Teacher Burnout Recovery: 4 Essential Steps to Your Summer Reset

🌞 4 Essential Strategies for Teacher Summer Recovery & Burnout Prevention

Episode Summary

You made it through another school year! 🎉 But summer break doesn't automatically fix teacher burnout. Host Grace Stevens shares 4 proven strategies to help teachers truly disconnect, recover, and prepare for renewal during summer break.

🔑 Key Takeaways

Strategy #1: Create a Closing Ritual ✅

• Stop, Start, Continue Reflection (30 minutes) 
  • 🛑 STOP: What drained your energy without results?
  • ➡️ START: New approaches you want to try
  • ✅ CONTINUE: What worked well this year
• Set an "August Problem" date - no school thoughts until then!
• Embrace the clean slate opportunity teachers have each year

Strategy #2: Complete the Stress Cycle 🧘‍♀️

Teaching = constant assault on your nervous system. Your body needs intentional recovery:

• 💤 Sleep without alarms
• 💧 Hydrate properly (no more classroom dehydration!)
• 🚶‍♀️ Move your body (walking, stretching, yoga)
• 🎨 Create (quilting, painting, writing)
• 👥 Socialize with non-teacher friends

Strategy #3: Triage Your Summer To-Do List 📝

Your list is too long (we know it is!). Apply medical triage principles:

• 🚨 Must Do: Critical & time-sensitive only
• 💭 Nice to Do: Not urgent
• 🤝 Delegate: Stop doing everything yourself
• ❌ Eliminate: Some things don't need doing

Pro Tip: Listen to Episode 50 for setting boundaries with family who think you're "free all summer"

Strategy #4: Rebuild Your Identity Outside Teaching 🌱

Remember who you are beyond the classroom:

• List 5 things you love doing (non-teaching related)
• Challenge: List 5 things you love about yourself (not related to serving others)
• Reconnect with neglected hobbies and interests
• Read books that aren't about education!

Key takeaway: Remember: August is coming whether you worry about it or not - you might as well enjoy your summer! 🌞

#TeacherBurnout #SummerRecovery #TeacherWellness #EducatorSelfCare #TeacherLife

Want to truly thrive in teaching without sacrificing your personal life?   
Check out my signature on-demand self-study course, Balance Your Teacher Life.  Complete 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

My TPT Store: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/grace-stevens-happy-classrooms

Wanna get social?
https://www.tiktok.com/@gracestevensteacher
https://www.facebook.com/GraceStevensTeacher
https://www.Instagram.com/gracestevensteacher

Old school: Website : www.GraceStevens.com (courses, blog & freebies!)

Transcript

 Teacher friends, you made it. Hopefully you are all now on summer break. Oh my gosh. What a relief to have finely dragged your poor, weary body into summer mode. Hopefully you are not just laying on the couch feeling like you got hit by a bus and you have a little energy to think about. What's it really gonna take?

This summer to disconnect, to let school go and get into burnout, recovery mode. This is a real thing. It is like it's a myth that. Summers off automatically fix burnout without being intentional about truly, you know, disconnecting and having some strategies about managing your summer and making sure it's really about recovery.

I. And renewal. You know, it's not just gonna magically happen. So let's, I've got the best of the best of the best. Four tangible strategies that you are gonna want to hear, that you're gonna want to share with your teacher, bestie, and make the most of your summer. The quick caveat is, oh my gosh, there are some heroes out there I know teaching summer school, ugh.

Thank you heroes. However, you are gonna need this more than everyone else, so make sure you bookmark this and if you don't wanna listen to it until after you're done with summer school, that's fine, but make sure you make time to listen. Okay? The four strategies are coming up. Going to keep it short and actionable.

I will see you on the inside. Welcome to the teacher, Self-Care and Life. Balanced podcast where we focus all things personal development to help teachers feel empowered to thrive inside and outside of the classroom. If you are passionate about education, but tired of it taking over your whole life, you have found your new home in the podcast universe, you'll love it here.

I'm Grace Stevens, your host, and let's get going with today's show. All right. First off, take a breath. You made it. Okay. You. Oh, here it is. Summer. I already know that you have a list of things to do that you wanna do over summer, that is unrealistically long and I'm guessing has the same items that have rolled over from previous years with regards to, you know.

Taking care of your body. Taking care of your house. Hey, is that garage empty and just perfect containers like you keep imagining, right? Have you done all the goodwill runs? No, of course not. There are things that will never get done and we wanna stop first off that list from overwhelming us. But it's so much more than that.

What other things you are gonna do this summer that are really gonna help you? Reset and recover and get out of burnout mode where I know a lot of you are at, okay. So four distinct strategies. And I wanna, first of all, just again, like I said in the intro, address this myth that summer automatically fixes teacher's burnout, right?

It, it doesn't happen. We, we end up being frustrated at the end of summer that maybe we didn't do all the things we wanted to do. It seemed like it went by in, you know, a quick flash if we are really lucky. I understand it's a very privileged few educators who as soon as school is out, have this glorious vacation somewhere out of town planned.

That really helps. I feel like if, you know, school ended on Friday and you know by Monday, you know you're on a plane to Mexico. To relax or to the beach for a family holiday for a week. What a glorious thing. That really helps kind of get into a different mindset and disconnect, but that isn't a reality for many people.

I totally understand that. So here are the strategies that will really help. Okay, so number one, one of the things that I really appreciated about teaching for me as I was a self-contained classroom teacher was that every year I had a clean slate. Every four. When I came back, I had new students, new parents, and a lot of times.

Let's be honest, teaching a new grade got new teammates, lots of new things, but at least as far as my core job responsibilities were to be either that first grade or second grade, or third grade or fourth grade teacher, whatever it was that I was that year, when the year was done. I was done every year, a clean slate.

Now I understand if you teach single subject or you know, special ed, other things, that isn't always the case for you, but for the majority of teachers is, and so we have this beautiful, beautiful opportunity to have some closure. Now, if you've done any of my programs or maybe read some of my books, you know that I'm really big on this.

Idea of a closing ritual. At the end of the day, if you've. Ever done any of my programs or maybe read some of my books? You know that I have this closing ritual, which I call the three favorite things, where before you go home, you write down your three favorite things of the day. It does a couple of things, okay?

It helps you be positively focused during the day, setting your radar for things that you like wondering. Oh, I wonder if that will make my top three. I wonder if that will make my top three, right? Retraining your brain to look for good stuff. It also helps you that you end your day and close it out thinking of the good stuff, so that when you get home and your family asks you, Hey, how did your day go?

The first thing that comes outta your mouth is not the parent that drove you crazy, the coworker that's passive aggressive and getting on your last nerve, or that kid that you. Barely felt you could get through another day with, right? Instead of thinking those things you've just written down and imprinted three great things from your day, those are the things you share.

Okay? There's more to it than that. I have a whole positive mindset journal that takes you, it's like a journal you can use the whole year and you set an intention for the week. You look for which kids you can champion, all that kind of stuff. But at the basis of it, this whole idea of this closing. Ritual, it's a pattern in or up.

It comes from like a my neurolinguistic programming background. It's a very powerful thing. So summer, at the beginning of summer, you have this amazing opportunity to have a closing ritual. I. And then be done with it. Okay, so here's my advice. I'm going to walk you through a little process that I always used in the business world.

I'm not sure where it came from. You know, I was in the business world for a long time. I read so many business books. I went through so many, you know, business trainings. So I would love to give credit to whoever invented it, but I really don't know who did. So I know it's part of other people's frames works too.

I know it's part of Covey's work. I think if you do his leadership skills. It is a certain framework for kind of doing a reflection and then my, after I've taken you through that, my. Suggestion is that's it. You're done with the year, you've closed it out, and now you are going to say anytime you want to think about school or worry about school or whatever, you know what?

That's an August problem. You're gonna look at your calendar and you're going to decide a date, and I would recommend that it's no more than one week before the start of school when you need to be back, and that's the day you're gonna start thinking about school again. Okay. I do this strategy for when I used to have the Sunday night Blues.

I would, you know, instead of room my whole Sunday worrying about things, I would say that's a six o'clock problem. Because six o'clock on a Sunday is when I would sit down and think about, okay, what do I still need to do to be ready for the work week tomorrow? Okay, so that's a strategy. We're gonna do this closing ritual I'm gonna walk you through and then any time, thoughts, come up about school or concerns, come up about school or whatever else you're gonna say, that's an August problem. Decide on the date. That's the day you're gonna start thinking about your back to school supplies, setting up your classroom, looking at the curriculum, all the things. Okay, so here's, here's the process really for closing out.

It's a reflection. Again, I said I, this has come from a lot of areas, but it's called the stop start, continue. And basically I wanna say set aside 30 minutes, just get yourself a nice hot cup of tea or coffee, or if you're laying by the pool, something sparkling, who cares? And, but just set aside 30 minutes that you can really reflect on this and reflect on the last school year and ask yourself.

What did I invest? A huge amount of emotional energy. Time in that really didn't pay off. Right? What am I gonna not do next year that I did this year? Maybe it was a project, maybe it was a unit, maybe it was being on a committee. Maybe there was something that you did that when you really look at kind of the results at the end of it.

It wasn't worth it for you, and that's gonna be on your stop list. What am I, what have I been doing in the past that I'm not gonna do anymore? You know, maybe it's something as simple as reading logs. You know, in first grade, those reading logs, wow. We were so tied into them and we all knew those parents just signed off and lied.

That kid had not been reading those 20 minutes they said they had. Okay. That's just one example. It was just. Busy work that we were kind of making ourselves all go through the motions for, for why, right? There was different ways to do it. There were different, more effective ways that I found to get kids excited about reading and accountable for that.

Okay. So that's the first part is stop, what am I not gonna do next year? But maybe I've always done out of habit, or I do, just because all my teammates do, but like be a little critical. Don't just be in, you know. Oh, I've always done it just churning through. I always say there's a difference between teaching 20 years and teaching the same year 20 times.

You can change things, okay? You can change things, so what are you gonna stop? Then you're gonna look at, you know, what, what worked really, really well. What are the things I'm gonna continue doing? Where did the investment of energy and time pay off? I'm gonna suggest those are always gonna be with relationship skills, with students, with anything that's fun.

Having a joy jar, having a closing ritual, right? You know, whatever those things were for you or your students that you really felt you crushed it this year, you're gonna continue doing these things. And then the third part might be hard to answer right now, but give it some thought. What are some things you wanna start doing?

Right? So we're gonna stop doing some things. We're gonna continue doing some things, but now because we stopped doing some things, hopefully we've found some time and space and with to start doing things that might be more productive. And give some thought as to what those might be. They might be things you've always wanted to try or they might be new skills that you plan on learning this summer.

Such as setting healthier boundaries. I'm always gonna come back to that. What are some things that you wanna start doing next year? Start implementing. Maybe you want to, you know, really embrace technology more in the classroom in a different way. I think we can all agree that we have plenty of tech in the classroom.

How are we going to use it? Differently. Are we gonna start some project-based learning? Are we just other things that you feel passionate about that if you stop doing some other things, you would have some space for? And again, you might not have an immediate answer to this just yet 'cause I've just encouraged you not to think about work or summer.

Okay. So it might be something that just as it comes up in the back of your mind, you might wanna say, Hey, you know what? That seems like a good idea. I'll research that more. In August. Okay, so that's our first strategy is to have a closing ritual close out the year. I feel like in education, if you're a single, you know, self-contained classroom, you have this unique opportunity that other people don't have in other areas that they work to.

Just close out the books on the year and start a new year. Okay? So it's the perfect time to one, go through this. Reflection of stop, continue start. And then part two of that of this first strategy is setting a date no more than a week before school. I would recommend as to when you start thinking about school again.

Okay. So that's strategy number one for kind of really being intentional about investing in summer to. Recover and reset and maybe heal from some trauma or whatever else happened during the year. Okay. All right, so that was number one. Okay, so number two is really a little bit more subtle. You know, the first one was pull out a pen and do this.

Number two is gonna be a little bit more subtle, but you've gotta complete the stress cycle. And let me talk to you a little bit about this. You know that, I've talked about it many times on this podcast that being in a classroom is a literal assault to your nervous system, right? So many things happening.

All the time, all the split decisions we need to make. There's always this low level stress happening. But then of course people coming in, student behavior, eruptions, fireballs drills you know, last minute, emergency emails, all the things. It is a constant assault. And we really need this kind of break from emotional exhaustion, which Summer does provide.

Okay? It should be at a slower pace. Nobody's constantly, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, right Pick Being picked to death by Ducks. That's what somebody once told me. Teaching second grade was like, and I couldn't agree more. I had to have, one of our classroom rules was, don't. Poke the teacher. I mean, how crazy is that?

But literally, kids would just poke me like, no, it is not okay to poke me. Okay. But I would hear all the time, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss. Now, of course, part of it is, you know, it's summer. You might be mom, mom, mom, mom, mom. But you know, you don't have 32 kids hopefully in your home the same way you had in your classroom.

So there should be less of that automatically kind of that emotional exhaustion of just being on the whole time. But your physical stress. Needs physical completion. It doesn't just disappear from your body. You don't wanna get like all woo woo about somatics. That's the, you know, the new buzzword and all that stuff.

But you really do need to be intentional about emphasizing what you can do and focusing on for your. Body to physically recover, and it is as simple and as basic as things that your body needs that get neglected all through the year, which is sleep. Stretching, walking, hydrating, drinking enough water. We all know it's a terrible time to be in a classroom and you, there's no way to leave during the school day and just take care of your physical bathroom needs.

Right? So as a consequence, I think a lot of teachers go through school year dehydrated. I know that was sure for, for me too. It was true for me. Exercise, and I'm not talking all of a sudden you need to, you know, be doing CrossFit, but just something restorative like some stretching, some yoga, some walking.

If you can put that team that together with some kind of low key social interaction, going for a walk. With your girlfriends, right? Taking a stretch class with your friends, whatever. Then you're gonna have double duty, right? It's gonna fill your kind of exercise body bucket, and your social bucket.

Okay? So that's gonna be really good. So just focus a little bit more on having good nutrition, trying to get as much sleep. Okay. And also some emotional processing. Right. Just some creative outlets, things that I used to love to quilt and well, I mean I still love to quilt, but it used to all get put away during the school year.

Like, it just, it wasn't something I had time to dedicate time to. So if there's something you enjoyed doing, painting. Writing, drawing just, you know, doodling with your kids, whatever, anything that's creative, try and, you know, some is the time to do that. Okay. All right. So that's it. So that's, that's simple, but not easy, but critical.

Don't just assume that because you're not physically going to work, you're in recovery mode. There is something you need to do to help. Recover from this stress cycle. Okay. And a lot of it, yeah, the emotional stuff isn't in your face every day, but take time to take care of your physical needs. Just turn off.

You don't need an alarm. That's the great thing about now, the annoying thing is you still wake up real early, but at least you know that you don't have to if you don't need to take that afternoon nap. Okay. All right, so that is strategy number two. Strategy number one was do your. Your closing ritual.

Strategy number two is make sure you invest in, you know, taking care of your physical needs to complete this stress cycle. And that's gonna build, bring you to the next item, which is, well the two are kind of related, but it's gonna run into this idea of your, oh, but Grace, I have so much to do over summer, you know, I can't just lay around and read a book for pleasure.

Like my summer to-do list is huge. And that is real. I understand that many times. I don't know at what point. It seemed like it got earlier and earlier during the school year that I would just be like, Ugh, I'll deal with that over summer. And it was everything. It was from my health issues. I. Which was not a good idea, but the, I, I'm sure I shared a story that I had a minor health issue that I could have taken care of, and I kept thinking it'll be okay.

It can wait till summer. My doctor disagreed and said, the first day of summer we're taking care of this. And guess what? The first day of summer when we went take care of it, something that would've had a, a 10 day recovery before now took 10 weeks. Took more than my summer to recover from. It was a very poor decision on my behalf.

So hopefully you haven't been neglecting your health to that degree, but I know probably you need an eye exam. You need to get yourself and the kids to the dentist. Your car needs an oil change or maintenance, right? There's all your house needs, some things being done to it that you just kept putting off over summer.

So I know the list is really, really long and so I'm gonna give you some strategies around your list first, and then we're gonna talk about something a little deeper. But first I'm gonna suggest that you triage your. List is too long. I'm already gonna tell you that. It's too long. I know that. What does it mean to triage, right?

You know, when you, you might, it's a medical term, right? When, when you look at all the people in front of you and you're like, you gotta separate people by the most critical, these people need immediate help. These people can wait, right? So do the same with your summer list. Really try and do a quick audit, okay?

Like a reality check. Like there's too much on here. What really must happen this summer? Right. So that's the first thing. What can only happen this summer? No other time. That's your first thing. What would be nice but isn't urgent, right? And then I'm gonna really encourage you to make some of those items.

What can you delegate? Okay, eliminate some things. But what could you delegate? What could you outsource? There's no shame. Why do you have to do it? Why can't you hire someone to do it? Why can't you put it on your kids to do list? Why are you running around emptying out and sorting out their closets?

That's something they could take care of themselves. Okay, so once you've kind of got your list whittled down into absolutely what must happen and then you know what would be nice but not urgent. Now we know this. We do this all the time in the classroom, right? What a must dos are may dos, okay? So the must dos, I'm encouraging you.

Just because it must be done doesn't mean you need to be the one to do it maybe, okay? I'm gonna encourage you if you haven't listened to it recently to go back and listen to episode 50. Episode 50. I know that's a long time ago, but saying boundaries with your family. Over summer, there is this big, well, it's a struggle I think I had because I wasn't very good at setting boundaries. I think when you, it's when you're a people pleaser at school, it turns out you're a people pleaser everywhere in your life. And it was a big issue for me for many summers that my family felt very entitled to my time.

I. I needed to know how to set boundaries with them. One, so that, you know, I just didn't hear well, you have all summer off, and so now it's my job to take everybody to the doctors, take care of the aging parents, set up the family reunion, help people, you know, empty their garages when my garage is still full.

Right? How do go back and listen to that whole episode? I promise you it has strategies, it has scripts onto how when people in your family feel very entitled to your time over summer, 'cause you have all summer off that's what they're gonna tell you. How do you set boundaries with them so that suddenly their priorities don't have to become your priorities?

Okay, so go back and listen to that episode first. If you're. Having a problem with your time gets sucked into other people's priorities because you have your own and they are significant. Okay, so. That would be that strategy. I'm gonna suggest learn how to set boundaries with your family, learn how to triage your ridiculous, you know, to-do list.

And then really taking it to the next level, thinking about what are high energy tasks, things that take a lot of your energy that really need to be scheduled in. And then what are low energy tasks? You all know I used to call it my my must list. Like those things where you're like, I must do this. Oh, I must do that.

And for weeks, you know, it could be anything stupid, like something sitting on the kitchen counter that needs to find a proper home or some nagging phone call that needs to be done. And when you actually do the task, it took. Five minutes, 10 minutes, whatever. But when you think of all the emotional labor you put into procrastinating, that it, it equaled way more time.

Right? I get so frustrated at myself when I do something again that takes five minutes and I'm like, oh my gosh. It took less time to do it than I've spent complaining about it or thinking about it, or worrying about it, or. Putting it off, right? So go through. Are there some just low energy? Sometimes I would have a day when I'm like, let me just have my I must day, and all I'm gonna do today is get rid of those ticky tacky things.

Like I must clear off my desk. Ugh. It's just overwhelming. On my desk is a mess, right? And then I clear out a whole afternoon on my schedule to do it. And lo and behold, it took like 20 minutes to knock five things off that list. So think about that. Okay. So schedule, just as you know, you would schedule time to do your high energy tasks, schedule a few afternoons to just do your low energy stuff that is dragging you down.

All right? So that's doing with stuff. So that's the third thing is triage your summer list. Okay. 'cause you got too much on it. I already know that. It moves into this deep issue of productivity, and this is something I have been wrestling with myself as. Some of you, if your regular listeners may have noticed that I have been scaling back my podcast, it used to be weekly episodes and complete with a blog post and social media assets and, and all the things.

And now I am scaling back to once every two weeks that I. Episode I hardly get around to emailing anybody about it. So it's only really the diehard fans that are finding me. And you know what? I'm okay with that. And it's because I'm wrestling with this idea of my need to justify my ex existence by being productive all the time.

There, there is something. There is something deep there that I need to look into for myself, so I don't want to be a hypocrite when I tell you this. I will fully acknowledge that this is something that I wrestle with a lot. I have managed to separate my worth from my work, right? I know that my value in life is not just based on the fact that I was a teacher, and I know that there are a lot of people who.

I do struggle with that now. I still do teach, of course, I, this podcast is teaching, right? Working with other teachers is still teaching. I substitute teach, but I really feel that underneath that, for me, it isn't really so much this identity piece for me. It, it is this need to feel, I need to value my.

To kind of like justify my existence by being productive, by being useful, by being helpful. And there are other ways to do that other than just serving people. And I need to come to terms with that. It's just me being honest. Like I said, I don't wanna be a hypocrite pretending like I have it all figured out, but I'm getting closer to figuring it out and I want you, if this kind of is ringing true for you, I want you to go back and listen to episode 86.

I. It was actually one of my most popular episodes about separating your worth from your work. Okay. Because this fourth strategy that I'm gonna talk about is kind of tied into that. So this fourth strategy for really recovering from your burnout this summer is to rebuild your identity outside of what.

Your students need or your parents need, or I'm even gonna suggest what your children read right now, right? Summer is about a time to remember about what you are, what you like to do, what's important to you, right? You gotta reconnect with other parts of yourself that are joyful and fun and fill you up that are about.

Solely about what you want, not about taking care of other people, right? We know that when you are teaching, it consumes all of your time, all of your energy, and you just gotta make sure it doesn't consume all of your identity too. Okay, over summer you've gotta have some kind of restructuring. You know, we're gonna celebrate your accomplishments.

We're gonna close out the year with our closing ritual, and then we're gonna think about what do I like to do? Summer is for me and my family. What do we like to do? Okay, so for me it was always about, gosh, I can go spend some more time in my garden. I can read some books that aren't about teaching. Like, woo, what a big, my book books, you gotta remember the last 13 years that I taught, I was also running a business on the side.

So any book I ever read was either about marketing or business e-commerce, or about teaching. And there wasn't time to just like read. Like a summer read. It was the something that I kept for only if I was laying on a beach, which, you know, wasn't all that often, it would be just such a pleasure to have this book in my hand.

You don't need to have sand in a book for it to be okay for you to read it. Friends, I just wanna remind you about that. So find something. I'm gonna challenge you to list five things that you love to do that have nothing to do with teaching. Okay for me, quilting, gardening, riding my bike hanging out with friends who are not teachers.

They could be teachers, but then we needed to set the boundary not to talk about school. Otherwise, you know, that wasn't terribly we'll find ourselves getting all riled up again. Okay, so I'm gonna set you that challenge. Five, find five things that you love to do and make. A commitment that you're gonna kind of reconnect with them this summer.

And I'm also gonna challenge you. This is bonus level. I hadn't really thought about this. I. Now that I'm saying it I'm having my moment about my vulnerability moment of talking about separating, you know, your worth from, from what you do. And this need to constantly busy, to feel busy, to feel productive, to feel helpful, I want you to write five things you love to do outside of teaching.

I want you to write five things that you love about yourself. That have nothing to do with teaching or serving others. All right. What might they be? Do you have a cheerful disposition? I'm easily amused. I'll put that out there. That's on my list. My, my partner tells me that all the time, and he doesn't always mean it in a great way.

He's like, oh my gosh, you're so easily amused. And I always answer. And thank God for that. Like I'm managed too. Amuse myself. I think I'm the funniest person I know. I know. That doesn't come across on this podcast. Not really a funny podcast, is it? But I like to laugh. I can find things amusing. I really love that about myself.

Okay. I'm very content. I, I know how to change my mood if I, I'm very aware of my emotions and I'm very in tune as to how quickly I know how to get out of a funk. I pick up a pen. I start writing about things. I appreciate that. I love that. I enjoy about happy memories. I go for a walk. Okay? I am gonna go for my five.

Things that I notice and I wander walk, I go, I'm gonna find five things I like and I'm gonna find them. I can just, I'm lucky that I live near trees and nature. I can just go for a walk. I know that I can quickly, pretty quickly get myself out of a funk. So I love that about myself. All right. That's two things off the top of my head that I love about myself.

I'm easily amused. I know how to. Really recognize and change my mood. Okay. That's not about anything El anybody else. There are things that I love about myself that I feel I have a big heart and like I care about people and all those things, but what I'm talking about is finding things that you love about yourself that have nothing to do about how you serve.

I. Others, and that could be a tricky exercise for some people. It's optional. You can enjoy your summer without that. But as I was talking there for a minute about separating your worth from your work and finding other things that you enjoy doing, I feel that would be a missed opportunity. I feel we take two.

We wait too long in life to actually get to that list for years. For years. I will tell you, I have books, journals filled with. I write somebody's name at the top of the page and I'll write down all the things I love about them. I have done that for years. I try and get myself in the best headspace if I'm meeting up with somebody.

I that I haven't seen for a while. I write down all the things I love about them. I, I feel like it's just, you know, me and your energy teaches more than your lesson plans. Like, I like to calibrate my energy before I show up and meet people. And I have literally journals and journals filled with positive aspects of other people that I love.

And it never occurred to me until pretty recently to do that about myself. And I'm 60, so I guess that's what I'm saying. Don't wait till you're 60 to write down stuff that you love about yourself and recognize that. Okay. All right. Sorry we got off a little there, but you know my podcast, talk about what I want.

Right. Okay here. See, I'm easily amused. I literally just amused myself with that. Let me summarize. In case I lost some people in the last few minutes who were like, oh, lady, that's too womb now. It isn't. You are gonna go through life and not think about what you love about yourself. That's really sad.

All right, so teacher recovery this summer, four strategies. What were they? Let's get back into strategic mode. Number one, unique opportunity to have closure. Do your closing ritual, your reflection. What am I gonna stop? What am I continue? What am I gonna start? And then set a date that you will worry about school, and then don't think about it for the rest of summer.

Okay, that was number one. Number two, complete the stress cycle. Physically invest time in. Really the basics. Some sleep, some stretching, drinking water being creative, pursuing some of your creative interests, pursuing social interactions that have been neglected during the year. All right, number three, tame that to-do list triage It.

You're not gonna get it all done, make a list of, you know, separate it into must dos and may dos, and then out, just get, don't feel guilt ridden about outsourcing some of that stuff, hiring professionals or just scratching it off the list altogether. And then the fourth strategy is to really look at your identity.

Outside of teaching, look at five creative outlets that you have. Things that you enjoy doing that have nothing to do with serving students and. Parents and coworkers and all those things. Okay. That's it. I hope you have a, a wonderful, wonderful start to your summer. I know at the beginning it's like you just feel frustrated at yourself that you were so excited for summer to come, and now you've just spent it literally laying on the couch.

Like, what the heck Hit me like you got hit by a bus. Maybe suddenly you got sick. You've been, you know, so stressed. Your body's been holding on. Now it knows it can finally relax. Probably your allergies are playing up. Maybe you've got a cold that happens to a lot of people. Okay, just it'll be okay. Get past that and try and check your judgment at the door.

Be a little less judgmental on yourself. You've been through a lot. It's gonna take some time to recover, but I'm confident if you use these four strategies, just be strategic about your summer. You know what? School is gonna come, whether you worry about it or not. Right. August. I used to say September is gonna come, but more and more schools go back, Ugh, in August now.

So August is gonna come regardless of how your summer, so you might as well enjoy your summer, is what I'm saying. All right. You have got this. I believe in you. I trust that you can make good choices for yourself. And as I always say, create your own path, bring your own sunshine, and I will see you in the next episode.