

Alright. Now I would say they're in no particular order, but this one comes first and this one is drum roll please. Your energy teaches more than your lesson plans. I feel, I say every single episode, it is my mantra. It is hopefully like, like I don't want it on my tombstone, but it is hopefully what I'm remembered for in the teaching community because one way or another, it's what I have been saying my whole career.

Your energy teaches more than your lesson plans. So what does that actually mean? So what that means is how you show up matters. And. Here it is. I'm gonna say it. Self-care is non-negotiable. I know this word. Self-care has become weaponized, weaponized in schools. Oh, teacher self-care. It's like, you know, like somehow we are careless and we don't take care of ourselves just because we are lazy and there is no real acknowledgement that the reason we need to take care of ourselves is because we're in this kind of situation.

That is so overwhelming and you know, just wears us out. So self-care, and by that I mean really taking responsibility for showing up as your best self, even though that means you have. To put yourself first. You know the cliches can't pull from an empty bucket, put on your own oxygen mask first. All the things that sound so cliche but are actually true in this case.

Your energy. How you show up, do you show up excited to be around children, willing to assume the best of them not being easily triggered by behavior. That is actually not a lot to do with you, but just kids acting out because they're in crisis mode, right? When you show up, calm, professional, it is the best thing you can do.

For students, calm, consistent, and you can't do that if you are exhausted, resentful about all the things that you have to keep doing that you don't wanna do at school. And you show up really short-tempered and there's this whole, you know, piece of co-regulation that is actually a scientific fact, right?

That. How you respond. That energy, that vibe that you have in the classroom is the most important thing, okay? It will be better if you showed up as your best self, but didn't have perfect lesson plans. In my opinion. If you didn't have all the answers, you can Google the answers. You can make it a teachable moment, okay?

But what you can't retract from is if you are grumpy in class, short-tempered, worn out, exhausted, running on empty. Worst thing in the world for you and for your students. So that's number one. Come on now. Take responsibility. Your energy teaches more than your lesson plans. And instinctively there was something I always that luckily I didn't have to learn that I always knew that.

And you know why? It didn't matter if I'd been a teacher before I had been a student before. Everybody's been a student. Think of your favorite teacher. Really, was it about what was on the wall? Was it about how they decorated the classroom? Was it about No. What they wore? No. It was how they showed up, right?

They were fun. They were willing to have fun. They were patient. They believed every child could succeed and they were willing to work at it. They wanted to create community in the classroom. Okay. It wasn't, there was a world of difference between that and the grumpy teacher who everything was a gotcha, right?

They were looking for things to be annoyed about, and guess what? They found them. If you look for things to be annoyed about, you will find them. But on the flip side, I promise you, if you look for things to be joyful about and happy about and excited about, you will find them. Okay. It is a mindset shift, and that is the first thing, okay?

Your energy teaches more than your lesson plans. Take responsibility for that. All right? And that comes into number two. So I will try and say it gently and lovingly and as compassionately as I can. But here's the number two piece of advice that I wish I had learned earlier. And that is no one is coming to save you.

Not either me. You can try and wait till you have, oh wait. It will be better when, right. It'll be better when we have, I have a different admin, a different coworker, different students, different parents. Oh, when I have the perfect class. Oh honey, there is no perfect class read, so no one's coming to save you.

The only person. Who can save you is you, and it's gonna be that version of you that finally has enough, that version of you that finally says, listen, I love teaching most days. Some days I want to love teaching more. What do I have to learn? What do I have to do to learn the skills I need to make? This career sustainable.

Okay, now listen, it is not your fault. You don't have the skills. Nobody taught us the school skills, especially if you are a little older like me, we never, you know, boundaries. What is that? We were a whole bunch of women who were raised to sit there and be quiet, right? Be nice, be polite. Be a policer.

Be accommodating. Okay? And it is. Burning us the heck out, right? So you're gonna learn. You are gonna need to learn to set boundaries. So many episodes on that. Setting boundaries is such a lovely thing, and it sounds so scary and such a buzzword, but it really boils down to this, having the confidence and the grace to say no.

To things that are absolutely nothing to do with your job or that you don't wanna do. 'cause there are some things that are nothing to do with your job that could light you up. Okay. For years and years I did astronomy at my school, a digital star lab, an astronomers night science fair. How much work was that?

I didn't care. I loved it. It was my favorite part of the year. So I'm not talking about saying no to everything I'm talking about. No. It's learning to say no. The things that you know are just gonna make you resentful and annoyed that you are doing them. And we do that. The secret sauce here at the podcast is to learn how to do that.

There's a five step process. There's loads of episodes on it. It was episode number two that I first came up with on, how do you say no, but it goes beyond that. Not just saying no to things, but there's many things that we have to say yes to and saying yes with limitations, that is also part of setting boundaries.

So some more recent episodes to look at in that area would be 86, which has how to set up a whole boundary plan. And episode 99 was, how do you do exactly that? How do you say no to duties you don't want, ditch that adjunct duty that wears you out. Now, some of them you can't ditch because they're what I call, you know kind of like job adjacent.

So for example, if you're the science teacher, it's gonna be hard for you to say, yeah, no, I don't wanna put on science fair. If you're the music teacher, you're really not gonna be able to say I don't wanna put on that concert. Okay. But you can set limitations, but setting boundaries is just one of the skills you need.

Okay. It is advocating for yourself. It's how do you protect your peace? How do you validate people, which is such an important part. Of communication. How do you validate people without getting dragged down to their level? Right? How do you protect yourself from those energy vampires at school who are just, you know, those super toxically negative people who wear you down?

And I'm not talking toxic positivity here. I'm not saying you should be happy all the time. There's plenty to complain about. But you know the difference between somebody who is looking for solutions in situations that are just not great and people who, you know, find a problem with every solution, you even try and bring up, oh, we already tried that.

Or, oh, that will never work. And oh, you won't believe what this kid did today. You know, the negative people who just wear you out. How do you validate them? 'cause their experience is real, but without absorbing that kind of trauma and energy from them. So these are all. Skills that we need to learn, and I promise you, they can be learned.

Just because we weren't taught them in schools doesn't mean that we don't have. To this, you know, that we don't have the ability to learn. I was the most compliant, conflict aver adverse person, you know, in the universe. It's not even on our campus. I'm gonna say I was in the top five in the US probably of people avoiding conflict.

It did not serve me well. At all, and I really had to learn the skills, and that's why I'm so passionate about teaching them. Okay, so that's number two. Nobody is coming to save you. You cannot hope that, oh, the education system is gonna change. Things are gonna get better. You know, the only person who can make your experience better is.

You. That version of you that decides enough is enough. I have spent so much money and so much time on my classroom, on my students, I'm gonna invest some time and energy in me and learning the skills I need. Okay, so that was number two. Nobody is coming to save you. All right? You with us so far? Number one.

And that is your energy teachers more than your lesson plans. Self-care is non-negotiable. Number two. Learn the skills to save yourself. Okay? Number three, I wanna tell you, and this is kind of a skill for life too. You always have a choice, okay? You always have a choice. Now, what does that mean? It means.

Gosh, again, I wanna, you might not like the choices, but you always have one when you start thinking that you don't have a choice how to react or you don't have I could never leave this school district because I could never leave this grade because I could never lead. Leave teaching because when you start coming up with those, with those statements, okay, that is so disempowering, okay?

I'm all about teacher empowerment. You always have a choice. You can focus on what you can control, and you always have more choice than you think. Again, you might not like your choices, but don't kid yourself that you don't have them. Okay? Don't. Do you remember Michelle Pfeiffer in in the wonderful movie, the, the Freedom Writers, and she's yelling to those poor kids from South Central la like there are no victims in this classroom.

Like, I wanna say that too. There are no victims on campus. Okay. There have been times I remember that. Just a, a coworker totally shocked me one time. And really called me on my bs. I was standing there and my complaint was valid. I was in a really bad situation. I had a, a student from special ed, a, a push into my class and, and many things were happening with that student when they were outside the room that were putting me at liability.

They weren't good for the student. They were putting me at liability. They were really stressing me out. And I remember her looking at me saying, stop being such a victim and go do something about it. I was kind of, you know, there's a phrase we say in England, gobsmacked. Like, I didn't even know what to do.

I was like, I'm not a victim. And then I really thought about it. I am, I needed to ask more empowering questions. Okay. So I do have a whole bunch of episodes on that, but I want to tell you that if you go look at episode, I did a two-parter. Episodes 83 and 84, and it was really on how do you ask more empowering questions.

How do you get out of the why mentality and into the how and what right? Why is this happening? Why is this way is very, you know, disempowering? How can we move for more move forward? What can we do about this? These are empowering questions and it all boils down to focusing what you can control. If you are familiar with my podcast and my work, you know that I have my Echo framework.

For educator empowerment, and the first part was your energy teaches more than your lesson plans. That's the E and the C is control what you can control. So that's my number three, right? Remember, you always have a choice and don't tell yourself that you don't. That's very disempowering. Learn to ask more empowering questions.

Okay? Number four, and I, again, lovingly, how can I say this? My dad taught me this when I was young. He said it again and again and again, and I thought it was a very harsh thing to say, but I have really seen it play out over and over again, and that was, lots of people are convenient. Nobody is indispensable.

Okay. Don't kid yourself that you're indispensable. Don't let yourself get guilted into things and overworking and overcommitting because you are indispensable. Oh, we get so easily guilted into things. You know, especially with so many programs having disappeared from schools, I find a lot of times, well, we want kids to have drama and sports and music and art and enrichment and, and gate and other things.

We don't have the funds for it anymore, so, oh. Oh, Mrs. Stevens, if you don't do it, the kids won't have it. Right? We get lots of people in convenient. I'm a convenient solution to your problem. That doesn't mean I'm indispensable. Okay? Listen, when I fir, I agonized about leaving a school I'd been at for 16 years.

It was a Title one school very tight, tight-knit community. I loved. The school. I loved the students. Many of the teachers had been there many, many years. We were very, very close. But the time had come for me to leave and. For lots of reasons. And I was just absolutely like having nightmares, having palpitations, feeling so bad about, you know, and I wasn't leaving them in the lurch.

Certainly I wasn't leaving in the middle of the year. I was, I was gonna see out my contract. I didn't want parents and students to know that I was leaving 'cause there was gonna kind of be some ripple effect with that. But anyway, when I finally did give my notice, do you know what? I got an email from the admin.

Who said, it wasn't even like, oh, I heard you're leaving, or, thanks for your service. Do you know what the email was? So, at the time I left, I was in charge of third grade and we always went to a pioneer school. We did a reenactment of a day in school in 1876 at the old schoolhouse, which was the original schoolhouse.

They volunteers play the school mom and all the kids would, you know, get into it and it was. A fabulous, fabulous thing. But over the years it had taken a lot to collect all those little girls costumes and the boys costumes. Again, you know, we were a Title one score. It wasn't the kind of thing that you could just have, you know, parents go out and buy a costume.

So the email I got from the admin was, yes, I heard you leaving. Please be sure to leave behind the pioneer costumes. Okay. Lots of people are convenient. Nobody is indispensable. I could tell you ridiculous stories of how I was so sick on numerous occasions, but I kept thinking, what are they gonna do at school without me?

That I came to school sick to the 0.1 day I actually left school at four and was having an emergency operation to have an organ removed at 7:00 PM I was still at school at four. Like it, it was ridiculous. I can give you so many examples of times that I'm, I managed to make it until spring break until winter break or whatever, and then lose my whole vacation because I was so sick.

Because I just would not, I was so stubborn. I couldn't take a sick day or any of those things. I just thought I was indispensable and I was not. And neither are you. I promise you, if you give your notice today. Your job will be on EDJOIN by three o'clock. I'm just saying. Okay. Lots of people are convenient.

Nobody's indispensable. Anna. Don't kid yourself or let people kid you that you are. All right. So that was number four. All right, number five. Hmm. Not everyone is your friend. Not everyone on campus is your friend. Now, I learned this early in my career when a parent, now this was before social media, remember I started teaching in like 2002.

So I can't imagine how bad it's got now with social media and other things. But I had a parent really just volunteer in my classroom and was always so friendly to me and turn around and stab me in the back. In quite a significant way, and I really learned early on not to overshare. When I was at school, apart from a few, you know, trusted friends and we were a pretty close knit staff I was careful about what I shared about my personal life and, you know, just don't give people the ammunition they need.

Okay? Because right now cancel culture, all the things. I have very political views, different political views than the majority of, the school that I worked in the staff and certainly the parents. And I'm so glad that I never felt really just the need to censor myself. 'cause there was no social media.

I mean, I was just always very careful about what I said around people. You know, everybody has their teacher besties, they can confide in, but just, you know, loose lips, sink ships, I, you know, again. My dad taught me that that was from World War ii of which he was a veteran. Okay. So I would always be very careful.

In fact, I used to get very anxious in the staff room and make wide eyes at people that our staff room where we would all come and eat lunch. 'cause we loved each other. We had such a nice community of teachers there. But there was a copy machine and laminating machine where you had to walk through the staff room to get to it.

And we had a key number of, parents who were like the queen bees of the parents at school and they felt very entitled just to, you know, keep walking through and using things 'cause they were setting up, you know, whatever. And you know, don't I used to make wide eyes that somebody would be talking about a kid at the lunch table, like not around parents friends.

Okay. So just don't fall into this trap of thinking everybody is your friend. Okay. In fact, one of the reasons I ended up leaving that lovely school is because a parent had become venomous, venomous, a group of parents against, my teaching bestie and had really gone out of their way to make sure she got fired based on the facts.

I'm pretty sure it was racially motivated, but anyway, we will leave that, where that was. So it just, just be careful. Not everybody's your friend. It isn't just, oh wow. I wish I could just say it. Can be some parents. It, I, I, coworkers, I, I have seen some coworkers really go out their way to stab somebody in the back.

So just be careful. Okay? Keep, you know it. It's great to have a teacher bestie. I hope that for you, otherwise, it's a lonely place. But as a general rule, you know, work is work and outside work is outside work. And maybe think about your conversations and about what you share. All right now. Being as we have got to workplace drama, that brings us straight into peace of advice.

And number six, that I would go back and tell myself that I learned the hard way and that I would also tell any teacher, 'cause I see it happen. Every single day. And that is, I used to have a, a kid, she was only in third grade but she would say, stay in your lane. Her name was Rla. Stay in your lane.

Rla stay in your lane. And it used to make me laugh 'cause obviously that is something her mother had taught her. 'cause I never said that to kids, but I knew exactly what she meant. Basically, listen, you do not need to catch every ball thrown at you, okay? Throughout the day, people are going to throw a ball at you.

The ball is gonna be, oh my God, can you believe? Oh my gosh, I'm so annoyed about this. Ugh, this happened. Oh, can you, oh, we need to take this to the union, right? It is drama. It might not necessarily be your drama. You don't have a place in it. Don't catch the ball. Like, I like to say validate and bounce.

Validate means don't invalidate somebody's experience. Don't say, oh, that isn't worth fighting for, or, you know, that didn't happen, or I'm not involved. Just say, you know what, o that sounds really hard right now. I'm at capacity. I can't go down that rabbit hole with you. Okay, and then just bounce. Get out the way.

You don't need to go to every party you're invited to, especially if it's a pity party, a drama party, a complaining party. Those things are just gonna wear you out. There are so many injustices happening. On a campus to particular students or teachers or programs or whatever. You just can't get involved in all of them.

You would not have any time around you left for teaching. Okay? So if it's your teaching bestie, absolutely. Hey, we ride at dawn. Okay? We're gonna back up our, our teacher bestie. Peripherally. You know, me being in first grade, getting all riled up about something that's happening in eighth grade really doesn't serve anybody.

Certainly doesn't serve me or my students. Okay? So just remember that you don't need to go to every party you're invited to, or as I like to say, you don't need to catch every. They throw at you, just sometimes you can just watch it go by you and roll away. And remember that powerful strategy, I've talked about it a lot.

Validate and bounce, validate somebody and bounce. You know, when I talked about negative coworkers there's quite a few episodes on that, that, that will, I will go into depth there about validate and bounce. All right, so we are on to number seven. Ooh, let me take a breath. Oh, you know, what do we say?

Life is like algebra. You're gonna keep getting that test until you learn it. I had to learn this so many times. Still struggle with it. I mean, that's just me being honest. And this is, you can't be all things to all students. Okay. And. Here's really where it gets painful. You can't care more than everybody else in their life cares.

Okay? If there's a student who isn't doing well and you bend over backwards to get them interventions, you stay after school to help them yourself. You work with different resources to get them modified for them If that kid doesn't care. Doesn't care. Not is incapable. Right. I'm not talking ability.

I'm talking not lack of ability or lack of skills. I'm talking lack of motivation. They could not give us a rats, a rats behind. Right? And more importantly, neither do their parents, right? You're calling, he's why I'm doing, I'm concerned he hasn't turned in his homework at all for three weeks and, and you're beating yourself up.

Worrying about this kid trying to help this kid and nobody in that kid's life cares. You know what you just. Th there's some other kid in your classroom would maybe thrive with your help. Okay. So that might be an unpopular opinion. I know it's all, it was very, you know, popular when I was teaching. No Child Left Behind.

Yeah. But you cannot drag them. Kick in and screaming if they honestly don't care and nobody in their family cares. And that's so different than if a kid is lacking abilities and needs extra support. I'm not saying that at all. Of course our obligation, our duty. All the things, but you know full well there is a kid who completely lacks motivation, whose parents couldn't care less anyway, which is probably where that comes from.

And much as you hurt for them and you hope things will change for them, you losing sleep over them. And really, I've. Hyper fixated on a kid before trying to make sure that they were, you know, oh my gosh, this kid really needs my help. Right? Like, really gonna check yourself at the door. Do you have a savior complex?

Is this more about you than them? Are there other kids who given your attention would thrive then? Yeah. Go work with them. Okay? So you cannot be all things to all students. All you're gonna do is burn yourself out if you're running around trying to be all things to all students, okay? Because now as well as teachers, we're supposed to be, you know, counselors we're, you know, we're practicing therapy without a license.

We're, you know, it is appropriate to run interference and get ki kids the skills and supports they need to be successful. But again, we can't be all things to all students. So I hope that that lands with the spirit that I want it to land. Okay, so we are up to number eight, and number eight is actually one of my most popular episodes.

Episode 86 is a complete deep dive on this, but this is on about. Don't let teaching become your whole identity. Okay. There's such a big kind of cultural thing around this, right? I call it hashtag teacher, right? It's when you're a teacher, it, it's everything. It's the clothes you wear, it's the mugs you drink out of.

It's the company you keep. It's the Pinterest boards you have. Your whole life is about teaching. And the social media accounts that you follow are about teaching and the books you read about are teaching. And of course, most of your friends are teachers because you met them at school. Okay? It is a mistake to make your whole identity about being a teacher.

'cause one day. You won't be in a classroom. I'm not gonna say you won't be a teacher. Listen, we all teach all the time, whether we're in a classroom or not. People should know that. But you aren't always be in a classroom. And then and then what? Like you need a whole complete life. You are a human first.

You weren't born a teacher. You are a fully fledged human with needs and wants and preferences and desires, and hopefully interest that extend beyond teaching that make you a well-rounded person, make you an. Interesting person make you a more resilient person, right? That you are not, or you will burn out if all you do and think about is teaching.

Everybody has seen the TED Talk RA Pearson, oh my gosh. Every child needs a champion. Everybody's seen that Ted talk. Everybody laughs when she starts and she says, my whole life has been about the schoolhouse, either at the schoolhouse or on the way to the schoolhouse or talking about the schoolhouse.

And her parents had been educators and everybody laughs about it and you know not to bring everybody down. Six months after that Ted Talk, Rita Pearson died. Okay. And her whole life had been about teaching. I mean, she left an amazing legacy. I'm so glad about that. But what if she hadn't done the Ted Talk?

The legacy was certainly in all the lives she touched, I. Absolutely. But I still feel like human first. Your whole identity shouldn't be one thing. It's the same as making your whole identity about being a parent. Yes, it takes so much of your time to be a boy mom or whatever. Of course, it's gonna be a huge part of your life, but you still have worth and value outside of that and to be a good.

Teacher, a well-rounded person, you need to have other interests. Okay? So if you really want a deep dive into that, the dangers of that, you can hear my funny story of how after I left teaching, I went and cleaned out my t-shirt drawer that had, I wanna say 30 something t-shirts in there, just way too many.

And by the time I'd got rid of the ones that were either school spirit or for some kind of spirit day, like, you know, just camo day or wear red against drug, whatever. All this stuff about school, but the time I got rid of those, I always lived with like two t-shirts, a plain black one and a plain white one.

Like, oh my God, every T-shirt I ever had was for school. It's crazy. But anyway, do not make teaching your whole identity. All right, we are getting to the nitty gritty here. Now again, I said they weren't in any particular order. But we are to number nine. Number nine. Wish I could go back and tell myself is less, just less do less talk, less.

Hold on to less. Don't be afraid to let go of those scraps of paper or those toilet rolls was just less in general, right? Just less. The great Angela Watson has a book Fewer Things, better. Honestly, I've never read the book 'cause I always subscribe to that, but I bet it's great. Because yeah. There's so many distractions.

There's so many things. Just you gotta make intentional choices about things that will not get done or will only get done to the minimum so that you can focus on what matters. Okay? Not everything urgent. Seeming urgent is actually important. And the real important stuff may not always show up as urgent.

Okay? You gotta learn how to prioritize. It takes intention and attention and figure out, you know, what is just a distraction? What can we live without? It's this whole idea that I've gone over many times in podcasts about this new metaphor for balance, which is instead of trying to keep all the balls in the air, right, juggling everything.

Deciding which is a rubber ball, which is something I can let go and just watch it roll away without too much problem, and which is a glass ball, something I absolutely need to keep in the air. Okay. Otherwise, there are really, you know, bad consequences now. A lot of times the glass balls will be school and those would be, you know, reporting periods.

Report cards are due, grading periods you know, deadlines. All the deadlines that you have at school, the non-negotiables. You can't change spring break, you can't move the winter program, right? You can't move state testing. These things are important, but sometimes the glass. Balls are gonna be at home.

And that goes into the previous point before, you're not just a teacher, you are also a parent, you're also a friend, you're also a child, you're also a sibling, you're also a partner. Many of us, we have lots of responsibilities outside of school that should not be, you know, neglected. How do you balance it all?

Well, at a certain point you have to make peace with the fact that you can't do it all. That at a certain point you're gonna do less. And make peace with that. And not just completely ignoring tasks, but maybe not taking all tasks to this, you know, extra, which we'll talk about in a minute. Just to this complete like, oh, it has to be perfect, you know, business.

We have this idea of an MVP, A minimal viable product. What's the minimum we can do to get this? Product to market to see if it's gonna be successful, and then we'll refine it and make it perfect after. Okay. How many times? Oh my God. Especially during COVID, right? When we were all teaching online and our Google classroom slide decks, oh my gosh.

Matching fonts, custom bitmojis beautiful music, you know, units of study that I had no idea people were going to care about. Or not the thing that people love most. One of the things I did was literally I would make a and it was like a reading reading time that I would make on a Friday afternoon.

We weren't. Obligated to teach on a Friday afternoon. It was supposed to be our prep time, but I would make like story time. I think I read my class. You know the, oh gosh, what's it called? Ivan, the book about the gorilla. Oh my gosh. It was just no prep. Open the book and read and. I gotta tell you, kids would show up with their siblings.

You know, maybe their parents are like, go listen to Mrs. Es, she's reading us the story, whatever. When, you know, distance learning was all over and kids were doing reflections. Do you know how many kids were like, that was my favorite thing? Oh my God, it's zero prep. Okay. So you don't know, don't bend over backwards and drive yourself crazy making something.

This new unit study perfect. Unless you know this new lesson plan, unless it. It's gonna land or not. If it is great and the kids love it, yeah, go back and refine it for next year, but less, okay, less in all areas again. Talk less teacher should not be doing all the talking. You know, do less and you know, have less, all that clutter around the room holding on stuff.

'cause we're afraid if we let go of those dried out glue sticks, we might never have the budget for them again. Oh. It's just a horrible. Message of like scarcity and fear that you're putting out into the universe. So yeah, you can call me woowoo, but I promise you make some space in your drawers and in your life and you will feel better less.

Okay, so this brings us to point number 10. I mean, I could go on and on, but. I was gonna keep it just to the top 10 things I wish I'd known. And here we are. This is, you gotta opt out of the comparison game. So when I talked about how I've made these, you know, perfect lesson plans and slide decks, a lot of that was because, you know, I had a couple of work coworkers who were, you know, they were just, I don't know what the word is, extra.

They were so dedicated and so smart and maybe they were better at technology and me than they could just do it a lot quicker. But some of their stuff was incredible and I felt that pressure. It wasn't, none of those things would directly correlate to kids learning or kids being, you know, less stressed during COVID and all those things.

So I really had to learn that and I feel bad now. You know, the Pinterest worthy classrooms, social media. All of that I've really opted out of all of that is one of the reasons that I am putting this, to be honest, this podcast and some of my marketing efforts on hiatus, is I just. I don't get it. Well, I could get it, I could learn it, I could be better at it, but it, the toll it takes on me and what I see it's doing to the psyche of adults and children is I'm just not that into social media.

And so to make a podcast and not promote it to have courses and not get online and promote them all the time, it just doesn't work. And I have. I, we just don't have an interest in doing it. And so, you know, I'm glad that I know that about myself, but I do feel bad with all this comparison and everything out there.

I just wanna remind you that people, well, now on TikTok, I see that people are very vulnerable and share and that's also a way to get a lot of engagement. And so maybe not all of that is authentic, let's say. But certainly on Pinterest or you know, Instagram, places like that, you know, people, they're putting their best day in the classroom.

You can't compare your mediocre day or your crappy day that you just had with somebody else's best day, with perfect filters. And, you know, all the kids have gone home and they've had a chance to clean up and make it look glorious. You just can't compare. The only comparison in life is you. Against you.

Your job is to be a better version of yourself today than you were yesterday. That's the only comparison that matters. Okay? Please hear that. Just opt out the comparison game, it's so unhealthy and I'm seeing it become more and more unavoidable. And the reason is it's not that you, I'm, I'm not saying you shouldn't aspire to be better at all.

Okay. Did you hear, I just said though that you. Competition is yourself. Okay? When you spend so much time focusing on other people and what they're doing, you can't focus on yourself. It paralyzes you. Okay? That's the point. It's not empowering, and I'm all about teacher empowerment. Okay? All right. Let me summarize for you.

These were the 10 things that I feel would help any teacher. But I especially wish I had learned sooner. I learned these the hard ways. I didn't learn them out the book, I learned it, you know, school of Life. School of school. I learned it. Getting my, my backside kicked is how I learned it. So I have broken it down for you.

Not the first one. I always knew the first one, but let me summarize the 10 things, okay? Number one, your energy teaches more than your lesson plans, okay? So self-care is non-negotiable. Number two, the only person who can make your situation better is the version of you who decides they have had enough.

Okay? It's your responsibility to learn the skills that will help make teaching sustainable. You weren't taught those school skills in school or teacher training school, and I gotta tell you, because I've been trying to get. Professional development into schools for three years, and it takes a very enlightened, confident administrator to hire me to help their staff get empowered because.

I teach teachers how to push back. I don't want that. Okay, so you gotta learn it yourself. I have ways to help you. It's listening to this podcast, an excellent place to start. I have self-study horses that are not gonna go away. I have everything you need. I have books come on, my books on Amazon all come with a free workbook right now.

I mean, it fluctuates. I, I actually don't have control over the pricing, but. I noticed three out of five of my books this week are $10. Like, that's, you know, that's a, a, a, your pumpkin spice latte, and not even a muffin, half a muffin. Okay? So cost shouldn't be a barrier. Learn the skills, my friend. Okay? So that's number two.

No one's coming to save you except you. Number three, you always have a choice, right? Control what you can control, and. Really learn to ask empowering questions and have a more empowered mindset. Okay, and if you really need help with that, I have a course all about that. But I also have an excellent book.

The last book that I wrote that will be the last one I write, because I really feel it was everything I needed to say on the subject is The Empowered Teacher Toolkit. That book and the workbook that goes with it will help you become empowered in so many ways. It will help you not just in school. All right, number four.

Lots of people are convenient. Nobody is indispensable. Okay? Don't keep working yourself. Don't be like, you know, shell silverstein's the giving tree. Don't keep giving and giving 'cause you think nobody else could help. It's, it's not helpful. All right, next, number five. Not everyone is your friend. Watch your back.

Watch your back. Not just with school, board members, parents, all of that, but unfortunately, I hate to say also with coworkers. Okay, watch your back. Number six, don't. Go to every party you're invited to. If an it's empowerment party, a fun party, a celebration for something somebody has done or a student winning, absolutely enjoy treasure.

But if it's a pity party or a complainant party or a woe is me party, or things around here, only suck party. Yeah, you don't need to go. You do not need to catch every ball that is thrown to you. All right. Number six. You can't be all things to all students, right? You cannot care more than everybody else in their life cares.

That's just a recipe for frustration. I promise you, there is some other student in your class, on your campus that would thrive under your care. Don't neglect them because you're being stubborn about you're gonna rescue one particular student. Number seven, don't let teaching become your whole identity.

Wait, is that seven A? I lost the plot. No, not important. Number nine. Less. Okay. Do less talk less. Understand that choices need to be made. You cannot do all the things asked of you. Make peace with the fact not everything is gonna get done. Okay. Actually, that was some advice that a really wise administrator gave me the first day on his campus.

He said to me, you need to make peace with the fact that not everything I ask of you is going to get done. Otherwise you are gonna burn out and be very unhappy. So, hey, full disclosure from him. And yes, he did turn out to be a stickler and ask many, many things, but I remember with Fondas that little piece of advice that he gave me.

All right. And then the last one, ditch the comparison game. All right. Now I feel like. If you have been following along for, I don't know how many episodes we have now, a hundred and something, you will see that most of those topics, in fact, just about everything, not everything. Most things I've talked about have fallen into my basic ECHO framework, so keep it simple.

Okay. In the Echo framework for educator empowerment is the E stands for Your Energy teaches more than your lesson plans. The C stands for. Control what you can control. The H stands for happiness can be synthesized. Now, we didn't talk about that much in this episode, but it means you're not stuck with the happiness set point that you got.

There are intentional habits, scientifically validated that can help you have a more positive experience of life. And those are the habits we practice in this. And then the O is other people's experience doesn't need to be your experience. Isn't that the crux of it all? Alright, so I hope that you got value from this episode, and I hope that you have.

Gotten value from any time that you have spent with me. It has been the greatest privilege. It has been humbling how many people have reached out to me recently to say the impact I've had on them. I think that's a beautiful thing. I don't know how long I'm putting this podcast on hiatus for. I get a little emotional when I talk about it.

I just, I am feeling called to serve. In other ways in my local community, in other ways, and do other things. Hey, you know what? I still do substitute, teach 'cause I just love those kids. And I still, my heart is still in a classroom and with teachers and I want you to feel empowered. So I, again, I wanna thank you for listening.

I wanna thank you from the. Bottom of my heart for everything you do for other people's children. Really only teachers get it. Other people don't. Right? Ah, you have summers off. What do you complain about? We all know the things, right? Other teachers get it. I get it. I know what it takes and it, it. Don't kid yourself that you don't make a difference.

I promise you, you make a difference, but it can't be at the detriment to your own emotional, physical, mental health. Okay? Please look after yourselves and I don't know when the next time will be, but until it comes, this is me signing off. And please remember, create your own path and bring your own sunshine.