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: Finding Peace With Election Results No Matter How You Voted
In this empowering mini-episode, Grace examines how to deal with the aftermath of this week's election results. What if it didn't go the way you hoped? How do we rise above no matter what and find things that unite us with others, not divide us? How do we create a classroom community where everyone feels valued, safe, and included?
❤️ Her advice? "Be the source." Lead with love, not fear.
Take a quick time out to maybe have a mindset shift and a virtual hug to make you feel better about navigating the challenges of "keeping politics out of your classroom" when it is all anyone can think about this week.
Inspiration for teachers, school leadership, and anyone who is stressed by politics these days.
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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All right, if you're a regular and you hear that sound, you know that that means this is a bonus episode, just a small jolt of inspiration or something I put out into the universe that I trust will find you when you most need it. If you are new, hey. Welcome. Maybe this is a new thing. Maybe you're tuning in just for teacher tips, strategies, all those things.
This is maybe a little bit more on the I don't know. If you're what I'm going to say, woo, averse you might find this really annoying. But I get plenty of notes from listeners saying that they really appreciate them. So I'm going to go with it. So here's where we're at. Firstly, apologize for my voice.
I am sick. Nothing else to say about that. Gotta tell you, I have never been more thankful than this week that I wake up and just feel like there is no way I could even get up and to think I don't need to worry about it. I don't need to worry about sub plans. I don't need to worry about any of it.
There was nothing in my day that I couldn't just, you know, peace out. I'm going to deal with it a different day. So for those of you who had to get up this week and feel sick and go to work anyway or struggle through. Sub plans. Hey, I feel you. It was my life for 20 years. So anyway. All right. Here's where I'm going.
This one is straight from the heart. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to say, but I trust that the right thing is going to come out and at the risk of alienating many people. I'm just going to speak my truth. The election results this week for many, cool. Many educators, and certainly I live in a blue state, many people in my immediate surroundings, including myself, I will put that out there were kind of disappointing, shocking, scary, all those things and I want to remind everybody that It is discouraging because everything we see, social media, the news, is so polarizing, right?
It's so vilifying the opposition and it comes from a place of fear and it doesn't come from a place of love. And the anxiety that it has caused in depression and people around me I'm finding really, really sad. And I am with some forums still on Facebook for administrators and teachers and other things.
And there was a lot of concern about how do we address this with children and whatever. You know what? We don't. It's not our place. Okay. So I know you already know that. But how do you deal with those feelings? So I always come back to just one simple question. Am I being guided by love? All by fear, right?
That little, from somebody who has suffered their whole life from anxiety and being in their own head, I have to really ground myself with my essential question is, in this moment am I okay? And the answer is always yes. It's when I'm spiraling it's because I'm, you know, listening. I'm listening to all the negative talk and, and, and thinking about all these things that could happen.
What does this mean? And I don't understand how people think this way. And so there's a challenge that's leading from fear. Leading from love is I'm okay in this minute. And the things that I perceive. I am missing and that I desperately want those things, you know, be the source. If I want to live in a world where there is less judgment, I need to be less judgmental.
If I want to live in a world where there is more kindness, I need to be kinder. Okay, be the source, right? If I want to have good neighbours, I have to be a good neighbour, right? That's what I always come back to is be the source and lead from love and not from fear. And I know it's so hard with all the stuff going on but I encourage some of you to, if you've been trapped in the news cycle, social media, you know, the algorithm is set up to just show you stuff that doesn't exist.
reaffirms what you already believe or you're interested in and the challenge now is to understand. Help me understand. Obviously people, many people, the majority of people, as it turns out, do not feel the same way about some things that I do. The challenge is to understand why, to be kinder, to be gentler, to be less judgmental.
We are what we are, we believe in a democracy, right? That's why, that's why we go out and vote in so. Now the challenge is don't, seek to understand others and don't put up a wall. Like I want to live in a world that is less divisive, right? And less kind of polarised and that needs to start with me, right?
The things that you have control over, which for us, we're teachers, right, in our classroom. I've said it before when I close the door. Excuse me. Okay, wow, I'm back. Sorry about that. So when I close the door, like I can be a revolutionary, like I'm the queen of the kingdom. In my classroom, I can create a little kingdom of cooperation and compassion and caring and working together and all those things.
Right? Like, when I close the classroom door, what's happening in the world outside, I get to turn off for a while. And in the things that I can influence, that's what I'm going to lead with. I am going to lead with love. So that is, you know, just something I want to put out there for you. It's okay to be super bummed, to be super disappointed and to think, I just don't understand.
The challenge is, Understand. Let's look at things from somebody else's point of view. Let's be the source of what we want to see in the world and ask ourselves, in this moment, are we okay? Yes, we are. Let's be empowered to make the world, moving forward, the place we want to be. Okay, we're not going to like complain, be sour grapes or anything else.
Okay, just be the source. Remind yourself that in this actual moment, you can breathe, everything that you need is right there. It's inside of you. You can be the source. You can lead the light. You can be the light in your classroom, on your campus, with your students. Look for things that you have in common with people, not differences that you have.
And if we come from that standpoint, it all becomes a lot less stressful and we can maybe stop spiralling, because I've seen a lot of spiralling this week. And that's not to judge anybody, hey. I haven't been feeling well and it's easy to spiral when you don't feel well too. So, you know, I have been there.
There's no shame around it. Just try to give you an empowering tool to get out of it is ask yourself in this moment, am I okay? Can I be the source of what I want to see in the world? And then go create that in your classroom, in your campus, in your family, in your world. That's the best thing that you can do right now.
Know that I love you and I believe in you. And you know what I'm going to say, create your own path, bring your own sunshine and don't let politics and fear ruin your week.