Teacher Self-Care and Life Balance: Personal Growth to Empower Educators & Avoid Burnout
This teacher podcast is for all educators who want to regain control of their time and energy and rekindle their passion for teaching. It is full of tips for teachers who want to overcome teacher burnout, invest in authentic teacher self-care, and create a sustainable work-life balance through better habits and confidently setting boundaries.
Grace combines her 20-year classroom experience and training in NLP and life coaching to inspire, entertain, and support educators to feel more empowered to create their unique path in an education system that can be overwhelming and stressful. This podcast for educators delivers the kind of teacher professional development you've always wished you could receive. It is the perfect balance of teacher personal growth tips, life-coaching and encouragement for overwhelmed educators.
Once you understand that your energy teaches more than your lesson plans, you'll realize that feeling empowered to create your own teaching experience is the best thing you can do for yourself, your family, and your students. You'll discover that feeling empowered is the ultimate inspiration for teachers.
This educator podcast is for you if you've ever asked yourself:
1. How can teachers set boundaries to maintain a healthy work-life balance?
2. What are some signs of burnout in teachers, and how can it be prevented?
3. What can schools do to support teacher well-being and prevent burnout?
4. What ways can schools create a wellness culture that supports both students and teachers?
5. What are the best podcasts for teachers who want practical strategies for proper self-care and inspiration for teachers?
6. What are some positive mindsets and strategies to help me put the fun and joy back in my classroom and fall back in love with teaching?
7. What resources can support me if I am struggling and starting to think that a career in education may not be sustainable?
PART of the TEACH BETTER Podcast Network
Teacher Self-Care and Life Balance: Personal Growth to Empower Educators & Avoid Burnout
LLN: Inspiration for Teachers: You Are Enough, You Do Enough
🎙️ Lunchbox Love Note Bonus Mini-Episode: Just like those little love notes slipped into your lunchbox, this episode is here to brighten your day with a virtual smile and a hug.
I hope you enjoy this jolt of inspiration and empowerment for teachers!
And if you appreciate my content, I humbly invite you to "pay it forward" and share this episode with a colleague. Everyone wins 💛
This one is all about the mindset of "enough." I promise you, you are enough, you do enough.
Want to truly thrive in teaching without sacrificing your personal life?
Check out my signature on-demand course, Balance Your Teacher Life. You can go the self-study route or join a cohort with group coaching for Summer 2025.
Check out all the details here: www.gracestevens.com/balance
📘 My latest (and greatest!) book:
The Empowered Teacher Toolkit
Check out the best-selling Positive Mindset Habits for Teachers book here
Beat Teacher Burnout with Better Boundaries book here
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Old school: Website : www.GraceStevens.com (courses, blog & freebies!)
Okay, if you're a regular listener, you know that that little chime sound at the beginning means that this is a super shorty bonus episode known as a lunchbox love note. The goal of these is just like that little note that you would find unexpectedly in your lunchbox that made you feel special, made you feel seen, let you know someone was thinking about you.
Bye bye. That's what I trust these episodes to be. I just put them out there into the ethers without any fanfare and hope that they find the right teacher at the right time when they need just that little bit of inspiration, support, we're going to call it like a virtual hug. And this one is literally So profound, I've said it before and I'm going to say it again because I need to hear it myself very often, I forget it and I just want to remind you, very simply, one word, enough.
Enough. Enough. You. Do enough. You have enough. You are enough. Okay? We beat ourselves up thinking, oh my gosh, right? We think about all the things that we didn't get to. All the students that we couldn't help. You know what? It is an impossible task that you have been given. There is no way that you can meet all of All the needs of all the students in your care every day.
Okay. We should only have to be concerned about the academic needs. Even that would be a challenge. If we were just worried about academic needs differentiating instruction, making sure we had, you know, the best curriculum or best learning strategies, all of that. Even that would be a huge task, but we all know that no learning happens unless students are in the right, you know, mindset, you know, the whole, you know, Maslow.
I know everyone's saying, oh my gosh, you know, this is all a new thing that we have to meet so many needs for so many kids. Yes, it seems to have escalated, but listen, I was learning about, you know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Back, you know, 20 something years ago when I did that teacher training. Okay. So we've always had to take care of all the needs.
Yes. Those needs seem to have got greater. So anyway, that's step one. Just recognize that what you were tasked with, not one mortal could do. Do, and we need to get over this kind of kind of, you know, gaslighting and telling us, Oh, teachers are heroes. No, we're not. You are human. You have very basic human needs, just like those kids have that hierarchy of needs.
So do we. And you know, part of that is sleep. Okay. Is sleep and not to have our nervous system constantly activated and, you know, just be in fight or flight mode. Okay. So what. Whatever you have done today, whatever you've done this week, it is enough. Make peace with it. Focus on. Mentally and emotionally, all the kids you did reach, all the things that you did do right.
We can't keep beating ourselves up. Okay. You do enough. All right. And you are enough, even just, you know, bending over backwards for whatever reason. We know that it's because we are helpers. We are givers. But there is still that part for many of us, you know, and me included. This is a lifelong struggle to get over this idea to look for this validation to kind of give ourselves permission to be enough based on how much we do.
Okay, it intrinsically you are enough even if you stop teaching Tomorrow and never in your mind technically helped another student. You are still enough. Your worth is intrinsic regardless of what you do and who you serve. Okay, you are enough. you do enough and don't listen to a system that really just is set up for so much, you know, competition and just judging people and their worth by what they produce and what they do and by student test scores and how well your students behaved and all those things.
Like so many of these things we don't have control over. Make peace with the fact that if you get up every day And set a good intention to do the best you can in the situation you find yourself with and to act out of love, not out of fear. That's it. No matter what else transpires through the day, you said, you did what you wanted to do.
You have values, you know what's important to you, if you live by your values, if you bring your best self to school, and you do the best you can for the most students you can, you have to let the rest go. It is enough. Okay. You have got this. I believe in you so much. Not every day in the classroom is perfect.
Not every day in life is perfect. You're just doing the best you can with the best intentions for the most part. Students you can and some days your greatest contribution is going to be to a parent who you validate who's insecure about their Parenting skills right or maybe they're at their wits end with these They're a child and yet for some reason child behaves really well for you, right?
And you can give the parents validation. You're doing a good job. The kid brings their best behavior to school, right? We always like to hear that As a parent, like, Oh my gosh, don't act that way in church. Right. It's okay if you act that way at home, but you know, anyway, all I'm saying is, it is enough, you don't know, you don't know the impact you have, not just on students, but on parents, on coworkers, on other people in your life.
What you do is enough. Separate your sense of worthiness from how much you do in a day. Because I promise you, you do more in one classroom in one day than most people in their job do in a week. And I have worked in lots of different environments and I can tell you for sure that is true. So. You do enough.
You are enough. I'm giving you a big virtual hug. Go out there, and I always record these on a Sunday, but you know what? Maybe you're in the middle of the week. Wherever you are in your day, in your week, go crush it. And even if you don't, who cares? You do enough. Did enough. All right. I believe in you. I thank you for everything, everything that you do for students, for your family, for your colleagues, and for the world in general, we need your skills.
We need your passion and we just need your heart. If you have a teacher's heart, it's a good one. I can tell you that. All right. Until next time, be well.