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A Teacher's Best Friend

Life Coaching for Teachers

Back to School Burnout Tips

Back to School Burnout is real. This time of the school year can be difficult, stressful, and out of balance…

  • Events in the evenings like meet the teacher night, curriculum night, back to school night, etc.
  • Lots of emails to parents about your expectations, supplies, new procedures etc.
  • Extra prep and planning
  • New colleagues or administration to get used to
  • LOTS of meetings
  • A room to clean/organize/decorate etc.

It’s all a lot to manage!

You may have had all kinds of hopes, dreams and expectations for the school year. But here you are…already exhausted and on the edge of burnout.

Sound familiar?

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4 Steps to a Better School Year

It’s back-to-school season yet again. If you found yourself here on this blog, I can guess that one of your  hope is to make this a better school year than last year. You want more balance, peace, and happiness. But you know that the busyness of the school year will start with a bang – like a shot at the starting line – and you fear that once the school year starts, it will be a full sprint until Christmas break and you won’t be able to have the balance you crave. (Am I right?!) So here are some tips – 4 steps to be exact – to making this year a better one than last year.

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Building Teacher Resilience

Most people define resilience as “the ability to bounce back after set backs”. Popular wisdom on the subject may even define resilience as the ability to pull an all-nighter for work and still show up to teach with a smile on your face the next morning. In our cultural cult of overwork and productivity, resilience has been twisted and confused. In building teacher resilience, we have to unlearn some of these messages and redefine the term.

So I define resilience differently…

Resilience is knowing how and choosing to cultivate the personal resources needed to meet the demands of your life.

Let’s break it down…

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Ending the Year Well

2021 is coming to a close. Is it just me, or did 2021 fall into some sort of time warp and now we are here at the end of it?! It’s time to think about ending the year well.

The end of the year is a part of our yearly cycle of renewal, rest, and rejuvenation. As humans, we thrive in cycles.

  • In a 24-hour period – we have day and night.
  • In a week – we have work days and weekends.
  • In a year we made a trip around the sun – we have weather seasons, and seasons like summer break, back to school, and the holiday season.

Our bodies intuit these cycles by daylight and circadian rhythms. We hear songs on the radio that cue us into a new season. We see red cups at Starbucks and our heart skips a beat with excitement for a new season.

Cycles are part of our DNA.

So this is a season to end a cycle of a year and to reflect and restore ourselves for the next cycle to begin in January.

Here are three questions to think about as you head into the holiday season that will guide you to create a meaningful end to the year.

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How to Build Your Support Network

How-to-Build Your Support Network A Teachers Best Friend Life Coaching for Teachers

Teacher stress is at an all-time high. Teacher morale is at an all-time low. This is the moment when we need support. There are many types of support – instructional support, administrative support, community support etc. Teachers need all these supports to be effective and successful. But there is another kind of support that is desperately needed – emotional support. How do you build an emotional support system for yourself as a teacher? Who should be in your support community? Here’s how to build your support network so you can cope with high stress and low-morale for this school year and beyond.

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Refueling Your Energy Gas Tank

As a teacher, you are probably no stranger to exhaustion. There is a saying that goes, “there’s no tired like teacher tired.” Not only do teachers experience physical exhaustion, but mental and emotional exhaustion too. The demands of teaching and the emotional load of the current societal moment are leading to record teacher burnout. Much like the gasoline in your car, it’s important to be intentional as teachers about refueling your energy gas tank.

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First a Person, Then a Teacher

Do you ever feel like you put yourself last? That you get the “leftover” energy and time? You are last on your to-do list and forget that you are first a person, then a teacher?

Being a teacher can often feel all-consuming. It can take all the time and energy (emotional, mental and physical) that you have. In fact, there is always more that can be done, improved, reworked etc. And when teaching takes up all the oxygen in our life, teaching becomes more than a job. It becomes an identity.

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Cultivating Mindfulness as a Teacher

Unglued. Snapped. Exploded.

Not the most flattering adjectives – but ones I’ve used to describe my reaction to the 1 millionth annoyance of a stressful day. We’ve all been there. It’s not our prettiest, scrapbook-worthy, teacher-of-the-year moment.

What do you do when a moment like this hits? Do you react or respond? How can you make a wise choice amidst the stress? [Read more…]

Stop Taking Things Personally

It’s been a rough day. The lesson didn’t go well. The students didn’t respond how you wanted them to. They didn’t learn. They misbehaved. They were disengaged.

What’s the next thought that runs through your mind? 

> I failed 

or

> I’m a failure

It’s a subtle difference. But it’s important. Read more for tips for teachers on how to stop taking things personally and create emotional space between you and the work.

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