Episode 390: Monday Mindset: The Real Reason Teachers Burn Out (And What You Can Do Today)

In today's Monday Mindset, We call out the myth that you must fill your cup before you care for others, and replace it with a practical plan to refill while you pour. Simple, repeatable habits make space for rest, boundaries, sleep, and help so you can show up steady and human.

• naming the soul-level exhaustion many teachers feel
• why “fill your cup first” becomes an impossible standard
• shifting the script from future okay to present okay
• designing micro-refills into the school day
• five minutes of silence to regulate your nervous system
• saying no to one nonessential task this week
• going to bed thirty minutes earlier for real recovery
• asking for help before crisis and normalising support
• building sustainability to increase patience and creativity
• picking one small practice to start today

Your challenge this week is to maybe just pick one of those things, one small way that you're gonna take care of yourself that is sustainable, that's not some crazy thing. Five minutes of silence, saying no to one thing, go to bed 30 minutes earlier, ask for help. Just pick one and just do it.

Transcript

Naming The Real Exhaustion

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, hello teachers, and welcome back to another Monday Mindset. Happy Monday. And today I want to do a little bit of real talk as we head into this time of the year. Because I know a lot of you are tired, and it's not just like end of the day tired, end of the week tired. It is like soul-crushing tired. And the kind of tired that doesn't go away after a weekend. It's the kind that makes you wonder how on earth am I going to make it to spring break or summer, or honestly, like just until Friday. And here's kind of what I see happening. We hear this over and over again everywhere, especially on social media, like ad nauseum to the point that it's annoying. Like you can't pour from an empty cup, or you need to take care of yourself first, or all of that stuff. And yes, I get it. Like those sayings exist for a reason, they're helpful, whatever. But the problem is for most teachers, that advice doesn't actually help. Because the reality is that you do pour from an empty cup every single day. Teachers do it, parents do it, caregivers do it,

Challenging The Empty Cup Myth

SPEAKER_00 1:05

right? You show up when you are exhausted, when there is nothing left in the freaking tank. You take care of everyone else, even when you desperately need someone to take care of you. And so today I want to shift the conversation from taking care of yourself first to how do I refill my cup while I'm pouring into other people? Because the belief that I want to challenge today is the following The belief that we have is that I need to take care of myself before I can take care of others. And look, it is great advice, and there are times where that is absolutely applicable. However, for most teachers in the middle of the school year, that is an impossible standard. And when we have impossible, unreasonable standards, it makes us feel even worse, right? Because how are you supposed to do that? How are you supposed to take care of yourself before you take care of others? Before school starts at 7:30, when you wake up at 5 a.m. to take care of your kids or go to the gym or whatever it might be, or during your 23-minute lunch period while you're also making copies and answering emails, trying to shove food into your mouth, go to the bathroom. After school, you have meetings, tutoring, grading, right? All of the things. Or if you have kids, right? When you get home, you have your own kids. You've got dinner to make, you have a house to manage, there's laundry and dishes and food, groceries, and all of the things, right? There is no before. There is no before.

Ditching Impossible Standards

SPEAKER_00 2:35

And so what inevitably happens is because we can't meet the standard of taking care of ourselves before we take care of others, we actually just never prioritize ourselves in any capacity because we're always waiting for the perfect time. Right? Once everything's this, once everything's that, once I finally have, once this, once, and it never comes. It never comes. Right? Like the past couple of months, I've just been stuck in this like emotional hell, it feels like. And I'm just, I've got stuck in this habit of this thought loop of saying, gosh, once my life just gets a little bit easier, maybe I'll find joy, maybe I'll find peace, maybe I'll, and I'm like, no, what am I gonna just sit around and wait? That could be months, that could be years. Like, I'm not doing that. Why am I waiting for the perfect time? It might never come. So instead of waiting for permission for the or waiting for like the perfect moment, we need to just operate from a different framework. We need to operate from a framework

A Mindset Shift To “I Am Okay”

SPEAKER_00 3:45

that's actually realistic and that honors our lives. That this is not a dress rehearsal. This could be your last day. I mean, I pray that it's not, but we don't know. And so we can't, we don't want to live and operate from this perpetual state of burnout, or this perpetual state, in my case, of like emotional just exhaustion. And so, how can we refill our cup, or how can we take care of ourselves in some tiny way and stop waiting to like completely take care of ourselves before we take care of others? Because burnout really is at the end of the day, it's a warning sign that something needs to change. Something. And sometimes it's something so small. Sometimes it's the simplest little thing, sometimes it's just a mindset shift, sometimes it's just a mantra that you're gonna tell yourself. Right? I was saying, I'm gonna be okay, I'm gonna be okay, I'm gonna be okay, but that kept putting okay in the future. And I was like, no, I don't want to be okay, I want to be okay now. And so I shifted it to I'm okay. I am okay, I am okay. Easier said than done. I've still got a lot of work to do. I still feel stuck, but there's movement, and we're changing something.

Refill While You’re Still Pouring

SPEAKER_00 5:13

And so the same thing goes for you, is the shift that I want you to make is to start finding ways to refill yourself while you are pouring. Because the truth is, you're gonna keep showing up, you're gonna keep teaching, you're gonna keep giving. That's just who you are. And so we have to build in these small moments and these different thought patterns of refilling ourselves along the way so that we don't run ourselves into the ground, so that we can thrive in the midst of normal life. Because life is hard sometimes. And so, what does that actually look like? It's not necessarily spa day, although that's lovely. It's not necessarily a week-long vacation, also lovely. It's not quitting your job and moving to Bali, although that would be lovely too. But it's really small intentional moments throughout your day on a consistent basis. And so I want to give you some examples. Very simple

Practical Micro‑Rest Strategies

SPEAKER_00 6:05

things that can just make all of the difference and can really ground you into the present moment as opposed to being worried about the future and worried about the past. So the first one is super simple. Five minutes of silence in your car before you walk into school. You don't scroll on your phone, you don't plan your day, you just sit with one hand on your heart and one hand on your stomach and you just breathe. Five minutes. I just did that with myself before walking into a contentious meeting. And it made all the difference in how I showed up in that meeting. Because I took a moment, five minutes, to take care of myself, to take care of my nervous system, to regulate myself. Five minutes of silence, easy peasy, before you walk into school. Just do it. Another example say no to something. Say no to one thing this week. Say no to one meeting, one extra task, one favor someone asks you to do that you actually do not have capacity for. You can say no. You can say no and still be a good person. I promise. This one's huge. This next one is huge. Go to bed 30 minutes earlier. We underestimate the power of sleep. It is so important to our well-being and our mental health. Get off of TikTok, Instagram, whatever it is. Don't just watch one more episode, just go to bed. If you normally go to bed at 11, just go to bed at 10:30. Honor yourself. Honor what your body needs. Honor what your mind needs, your soul needs. Honor that. Take care of this vessel. Go to bed. And last but not least, ask for help from a teacher, from a spouse, from a friend. You do not have to do everything alone. I know so often we feel that way. Teachers, we are autonomous beings, right? It's why so many of us love teaching. Because we like to do things our way. And it can be incredibly difficult for some of us to ask for help. And you don't want to find yourself in a situation where you have to ask for help because you're barely hanging on. Let's normalize asking for help from other people. These strategies are not some crazy elaborate self-care routines, but they matter and they make a difference.

Permission To Rest And Receive Help

SPEAKER_00 8:46

So, one thing that I want you to hear before we wrap up is that you do not need permission to rest. You do not need someone else to tell you it's okay. You need to give yourself permission because no one else is gonna do it for you. No one's gonna walk into your classroom and say, Oh, you look tired. Go take a break. No one's gonna say that to you. So you have to take care of yourself. Because the truth is, at the end of the day, you can take care of yourself and take care of others at the same time. It does not have to be either or. In fact, when you take care of yourself, even in these small ways, you show it better for your students. You have more patience, you have more energy, you have more creativity, right? You're creating sustainability in your life. I'll give you an example for my own life with my son. I have to have a very regulated nervous system around him. And it's really hard with everything that I've been going through. And I have found that before he comes to my house or he comes back to me or I pick him up from school, I really have to go through these things. I really have to take five minutes of silence. I really have to ground myself. I have to ask for help from my parents. I need their help with him. I have got to go to bed 30 minutes earlier. I cannot stay up late and be tired and take care of him and pour into him the way that he needs. Right? So that's what I want for you. Your challenge this week is to maybe just pick one of those things, one small way that you're gonna take care of yourself that is sustainable, that's not some crazy thing. Five

One Small Sustainable Change This Week

SPEAKER_00 10:28

minutes of silence, saying no to one thing, go to bed 30 minutes earlier, ask for help. Just pick one and just do it. Just start. Because small moments of refilling your cup every day, they add up and over time they make a difference. Okay, you are a human being who deserves rest, who deserves joy, who deserves care just as much as anyone else. And you do not have to wait for the perfect time to give that to yourself. All right, let's go into this week, knowing that taking care of yourself is not selfish. It is necessary, and you 100% can do it. All right, you guys, I will see you back here on the podcast tomorrow. Have a great rest of your day, everyone.