From Guilt to Wellness: Redefining Effective School Counseling

Feeling overwhelmed as a school counselor? Ever get the feeling that no matter how much you've accomplished, it's never enough? I get it!  (I've been there, too.)

In this episode, I talk about the taboo issue of productivity guilt, a common- yet unaddressed- concern that affects lots of hardworking educators like us. I explain just what productivity guilt is and why we often feel this way, paying particular attention to heavy caseloads, high expectations, and the ceaseless demands of our roles. 

School counselors, it's time for a change where we redefine productivity and prioritize our wellbeing. Let's talk about how to combat productivity guilt, how to hold boundaries, and how to gain confidence in our capabilities to feel fulfilled in our work each day.

Despite what your current role may want you to believe, taking a break or cultivating think-time in your day doesn't mean you're weak or lazy; it's an essential part of being a successful school counselor. Join me as we tackle productivity guilt once and for all.

Transcript

Steph Johnson: 0:07

Hello, school counselor, and welcome back to another episode of the School for School Counselors podcast. I'm Steph Johnson, glad to be back here with you for another week, and I have kind of a big question for you this week. How do you see yourself as a school counselor? What are some of the values that you really hold up for yourself? What are some things you aspire to be? What are some qualities that you love to notice in yourself as you go through your day-to-day work? I'm imagining you're probably thinking things like I'm trustworthy, I'm genuine, I have a very empathetic personality. Maybe you're very curious and you want to learn more about what's going on with your students so you can be an effective helper. Maybe you're a hardcore advocate. Maybe you really want to make sure that you're the voice for your students when they need it the most and when they can't speak for themselves. And I'm guessing you're pretty hardworking too. I don't know of any school counselors that feel like they're not hardworkers. And, to be fair, on our campuses we work very, very hard each and every day, don't we? That's just the nature of our job, and that's what I'm going to talk about in this episode of the podcast.

Steph Johnson: 1:32

Now, this is a place where I usually stop and read a recent review of the podcast from one of our amazing colleagues and listeners. But y'all, we're out of reviews. We've read all the ones that we have. It's time for us to get a fresh crop of insights and reflections on the podcast so that other people can learn about what we're doing over here. So if you haven't yet, if you would be so kind as to hop onto your podcast platform of choice and I'll tell you Apple Podcasts really helps us out here and submit a review for what you've enjoyed about the podcast so far. We would be so grateful for your words, and I know everyone else will be grateful for them as well. All right now, talking about being a hard worker and how sometimes that can go awry, and I know you think I'm going to start talking about boundaries right or about self-care or something like that. I'm not going to talk about any of that this week.

Steph Johnson: 2:34

What I want to talk to you about is something called productivity guilt. It's a phrase that speaks to the uneasiness that you have when you're not actively working towards some sort of personal expectation or professional expectation. In the school counseling world, I think this productivity guilt translates into things like I'm not doing enough. Have you ever had that feeling, or the feeling of I'm not doing enough of the right things? So either you're really uncomfortable if you're not busy every single second of your day, or it just makes you feel really uneasy if you stop to take a breath because you feel like you should be doing more, or you should be doing more of different things.

Steph Johnson: 3:28

Sometimes you're not quite as productive in the areas that you want to be productive in, like building comprehensive school counseling programs. When you feel like you're not hitting that mark, when you've been given all these other responsibilities, or you're just trying to keep your head above water, you begin to feel some guilt about it, and this is something that we really need to be aware of as we go through our daily work. I'm going to be honest with you. I struggle with this one a lot. I've been working in schools over a quarter of a century. Oh man, that makes me sound old, doesn't it? But I think because I have worked in the school environment for so long, these ideas have just kind of been ingrained in me. So I want to talk about the things that I see in schools and the things that I've seen throughout my career.

Steph Johnson: 4:24

That, I think, really contributes to this productivity guilt that we're feeling in our day to day work. Number one I think just the school environment in general is not conducive toward a feeling of okay, I can stop and take a break, let me slow down for a minute If you're having a rough day, if you need a second to process. School environments are not built to support that. The ability to think that way, the ability to want to stop and take a pause or take a breather, is really hard to come by, and a lot of that comes from the expectation of overwork. Almost every single person on a school campus is overworked. Can I get an amen on that? Almost every single person on a school campus is running around like their hair is on fire. Each and every day we continue to be given more and more to do with less and less resources, and so it almost becomes this weird kind of competition where we're trying to figure out who is the busiest person on campus. It's like this weird badge of honor that people aspire to get. You know what I'm talking about. I bet you've seen a campus that operates like this because, for better or for worse, that's just the way the education world works right now.

Steph Johnson: 5:52

Add to that some of the supervisory pressures where you're expected to take work home, you're expected to work past your contract hours and they tell you things like it's for the good of the students. There's just this insane pressure that's coming down on you all the time and you get really desensitized toward the messages. You begin to believe them and you begin to believe that some of these things truly are your responsibility. Add that the meetings that are coming at us all the time, tons of curveballs that are headed our way, particularly as school counselors. We don't know from one moment to the next what's going to be headed our direction, and sometimes that can be pretty disconcerting. Then we've got students and administrators who want to pigeonhole us in certain aspects of our work but at the same time they expect us to be on call to answer just about anything. So we feel like we have to be on all the time. Do you feel that way, like you've got to be on from the moment you walk in the door until the moment that you leave, and sometimes even after you leave the school doors?

Steph Johnson: 7:08

Second, I think part of our productivity guilt is that we have some pretty high standards for ourselves. I say all the time I know that you're a go-getter and the reason that I know that you're a driven go-getter personality is because you're listening to a podcast about your profession on your own time right now, and that's a big deal. It's a big deal that you spent years of your life and tens of thousands of dollars going to grad school to do this job. You are not lazy. That is not in the equation for you. So I know that you're a go-getter. I know that you have high standards for yourself.

Steph Johnson: 7:54

And when we have high standards, when we're helpers in environments where the needs never seem to end, there's always something that we feel we can contribute to more. There's always something to look into, there's always more to give. Sometimes we become prone to perfectionism or a savior complex. We know rationally that we really shouldn't be ready to fix all these things for our students. We talk about that a lot in our school for school counselors world, about how we're helpers, not fixers, but deep down inside, admit it, there are so many times when you really, really want to be a fixer. It's human nature. You love these kids, you want the best for them and even with these high standards that we've set for ourselves.

Steph Johnson: 8:52

The school environments are churning and churning all the time, and it's really easy to get slept up in this go-go-go every second. And then we start to feel like it is our responsibility. It is our duty, it is our purpose to meet every single need on the campus as they arise. Wow, that makes me tired just talking about it. Third, our cloak of confidentiality keeps a lot of what we do away from our coworkers, and so there are a lot of questions about what's going on in the school counselor's office. What's actually happening in there, what do they actually do all day? And we hear those things, right, people tell us about them or we overhear them, and we begin to develop this mindset of I have to prove myself. I have to prove that I'm an equal member of this staff, because you have so many people questioning what it is you do all day.

Steph Johnson: 9:56

And then when we add in data-driven school counseling, which was originally designed to identify student needs, provide appropriate interventions and to use use of time data for advocacy efforts, right Now is really doing kind of the opposite of supporting us, whereas we could have advocated for more white space, more think time in our day, more of the ability to process through what we're seeing and hearing. It's adding to the overwhelm. Can you agree with that? I know so many school counselors I've worked with regarding data initiatives are really gung-ho, really motivated to do it that as they get into the thick of the data collection they begin to feel really demoralized, they begin to feel really defeated. And part of that, I think, is the perception that we should be working minute to minute to minute and that there should be no downtime in this use of time, data and y'all. That's really dangerous. It's actually super dangerous. If you stop and think about it.

Steph Johnson: 11:13

A lot of things happen when we get caught up in this productivity guilt and this go go go mentality Nothing for nothing. Our jobs require a lot of thought, they require a lot of insight and they require a lot of interpretation, and you just cannot be good at that if you don't stop and think. You cannot become good at that if it's go, go, go every second. If you're a naturally reflective person, by nature, you're probably already feeling this in your day to day work. You're probably wondering things like why do I feel on edge all the freaking time? Why do I feel like I can't catch my breath? Why do I feel like I don't know if I'm coming or going. It's probably because you don't have that white space to think, you don't have that think time built into your day and that can lead to some feelings of burnout. Certainly it can also lead toward chronic stress and it can really compromise your level of student support. If you can't think through things, if you're not able to have the mental clarity that's needed to help students toward their own resolutions or to be able to interpret the nuance of what people are talking about or what their actions are saying, you're going to feel behind.

Steph Johnson: 12:45

Counseling is an art. There's a technique behind it, to be sure, there are certain approaches behind it, but at its core, counseling students and children and adolescents is an art when you don't see artists go, go, go, go go all the time just churning out as many pieces of artwork as they possibly can, no matter the quality of the output. You don't see them throwing paint all over canvases, hoping it just magically comes together to make some kind of a picture that somebody can recognize or that somebody finds worthy or sees value in. Their process is intentional, and in school counseling it needs to be intentional as well, and we've talked about this already about how school environments that we're working in are not supportive of white space. They're not supportive of us recognizing when we need to do some thinking time, when we need processing time, or recognizing when we need to get our own emotions in check.

Steph Johnson: 13:50

We hear the worst of what our campuses have to offer. Sometimes we see the worst in our students and we may not be able to wait until the end of the day to go home and emotionally process that for ourselves, this becomes a vicarious trauma risk, and y'all, we've got to be aware of that. So, anyway, if we're feeling like we have to be on on on all the time, if we feel like we have to prove ourselves through our productivity, what do we do next? Especially if we work on a campus that truly expects that from everybody, where it's communicated, or at least insinuated, that we can't let up for one minute or we're going to be accused of not being a team player or not being there for the kids or any of the other dysfunctional baloney that we've come up with to tell educators on our school campuses. What do we do then? I have a few suggestions. Hopefully some of these might be right for you. I think number one.

Steph Johnson: 15:00

You have to own your craft. I mean, you have to own it, really own it. You have to be secure enough in your knowledge, and I'm not talking about theoretical orientations or counseling approaches. I'm talking about being secure in the knowledge of what it actually means to be a school counselor. What does it really mean to be a helper, particularly in our post-COVID world? Can you own that? Can you own the fact that your role is different from others on your campus and that that's okay? Can you be okay with the fact that the requirements of you are different than the requirements of others on your campus? You have to get to the point that you can recognize and embrace that. You've got to reflect on it, you've got to work through it and you have to understand that you don't have to be like everybody else to be effective and to be a great team member on your campus.

Steph Johnson: 16:11

Consultation helps with this a lot. The reassurance that you get from colleagues who know where you are because they've been there, they get it. It's amazing. Quality consultation is your number one ally in so many issues of school counseling and this is no different. So if you don't have a quality consultative community somewhere, make sure you find one. Make sure it's constructive, not just venting sessions. Make sure that your consultative community is helping you truly build fluency in your craft, helping you build the expertise that you need.

Steph Johnson: 16:57

As we learn more about school counseling, we build expertise. As we build expertise, we develop fluency, meaning we can talk about things at the drop of a hat. If we have a situation that appears on campus suddenly, we'll be able to speak with authority about it, without prepping ahead of time, without having to look things up or refresh your memory about the components of something or other. You'll just know. Because you've built this fluency, you can provide ideas and insights and be a good source of information for your school staff or your parents or your students.

Steph Johnson: 17:36

Through your fluency, and as you build that fluency through your expertise, you begin to develop clout on your campus. Clout is when people start to notice, they start to pay attention. When you talk, they perk up and they listen when you open your mouth. And as you develop that clout, you become able to rest in those relationships and stop feeling like you have to prove yourself so much, day after day after day. You stop feeling like you have to constantly drop these little, tiny pebbles into this great giant bucket of expectation. I did this thing. Look, I did that thing. I did this other thing. Are you proud of me yet? Have I earned my right to have a spot on this team? It's a terrible feeling to have every day when you go to work. So there's a different way to approach this and building that expertise, that clout, that trustworthiness on your campus, that all comes from good consultation. It's so important y'all.

Steph Johnson: 18:49

Number two you have to feel assured in setting your boundaries. Now, I know I said I wasn't going to talk about boundaries, but I do have to say just a little bit. I want to tell you how to set boundaries, or why to set boundaries or any of that tired old stuff you hear all the time. But I do want to tell you you have to figure out how to hold them. And that doesn't mean that when you set a boundary, you're drawing a line in the sand and you're saying this is the line I absolutely will not cross. That's not a good boundary, my friends. If you're taking advice from folks that are telling you to set boundaries that way, go somewhere else. That's not a good boundary for you or for anybody around you. A boundary is identifying a point at which something becomes not great. It's about knowing your limits, knowing how you work well, how you work effectively and how you can be your best self when you show up to serve students every day. You have to be aware of those boundaries and you have to be able to hold them.

Steph Johnson: 20:01

You know, sometimes on our campus and these may be few and far between, but we still sometimes enjoy them we have these times on our campus where we're just chatting with the people around us. You know we're joking around, we're telling stories, we're connecting those kinds of things, and sometimes we start to worry in those conversations what the people that we're talking to are thinking about us. If you're anything like me and I'm telling you I do struggle with this those are the times that sometimes I think, oh my gosh, I should be working, I should be working harder, I should be doing something. What's on my to-do list? What can I go check off? What's the next thing? And I panic when really I should be reframing that for myself. I should be thinking things like how fun is it to be out here building visibility with my students? They're seeing me talk with my peers, they know I'm a person that they can talk to if they need to. Or I could think, hey, I'm building staff relationships right now, I'm letting these folks know who I am and what I'm about. I'm building trust. I'm taking away some of the mysteriousness of what happens in my school counseling office.

Steph Johnson: 21:24

Sometimes we need to pause and have these moments of reflection, to think through them and to sit and be okay with what's happening, to be a real person, not just this robot that executes, executes, executes. Also, I think sometimes we have to find the time to sit and be okay with what we've just experienced. Sometimes we can compartmentalize as we're working right, but sometimes, as a last resort, we've got to go hide. We do, let's be real. Sometimes we have to go hide.

Steph Johnson: 22:06

I would be lying if I said I had not had certain places on certain campuses that I've gone when I've needed a minute, because we all have those days. We're human. If we're not having those days, there might be a bigger problem, right? So I'm going to urge you be very aware of when you're falling into this trap of productivity guilt. You do not have to be on 24-7. You do not have to be the most productive person on your campus and despite what the expectation of your campus would have you believe.

Steph Johnson: 22:46

Being the first one in the parking lot in the morning and the last one out in the evening is not a badge of honor, but y'all again, this goes so much further than just drawing boundaries around time or making sure that we're engaging in self-care. We have to be aware what's triggering us into feeling productivity guilt. How can we really stay aware of this in ourselves, how can we come to terms with it and how can we rest in the fact that, even if we let up for just a few seconds, the work we do is still valuable, we're still great at our jobs and we're still making a difference each and every day? It's an important thing to think about. I urge you to reflect on that as you finish out your semester or as you begin the new semester in January, because we need you, happy and healthy and strong, to continue serving students on your campus and making tremendous impacts in their lives. If you don't have a great group that's helping you build your expertise and fluency that's going to help you develop that clout and become a trusted expert on campus.

Steph Johnson: 24:11

I'm going to urge you to check into the School for School Counselors Mastermind. You can find all about it at schoolforschoolcounselorscom. Slash mastermind. We would love to welcome you into that community and I'm going to encourage you to continue reflecting on this with them. And then, individually, on your own, you'll become a slave to productivity guilt, because all you're going to end up doing is feeling lesser than feeling overwhelmed, or maybe even feeling burnt out, and that's not good for us, it's not good for our community, it's not good for anybody. All right, I'll be back again soon with another episode of the School for School Counselors podcast. In the meantime, I hope you have the best week, a wonderful, restorative, relaxing holiday break, and I'll talk with you again soon. Take care, my friend.