Teachers in Transition

Teachers in Transition - Episode 110 - How Successful People Set Healthy Boundaries at Work

May 05, 2021 Kitty Boitnott Season 1 Episode 110
Teachers in Transition
Teachers in Transition - Episode 110 - How Successful People Set Healthy Boundaries at Work
Show Notes Transcript

One cause of stress is the lack of healthy boundaries both at work and home.  In this series on how to better manage your stress, especially if you are a teacher finishing up the last months and weeks of the school year, Kitty deals with the importance of setting boundaries at work.  Listen to specific tips that she offers on how to set--and keep--boundaries that will ultimately give you more time for yourself and your family.

For more information, check out these resources:
"Are You Setting Appropriate Boundaries?" - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/you-setting-appropriate-boundaries-kitty-boitnott-ph-d-nbct/

"The Art of Setting Boundaries and Saying No" - https://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/the-art-of-saying-no-and-setting-boundaries

"Stress Management Tools for Teachers: 7 Tips for Surviving the Rest of This Year" - https://teachersindistress.wordpress.com/2017/04/08/stress-management-tools-for-teachers-7-tips-for-surviving-the-rest-of-this-year/

To set up a Discovery Session with Kitty, click on this calendar link:  https://teachersintransition.com/calendar.

To email Kitty with questions or comments, contact her at KittyBoitnott@gmail.com.

Speaker 1:

Are you a teacher who's feeling stressed out and overwhelmed. Do you worry that you're feeling symptoms of burnout or are you sure you've already gotten there? Have you started to dream of doing some other kind of job or perhaps pursuing a whole different career, but you don't know what else you're even qualified to do. You don't know how to start a job search. You just feel stuck. If that sounds like you, I promise you're not alone. My name is kitty Boitnott. I'm a career transition and job search coach. And I specialize in helping burn out teachers, just like you deal, not only with the stress and overwhelm of your day to day job, but to consider what other careers might be out there waiting for you. Join me for teachers in transition. In some episodes, I'll be speaking to stress management techniques and how you can manage your stress on a day to day basis. In other episodes, I'll be talking about career transition. What tools do you need to be successful in a job search when you're moving from one career into a totally different track. These are questions that you need answers to, and I can help you find those answers. My name is kitty. Boitnott welcome to teachers and transition.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back to episode 110 of teachers in transition the podcast and the YouTube channel. My name is kitty Boitnott and I am the owner of Boitnott coaching and the founder of teachers in transition. If you've listened to this podcast in the past, you know that I alternate topics one week, I talk about self-care and stress management, stress relief, especially for teachers who are often feeling stressed and overwhelmed, especially this year because of the pandemic and all of the accompanying events that went have gone with the pandemic. I also speak to career transition and on alternating weeks, I talk about ways that you might consider transitioning out of the classroom and into jobs that you truly truly enjoy. Teaching can be marvelous profession, but it isn't for everybody. And at some point, some people decide that they've hit the wall. They're ready to move on and it's time to make a change it's nobody's fault. It's just, it is what it is. I am a trained and experienced career transition coach, and I'm also a certified stress management coach. So that's what gives me the leeway to talk to both topics. This week. The topic is stress I've been walking through, uh, for the last several weeks, different aspects of a presentation that I created on the seven ways to manage your stress toward the end of the school year. And of course, here we are in may. So for many teachers were approaching perhaps the last few couple of months or a few weeks of school. And this is a particularly stressful time it's testing time. And I don't have to tell you if you are a teacher, what goes into preparing for the test, executing the test and then all of the post test work that still needs to be done. And so it's stressful. And what I've been offering in the course of the last several weeks were different things that you can do to take control of your work and to take control of your work environment, to the extent that you can in an effort to lessen your stress or relieve your stress as much as possible this week. I want to talk about boundaries. And this is an important topic. I think for a lot of teachers, because as helpers and most of the teachers that I know are helpers, I identify as a helper myself. We tend to let other people push boundaries with us. We don't always have our boundaries set as firmly as we should. And we, in our efforts to help, we sometimes allow people to take advantage of our good nature, our willingness to want to get along or willingness to do whatever it takes to get a job done. And there are benefits, certainly if you're a particular people pleaser and you enjoy pleasing other people all the time have at it, the problem is you can't please. All of the people all of the time, there are going to be times when you have to assert yourself and set healthy boundaries. If you want to take control of your stress, it's just, that is what you have to do. So I want to suggest for you today, seven ways that successful people manage to set boundaries at work that work for them and could work for you if you would consider adopting one or more of these strategies. So the first one is simply reconsider what your priorities are. You know, we spend our time usually on the things that are the most important to us. And yet as teachers, I know that a lot of your time gets sucked up by meaningless activities, things that you feel obligated to do, but maybe don't have the payoff that they once had or should have. So I want to invite you to take a look at every, every activity that you are involved in right now, everything. And if you can't sit down and make a list, at least create in your mind a list of the things that are most important to you and allow you to really consider if you're married and you have children, if you had to choose between work and your students and your obligations at your school or your family, which would you choose? I know that sounds like a crazy question, but then I want you to think, where are you spending the most quality time? Because there may be a mismatch. You may say my family, of course my family's the most important I spouse my children. Of course, they're more important than anything that goes on at school. And yet look at how much time you are spending on schoolwork, as opposed to how much time you've really spent being present with your family. Just asking you to consider, take a look. So one of the first things you should do, if you're really serious about taking control of your stress is to consider your boundaries and set priorities for how you plan to spend your time. And the second thing is to make self-care a part of your priorities. If it isn't already now by self care, that can mean a number of different things. It can be as simple as making sure you're staying hydrated or that you're eating well or that you're getting the sleep that you need, or that you are taking time out to spend time with your friends. Self-care can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but whatever it means for you, I want you to consider, are you making it a priority or is it something you keep putting off for, for me, for my example, I've decided to commit for the next six months to have a massage or relaxing, they call it a serenity massage once a month for the next six months as part of my self-care routine, I often without scheduling it, I often think I'm going to get a massage every month. And then suddenly it's six months since my last massage and massages help me physically, mentally, and emotionally. If I know that, why would I forego them? Why would I keep putting them off? So I've committed to that for my part of my self-care. Another thing that you might want to do is to limit as far as setting boundaries for yourself, limit what you plan to take home from school every day. Even if it means staying at school an extra hour, if you can, to get all of your work for some of you, you're going to be rolling your eyes at me. I know cause you have so much to do, especially this time of year. I'm just asking you to consider what can you leave at school so that you don't have to lug it home? Think, you know, in years ago I would, I would take stuff home that ended up never coming out of my satchel. I was just lugging it back and forth. I had good intentions, but then I got distracted by things that were going on at home. And I never pulled any of the workout. Are you doing that? Are you just lugging stuff back and forth without ever getting around to the work that you've brought home? If that's the case, leave the satchel at work because bringing it home just makes you feel guilty that you're not getting to it. So to the extent that you can leave what you can at work, I would also encourage you to adopt the habit. And I know this is going to be another one. You may, I will at me, but avoid work email when you're at home. And that means even on the weekends, I feel very strongly that administrators have started long ago, who take advantage of the fact that they can reach you 24 hours, seven days a week. And because they can, they do infringe on your free time at home, on the weekends and in the evenings, you allow it. If you check the email and then feel obligated to respond to it right away. So if you can consider the possibility of not checking your work email on the weekends and in the evenings, that will help you to set stronger boundaries around the difference between being at work and being at home. Another thing about setting boundaries is that, you know, your time precious, we all get to set same 24 hours a day, the same seven days a week. We each get to choose how we spend that time. So I want you to consider that if you are so busy that you don't have any time for yourself, your personal time, then schedule some personal time. Even if it's just 15 minutes a day, schedule a time for you just to be with you just to consider what you need. What, what your needs are. You may need to schedule your vacations. You know, the vacations are often things that we keep thinking we're going to take. And then we never do. If you don't schedule it, it probably won't happen. And then finally, if you really want to set healthy boundaries around work versus home, and this is even true in your personal life, learn how to say none. It's hard to do if especially if you haven't practiced it, it's like a muscle that's gone completely atrophied, especially if you're a people pleaser. Especially if you over volunteer, especially if you are a true blue helper, but we often overextend ourselves, which is the cause of our stress. And then wonder why we're so stressed out the overextension of ourselves as a result of our not being able to say no, every once in a while. I'm not suggesting that you say no to everything, but you can say no, occasionally you don't have to give a reason. You don't have to make excuses. You don't have to use other people as your rationale for why you can't do something. You simply say no, that doesn't suit me. Thank you very much. You'll need to find someone else to do that. Try it. It's very freeing. And if you manage to learn how to do it, you will have conquered to some extent the problem of setting healthy boundaries, the problem of over, over volunteering, over giving and not taking care of yourself. So practice saying that every once in a while, those are seven ways that successful people have set boundaries for themselves at work that work for them. And I want to suggest to you to consider that one or more of these strategies might work for you as well. We consider your priorities, make self-care a priority. If that isn't already stick to the resolve to limit what you take home from work, avoid work, email at home in the evenings and on weekends. Schedule your personal time. If you need to schedule your vacations and learn how to say no politely and firmly without feeling the need to make any excuses, that's it for this week. Now, if you have any questions, if you'd like to make a comment, I'd love to hear from you. Email me@katieboitnottgmail.com. If you are interested in learning more about the course that I've been referring to for the last several weeks, as part of this series on stress management, let me know. I can send you some information. If you would like to chat about your stress or your dilemmas at work and your desire to maybe consider making a change in your career. In the upcoming months, you can make an appointment with me, teachers in transition.com forward slash calendar out, put the link in the show notes, but it's at teachers in transition.com forward slash calendar for a complimentary discovery session. Take care of you so that you are able to take care of the others in your life that you care about. That's the whole point of self care. You can't take care of others. If you've worn yourself out and people are depending on you. So you need to take care of yourself. Have a wonderful week. Stay well, stay safe. If you need to, where am I ask if you haven't already got get vaccinated and I'll see you next week.

Speaker 1:

So there you have it. An episode of teachers in transition. I hope you enjoy the information and I hope you'll plan to come back. Please subscribe to teachers in transition so that you can be alerted of future episodes. And let me know if you have any questions or topics that you would like me to specifically cover in a future episode, I'm more than happy to help with individual questions as well. So email me at kitty Boitnott at boys, not coaching.com. If you are interested in finding a new career or just enjoying your life more, this is the place to start. I'm Katie Boitnott and this is teachers in transition.