This is the time of year that many teachers are feeling more stressed than ever. There is so much to do and so little time in which to get it all done!
For some, it may be time to ask for help. But in this episode, Kitty shares her perspective about how and whom you should ask for help if you decide you need it.
If you are feeling overstressed and overwhelmed, you may need to talk it out. Find someone you can talk to. Take advantage of your Employee Assistance Program. Find a therapist you trust if you feel that's the kind of help you need.
And if you want this to be your last year of teaching, you need to start your job search NOW. Kitty can help with that. Make an appointment to talk at https://teachersintransition.com/calendar. Kitty offers a complimentary Discovery Session.
Or contact Kitty directly by email at kittyboitnott@gmail.com.
This is the time of year that many teachers are feeling more stressed than ever. There is so much to do and so little time in which to get it all done!
For some, it may be time to ask for help. But in this episode, Kitty shares her perspective about how and whom you should ask for help if you decide you need it.
If you are feeling overstressed and overwhelmed, you may need to talk it out. Find someone you can talk to. Take advantage of your Employee Assistance Program. Find a therapist you trust if you feel that's the kind of help you need.
And if you want this to be your last year of teaching, you need to start your job search NOW. Kitty can help with that. Make an appointment to talk at https://teachersintransition.com/calendar. Kitty offers a complimentary Discovery Session.
Or contact Kitty directly by email at kittyboitnott@gmail.com.
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 112 of teachers in transition the podcast and the YouTube channel. My name is Katie Boitnott and I am the owner of Boitnott coaching and the founder of teachers in transition. I specialize in helping burnt out teachers find career alternatives that will suit them better than teaching in this day and age of high stress and changes caused by the pandemic. I'm also a stress management coach. So on alternating weeks, I talk about stress management. And on off weeks, I talk about career transition strategies. This week, the topic is stressed and I'm using as an outline for this series. This will be a part of the series on stress that I've been speaking to for the last several weeks pulled from our mini course that I created on seven ways that teachers can better manage their stress toward the end of the school year. So the series was written and produced with the idea that from spring break, until the end of the year, the pace at school picks up, things are need to be done. There are deadlines that need to be met. There are tests to be administered and there's just so much to do. And it seems like every year there, there is even more for people to do. And the stress becomes, uh, sometimes overwhelming for people. Some people, lots of people. So I wanted to suggest to you, and as part of this series, by us time, I talked about setting healthy boundaries. Today. I want to talk about the importance of knowing when to ask for help and who you should consider asking for help, because depending on the situation, you may not want to ask just anybody and you need to be careful that you don't ask when you don't really need the help at the same time. You don't want to wait until it's so late. That you're totally overwhelmed. I, remembering years ago, when I was a law librarian for, uh, an elementary school that we got a new teacher, she was new to the profession. She had just, she was sort of a career switch, or I guess because she wasn't, she wasn't young in this, in the same way that a young college graduate would be, but she was fresh out of college and had just finished her endorsement in elementary education. She was assigned to be the second grade teacher when I, one of the second grade teachers. And on the Friday before labor day weekend, when we were going to be starting school with kids on Tuesday, she hadn't done anything to her room to get it ready, nothing. I think she just didn't know where to start, did not. And nobody had offered to help her. So it came to my attention. One of the teachers came rushing through the library and said, Mrs so-and-so was in need of help. And did I have any time to come and help get the ring set up? And so I went, I went along with several other veteran teachers who were able to show her and do for her, what she needed to do, because frankly, I think she was just paralyzed, um, with, with not knowing what to do. When I say she hadn't done anything to prepare the room. I mean, she hadn't done anything. There weren't any, any bulletin boards up there, the books were all stacked up and not, not assorted and assigned yet that maybe it's just, she hadn't done anything. I don't know what she had managed to do all of the week of teacher week. Although part of the problem, if I remember correctly is there had been a transfer midweek and she hadn't even been there all week. So that was part of it. I suspect. Anyway, if you hear at the point of being paralyzed with fear or stress or panic, that's when you need to be asking for help. Now, the other matter is who do you go to for help load? And that depends in part on the kind of help you might need. But I want to suggest to you that you need to find someone that you can trust, who isn't going to be running around, telling everybody that you're struggling and need help, because if it gets back to your principal, that may not be in your best interest. So find someone who's not going to be running around gossiping about the fact that you've found yourself so far behind that you needed to ask for help. Surely, hopefully you have a trusted colleague, at least one that you can confide in and share that you are struggling and in need assistance. Now, what if the kind of help you need goes beyond what's going on in your classroom? What if, what if you're feeling so overwhelmed with everything that's going on, that you need some sort of therapy, then you need to find a therapist. There is no shame in finding help that way. And you need to do that in the same way that if you broke a leg or you were sick, you go to your regular doctor. So don't be embarrassed that you need to talk to somebody. We all have times when we need to talk to somebody and having a professional to help us sort through our feelings can be a tremendous help. I know I went through a couple of people when I was married and struggling with trying to figure out how to, how to make it work. And I talked to one in particular who was very matter of fact, and very helpful. And I, I appreciated her efforts and, uh, in a big way. So if you find that you need someone now for most teachers, your districts offer employee assistance programs and what you need to. So you can go for free for several sessions and maybe that's all you need. But the employee assistance program is a confidential program. You call the number that's provided for you in the districts list of numbers, somewhere on their website or in their policy manual. You call them, you tell them who you are, but they assign you a number so that your school district will be billed for your visit. But they'll never know that it was you visiting. You'll be given a number that identifies you in the paperwork, but that's, that's all that way. You can go and with some confidentiality share whatever it is you need with the person that you're assigned. And you can speak with that person up to, uh, when I was, when I was going through that process, I think it was up to six sessions for any particular issue. And then if you need more than that, you can set that up. Most, most people's insurance pays at least part of it. The point is not to be afraid to ask for help when you need it and understand that there, there are times when everybody on the planet needs to talk to someone confidentially and, and someone who's going to offer a perspective that perhaps you need to hear a third person objective without any skin in the game opinion about what's going on in your life. Like I said, I used it when I was married. Um, it's it's it was necessary at the time. I remember saying when I made the appointment, that I'd always felt like I was a good coper, that I was, that was known for coping with things. I had coped with loss before I had coped with lots of things in my life. And yet, while I was married, I was having trouble feeling like I was coping well. And when you have that feeling, it's time, time to ask for help. So gauge yourself and determine are you in need of help or do you perhaps know someone who needs help? Sometimes you can see where other people are struggling and they're in denial about it themselves. And you just need to step up and offer yourself as, as a helper. So keep an eye out right now. This is a time for teachers to stick together and to hang in there and help each other, especially after this year, which has been a year from hell for most teachers to get everything done, to get all of the paperwork completed, to get your kids off for the summer, and then to prepare you you'll be preparing for next year before you even get a chance to take a deep breath as is, unless you decide to start looking for something else, which I can help with. If that's what you decide you need to do. Every job has its own particular type of stress. Let's face it. There's there aren't any jobs out there that are totally stress-free and you'd be bored. If, if there were jobs like that, that, that you had, if you didn't have any excitement going on in your life, you'd be bored to death, but there's a difference between having challenging stress that makes you stretch a little bit out of your comfort zone and challenges you to step it up and do a better job. And the stress that feels like it's crushing you. So identify the difference and figure out what you need to do to get the help that you need. If you want to talk to me about it, you can make an appointment@teachersintransition.com forward slash calendar. I offer complimentary discovery session and you can make an appointment through that link teachers in transition.com forward slash calendar. Or you can email me@kittyboitnottatgmail.com. So that's it for today. Just don't forget to ask for help when you need it. And I'll be seeing you next week. In the meantime, if you would review this podcast so other people can find it, uh, perhaps they'll find these messages useful for them as well. Please do review and offer suggestions of other topics that you might like me to cover sometime. 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.