Holiday Chaos, Career Clarity, and the Gift of Grace for Burned-Out Teachers

Feeling maxed out this December? You’re not alone. In this episode of Teachers in Transition, Vanessa Jackson dives into the real root of burnout — capacity overload — and offers three powerful tools to help you begin rebuilding your life and identity beyond the classroom.

Discover how the seasonal pressure of “doing it all” ties into long-term exhaustion, and learn how to shift from survival mode into intentional recovery with the Three C’s: Grace, Clarity, and Connection.

Vanessa shares personal reflections (including how her Christmas tree is decorated for easy post-surgery takedown), explains why networking isn’t gross or gimmicky, and guides you toward tools that can truly support your career transition — without toxic positivity or hustle-culture nonsense.

Whether you're a teacher on the edge or already exploring what's next, this episode is your permission slip to slow down, think deeply, and take one brave step forward.

🎁 Download This Week’s Free Gifts:

• Gift #4 – The Clarity Mini-Inventory: Reflect on what lights you up and what you're no longer willing to compromise.
  Download Gift #4
• Gift #5 – The Networking Tracker: A simple tool to help you track connections, conversations, and career possibilities.
  Download Gift #5
• Gift #6 – Grace in Progress Worksheet: Give yourself the same compassion you offer everyone else.
  Download Gift #6

🔍 Keywords:

teacher burnout, holiday stress for teachers, career change for teachers, clarity and identity, teacher career transition, networking for educators, resume alternatives for teachers, overcoming burnout, second careers for teachers, Vanessa Jackson podcast, Teachers in Transition

👋 CONNECT WITH VANESSA

• 💌 Email: Vanessa@teachersintransition.com
• 📱 Call or Text: 512-640-9099
• 📅 Book a Free Discovery Call: teachersintransition.com/calendar
• 🔗 Bluesky: @beyondteaching.bsky.social
• 📸 Instagram & Threads: @teachers.in.transition
• 👍 Facebook: Teachers in Transition
• 🐦 X (Twitter): @EduExitStrategy

 
 The transcript to this podcast is found on the episode’s homepage at Buzzsprout

Transcript

Hi!  And Welcome back to another episode of Teachers in Transition with me, Vanessa Jackson! I’m a former teacher who taught for 25 years in the public school system – mostly in the performing arts, so right now my thoughts are with all the band/orchestra/choir/and theater teachers where your proof of your teaching isn’t measured in a test, but in real time with an audience! I left teaching to work with a Fortune 500 company, but now I work FOR teachers – I help teachers make the decisions they need to make to move out of teaching and into the next chapter.  

As a reminder, I am using this month and the podcast to pass out the 12 Gifts of Christmas from me to you.  We did the first three gifts last week, and this week I am presenting gifts 4, 5, 6 – Clarity, Connection, and Grace.  All the links to the free gifts are in the show notes. If you don’t want to go search those, just send me a direct email at Vanessa@TeachersinTransition.com and I’ll send them to you . 

Earlier, I was in a conversation where someone commented on that all-too-familiar December phenomenon that crops up in corporate life where everything starts to become next year’s problem. I think it’s a sign of burnout. 

As this discussion expanded and grew, we started talking about all of the different things that happen in December. There are the requirements for what makes Christmas or your preferred holiday season feel like it was done properly. There are parties, gift expectations, baking, children’s events, concerts, and everything else I can’t even remember to mention. And as the discussion grew and evolved, we realized that the burnout comes from a capacity problem. We simply have more items than we have the capacity to juggle successfully at this time of year when we’re supposed to be happy and jolly and ho ho ho. 

And that's all well and good to say that, but how do we actually make it all work at this time of year. The answer to that is some variation of “poorly”, or “not well.” If you're getting everything done, you might be one of those teachers who get sick as soon as you go on vacation You can only put your body through so much before it revolts on you

and as I was thinking about how I wanted to talk about this more in my podcast it occurred to me that it is a little bit like buckets. From a capacity perspective the buckets begin to overflow, and I wish it was just as simple as having one bucket. But we don't.

When we were children, we had the one bucket. One. It was to be ourselves and to navigate our little worlds and what all that meant - Go play. Ride your bike. Pretend you’re a Power Ranger or a pop star. One bucket. That bucket never goes away. Maybe the pretending to be a Power Ranger part goes away.  Hopefully not. Hopefully it just morphs into something else that’s fun.  Anyway, even as adults we are still trying to figure out who we are and how to navigate our life as it stands. It is a bucket that we have had since childhood.

Once you start going to school, school gets its own bucket. You have homework, expectations, and responsibilities associated specifically with school. So now you have 2 buckets.

Once we enter the workforce, now we have a new bucket. And new expectations and new responsibilities.  And it feels like the size of that bucket grows as our experience grows, but it doesn’t make more capacity because they just give us more stuff to put in that bucket.  And heaven help you if you decided to go back to school and pick that bucket up again.  
 
 There is a relationship bucket when you commit to someone else forever. Sometimes it splits and creates a caregiving bucket for children or pets. Or aging parents. Or plants. Or a home.  Or a car.  It’s a lot. 
 
 If you are a teacher, that work bucket actually splits and becomes multiple buckets.  It’s no longer just teaching/planning/grading. You get an Advanced paperwork bucket full of IEP/504/BIP and data from test scores. You might have picked up an extra bucket for coaching or another extra activity. There’s so many to choose from!
 
 And at this time of year, along comes another glitter-covered festive holiday bucket demanding our attention.  
 
 No wonder that yoke of buckets is very heavy.  Many of us make it look effortless, but it’s not. Your body pays a toll.  Are you one of those teachers that gets sick as soon as you hit send on those report card grades?  That’s like a little clue. 

Let me say it clearly. You can not time-manage or organize your way out of a capacity issue. You can not organize burnout into submission. You need something else entirely. You really need staff to take things off your plate, but since that isn’t likely, you need grace.

That’s where the first gift of the day comes in: Grace. It’s not fluff - it’s a gentle reminder to yourself that you are asked to do the impossible. Twice. Before lunch! One of the ways we can provide grace is to treat ourselves the same way we would treat someone we loved in the same situation.  As an example – how would you speak to a student who feels like they are drowning at the end of semester?  How would you talk to a good friend who was having a hard time? It’s so important to acknowledge that progress isn’t always visible, but it’s happening. To finally release the perfectionism that’s kept you sprinting in one place. 

This time of year brings its own kind of chaos. You’re supposed to host the gathering, find the perfect gifts, create unforgettable moments, and be joyful on demand. But after every magical moment? Guess who’s doing the dishes and taking down all that decor? I have a rough surgical procedure on the horizon in January.  So this year, I decorated this year with one eye on how easy it would be to put it all away. I think it can all come down and be packed back up in two hours.  I’m not being lazy. I’m being smart. I am  compassionately planning for myself.  And still I struggled with it. We are one of those families where the ornaments on the tree are full of memories of Christmasses past and vacations gone by.  Part of me worried that I was doing a disservice to those memories by leaving them in the box. The tree only has lights and artificial poinsettias on the tree.  Or as the Aztecs originally call it - cuetlaxóchitl (pronounced kwet-la-SHO-she).  I practiced saying that by the way. And the lights are running vertically up and down the tree, so one nice little yoink and they’re all come off.  

Truthfully, part of me wonders about that every day during the season, but I am very convinced that pre-surgical me will be very grateful to December me for making these decisions. December me isn’t so sure.  But as with anything, it’s impossible to make changes until you acknowledge that there might be a problem.  Is it burnout? Is it something else?

Burnout doesn’t just mean you're tired. It’s symptomatic of a longer struggle.  You’ve been treading water for so long, it feels like survival is the only rhythm you know.
 The tide just keeps pulling — harder, faster — and you barely had time to breathe.
 
 My favorite band, Rush, has a song called “Sweet Miracle.” The openings lines are: 
 “I wasn’t walking on water.  I was standing on a reef when the tide came in.”
 
 I think that line really describes the teacher experience.  Teachers do so much so well all the time, that people think we are walking on water.  Mostly we were just standing on that reef when the tide came in, and it continues to rise. There’s always that worry that this time the tide will go over our heads. Or as the song continues “lost without a trace no hope at all.”

But then... a shift. A quiet break in the current. The knowledge that something can be different and the acknowledgement that you don’t like how it currently is, and finally the willingness to make a change. 

If you celebrate Christmas, let’s remember—the first one wasn’t a Hallmark movie. It was a manger, a few shepherds, and some quiet awe with barnyard sounds in the background. You’re allowed to choose a simpler season. Grace is your guide through it.
 
 Nature knows this.  From the natural laws of breath, tides, and time, there is a season for expansion and contraction. If you inhale, you need to also exhale. Tides ebb and flow. Just as sure as winter comes, we are just as sure that spring will follow it. Every winter ends. Every spring has its turn. All of this needs to connect in our hearts and our minds and our souls prior to being able to accept the gift of Grace.

Winter, in fact, is one of the best times for thinking. I have had some of my clearest planning and daydreams about the future while wearing comfortable jammies (or perhaps a comfy hoodie/sweatpants combo) and a warm beverage (coffee, tea, or hot chocolate made with my mom's recipe.). When the world quiets down, the vision can be seen more clearly. So when you’re wrapped in that blanket and the noise… settles, what bubbles up for you? What do you want for your life, if exhaustion wasn’t making all the decisions?

That’s where the next gift comes in.  It’s a personal inventory – a little mini-version, if you will. The Clarity Mini-Inventory. It’s not a five-year plan. It’s just a gentle guide to help you envision a different path. A way to figure out what lights you up, what you refuse to tolerate, and what actually matters most. And as I am staring down my own recovery ahead, I’m asking myself the same questions. I’m not trying to just bounce back. I’m trying to build forward with more fortifications so that everything is better next year. 

As I move into our segment on career transition and job search, I want to really focus on Networking this week. Networking matters  - even when you hate it.  At its core, networking is simply connection. And connection is something teachers already know how to do — with students, with parents, with coworkers, even with that one admin who never remembers your name but always needs something.  Networking isn’t sleezy or skeevy.  Networking is people sharing the names (and talents!)  of people they’ve met and liked or trusted enough to share for one reason or another.  I bet you’ve shared someone’s name and/or skills before.  Ever recommend someone service person?  Suggested a friend for a potential task or position?  That’s all possible because of networking. 

Now, when you’re transitioning careers, especially from education, networking isn’t just “nice to have.” It’s how doors open. It’s how you bypass all the nonsense. And most importantly — it’s how you stop feeling like you’re alone in your search.

More than 80% of job opportunities come through networking. Not cold applications. Not keyword-optimized resumes. People. Conversations. Mutual curiosity. Someone saying, “Hey, I know someone you should talk to who would be perfect for this.”

To make this less overwhelming, we break networking into four categories. Think of them like temperature zones — from people who know you best to people you haven’t met… yet.

🔥 Hot Contacts

These are your inner circle: friends, family, close colleagues. People who already believe in you. They may not know exactly what you’re looking for yet — but they’d move mountains if you asked. These are the folks who’ll hype you up on LinkedIn, make introductions, or help you practice your “what’s next” pitch over coffee.

🌤 Warm Contacts

These are folks you know, but maybe haven’t talked to in a while — former coworkers, mentors, people from your credentialing program or that PD you took two summers ago. You share context. There’s warmth, even if you’re not besties. These connections often surprise you with the most useful info or referrals — especially if you reach out with something like: “I’m exploring some new directions and thought of you.”

❄️ Cool Contacts

These are people you don’t know yet, but have a shared thread with — maybe they were introduced by a warm contact, or maybe they’re part of the same Facebook group or attended the same webinar. Maybe you went to the same college.  (Side note: I feel like Harvard and the University of Texas have some of the most rabid and extensive networks – and UT’s is a lot larger even if Harvard’s is older.) These connections are built on mutual curiosity and purpose. And they can become warm (or even hot!) contacts with one good conversation.

🧊 Cold Contacts

The big scary one, right? Except… it doesn’t have to be. Cold contacts are just people you admire but don’t know — yet. Someone whose work intrigues you. A LinkedIn connection doing something you’re curious about. Reaching out cold isn’t desperate. When done respectfully, it’s often welcome. People love to share their journey — especially when they know you’re not trying to “get something,” but genuinely learn.

This season — when everyone’s inbox is slowing down and “That sounds like a 2026 problem” is the vibe — it’s actually the perfect time for low-stakes connections.

You don’t need a pitch. You need a presence. You need to be visible to the people who might just say: “Let’s talk in January.”

Because the connection isn’t just how you find a job. It’s how you build community, confidence, and courage.

But you have to keep track of all the networking connections that you softly launch this season at parties and gatherings and community events, so that brings me to the next gift I have for you:

The next gift in the series is the Networking Tracker. This helps you map who you know, who they know, and how to keep those connections warm without dropping the ball. And this time of year? It’s the perfect low-stakes season for reconnection. Send a holiday message. Thank someone who impacted your journey. Reconnect just to say hi.

Going to any Christmas parties? Use them as a soft reconnect. No pressure. Just talk. And if someone stands out, mentally bookmark it. That could be a January coffee chat. Because let’s be real—right now, everyone’s saying, "That sounds like a 2026 problem." And sometimes? That’s exactly the right energy.

Let me leave you with this: Grace reminds you you’re human. Clarity reminds you what matters. Connection reminds you you’re not alone. This isn’t just about landing a new job. It’s about rebuilding you.

A reminder that links to all these gifts are 1000% free to you.  The links are in the show notes, or you can find them on the homepage for the next few weeks at TeachersinTransition.com.  

You’ve given enough. It’s time to build a future that gives back.

*******

Email me at Vanessa@teachersintransition.com
Leave a voicemail or text at 512-640-9099
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