I know you might not like to hear it, but if you are constantly stressed out, you need to look in the mirror to see the real culprit. At the end of the day, you are the only one who can do something about your stress. You either give up something so you have less on your plate to manage or you continue to juggle so many things that you wind up making yourself sick.
You are the only one who can manage your stress. And if your job is the source of your stress, you either change the way you approach your job or you change your job.
If you are thinking you want this to be your last year in the classroom, I am offering a free workshop on Thursday, September 16, 2021, at 7:00 PM EST. If you are interested in attending click here: https://event.webinarjam.com/register/44/v97m4tv5.
You can also sign up for a free checklist of the 10 things you need to know and do if you are ready for a career change. To get that checklist, click here: https://teachersintransition.com/checklist.
I know you might not like to hear it, but if you are constantly stressed out, you need to look in the mirror to see the real culprit. At the end of the day, you are the only one who can do something about your stress. You either give up something so you have less on your plate to manage or you continue to juggle so many things that you wind up making yourself sick.
You are the only one who can manage your stress. And if your job is the source of your stress, you either change the way you approach your job or you change your job.
If you are thinking you want this to be your last year in the classroom, I am offering a free workshop on Thursday, September 16, 2021, at 7:00 PM EST. If you are interested in attending click here: https://event.webinarjam.com/register/44/v97m4tv5.
You can also sign up for a free checklist of the 10 things you need to know and do if you are ready for a career change. To get that checklist, click here: https://teachersintransition.com/checklist.
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 129 of teachers and transition the podcast and the YouTube channel. My name is kitty Boitnott. I am a former educator, turned heart-centered career transition and job search coach. And I am the owner of Boitnott coaching and the founder of teachers in transition. If you've listened to this podcast or watch the YouTube channel in the past, you know, that I offer alternating weeks information about stress management for teachers and career transition strategies for teachers this week, we're going to be talking about stress and the stress that you may already be feeling, even though you've only been back in school for a few short weeks. In some cases you just went back a few days ago. And I think I heard this morning that New York city was just getting ready to start. So wherever you are in the country, whether you've been back to school a month or six weeks or six days or six hours, you may still have some feelings of stress and worry and overwhelm about how this school year is going to shape up. I know I got a call from, uh, the con a concerned husband. Last week, he was concerned about his wife, who was a teacher and the number of hours that she had had to put in at her school during the first workweek. And the problem with the work she had done that week was that she attended meetings during every practically, every minute of the contract day, and then had to do the work to get her class ready for the kids ready on her own time, which is an abuse short and simple. It's just, it's an abuse and administrators should not be making those kinds of demands. It's ridiculous. And yet teachers all over the country tend to follow along, fall into line and do that exact thing. They spend hour after hour after hour off their contract hours, getting ready for the school to the school year, to began to get their classrooms ready for their students, because they don't want to let their students down. And if only administrations were as concerned about not letting their teachers down the world would be a very different and in my opinion, better place. So what do we do about the stress that you're feeling at the end of the day? I've said this before, it may start to sound like a broken record. The end of the day, you are the only one who can control the amount of stress that you are willing to put up with stress needs to be managed. Now, I don't think it's possible. In fact, I know it's not possible for us to eliminate stress from our lives. Stress is part of being alive. I have said in my workshops that only people who aren't stressed out are the ones who have already gone on ahead of us into the next life they're buried or cremated. They are no longer with us. I assume that they are not stressed out the rest of us. As long as we're alive and kicking, we're going to be stressed. And to some extent, stress is a good thing. It can be an excellent thing. The stress of preparing for a big event often raises your adrenaline so that you perform better. If you are a singer, a performer of any kind of speaker, you know that if you don't have a little bit of nervousness, if your stomach's not a float with butterflies, if you aren't sweating a little bit, you're not fully prepared and you won't turn in your best performance. We tend to do our best work. When we are a little bit stressed over stress is the problem being stressed to the point of feeling like you are going to break. That's the problem. And if you feel like you're approaching that point, you don't see how you can continue doing what it is that you're doing and not make yourself sick. You need to stop and ask yourself, is this something that is so important that I can't do without it? If you can't eliminate something in your life so that you are less stressed, do it. If it means, you know, canceling, uh, uh, an obligation with someone that you normally keep, do it, take an afternoon just for yourself, go for a walk, take a drive, do something just for yourself so that you can decompress and relax, go for a massage, or, you know, some people love to swim, do something for yourself that is active. That will get your endorphins going. That will raise your dopamine levels, which will in turn help to make you feel more calm, less stressed, and a little bit happier. These are things that no one else can do for you. However, no one else can take a drive and you be the one who gets relaxed. No one else can go for a walk and it'd be a benefit to you. You have to do it. You have to be committed to your own health, your own, well-being your own wellness. So if you're listening to this and you're thinking it's just impossible for you to do any less, I want you to really take a serious look. Is that true challenge, everything that you're doing, is there anything on your plate that you could eliminate? You might feel guilty about it at first, but is it worth feeling a little guilty about canceling an obligation? So you have an afternoon to yourself, or is it better to go for the obligation and then feel resentment about it the whole time? You're there. You are responsible for you. You are responsible for your own health, your own well-being and ultimately your own stress management and finding ways to relieve your stress. And if the stress has gotten to the point where you feel like I just cannot do this job anymore, it's the job that's doing me in. Maybe it's time to think about finding a different job. Not that a new job won't have a whole host of its own stressors, but it'll be different stressors. And if you can do what my last two clients have been able to do and find jobs that they are going to be doing only on the job and no work to take home. That's a win-win for everybody. And that's exactly what they have found jobs, where they will be working a regular day and they will not be taking work home. In fact, one, one of my clients laughed about it a few weeks ago, when she shared with our group that she had wanted to bring something home and they told her, no, the work you do for us, you need to do on the clock. And if you take it home, we can't pay you. So leave it gear. You'll, it'll be here for you tomorrow. That is such a change for her. From what she's experienced as a teacher for 26 years, she's having a little trouble adjusting to her new reality. She will adjust. I teased her. Then it'll just be a little, little bit of time before she forgets about bringing anything home. And at some point down the line, she's going to wonder why she ever put up with 26 years of dragging stuff home every single night, you are in control of view and your own destiny. Now, if you are thinking that you would like to make a change in your career, you don't just flip a switch and do that overnight. That doesn't work that way. You need to plan. You need to prepare, you need to know what you're doing so that you avoid making the mistakes that most people make when they start a job search without knowing what they're doing. First job. Hunting's a lot like anything else. If you don't know what you're doing, you can make mistakes before you even realize it. And some mistakes you don't want, you just can't afford to make. You don't want to be making at the beginning of your job search. So I'm offering a workshop this Thursday night, uh, tonight, if you're listening to the podcast on the 16th, the, uh, tonight at seven o'clock, we'll be offering a free workshop as opposed to the paid workshop. I did a few weeks ago. This one is free. It's simply called. And it's the same name as the program that I promote jumpstart, your job search. I've got a new coaching cohort forming to start mark on Monday the 20th of September. And I would to have you join us. If you are ready to commit to finding new work sometime this year, or at least that you want this year to be your last year of teaching. And you're ready to commit to making the change in our life that you want. I'm here to commit to helping you, if you are ready to make that change. And as part of my program, I provide email support and group coaching support with an offer of an upgrade to one-on-one support, if that's what you would like to have, but I will be offering you the basics of a jump start, your job search in the workshop on Thursday evening at seven, seven Eastern. So if you would like to attend, I will include the link to the registration page in the show notes, and you are welcome to join us. I would love to have you there. I'd love to see you there. And if you do join us and you are a regular podcast listener, be sure to let me know if you have comments, thoughts, suggestions, if you would please review this podcast so that other people can find it more easily, I would appreciate it. If you have ideas for future episodes, either on career transition or stress management, email me, and I will try to address that topic that you may be wanting to hear more about. And in the meantime, I hope you will stay well and be safe and take care. And I will see you next week. Take care.
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@kittyboitnottatboitnottcoaching.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.