BURNOUT
This week my focus is on a very important topic that affects all of us from time to time. Burnout is real and it is draining. The Harvard Business Review posted an excellent article about burnout that clearly defines what it is and some of the factors we should look out for and what should we do to build back up from it. In an article written by Monique Valcour she says ‘Stress is a fact of professional life, but extreme and unrelenting pressures can lead to the debilitating state we call burnout. Three symptoms characterize burnout: exhaustion; cynicism, or distancing oneself from work; and inefficacy, or feelings of incompetence and lack of achievement.’

Have you been working too hard for the past few months? Does it feel like the marking never ends? Do you feel tired all the time? Does it feel as though you just can’t get out of bed in the mornings? Are you getting enough sleep? If you answer yes to any of these questions then you can probably tick box number one.

Normally at this time of the school year with exams just around the corner teachers get tired. We have been pushing really hard throughout the school year trying to make sure that we cover all of the curriculum content, dealing with online learning and more. There have been quizzes to set and mark. Homework to collect and mark. Meetings to attend and a whole host of other things. We know that the finish line is not too far away and it is the last few miles of the marathon that are really the hardest.

Cynicism is also an indicator of burnout. Have the papers been piling up on your desk for a while? You just don’t have the energy or desire to mark them? Is your TO DO list getting longer and longer by the day? If so you might be developing a sense of distance from your work. It is a natural human reaction when we are on the road to burnout. It is not that we are lazy or uncommitted we just need to take a break from it and come back to it a little bit later.

The final indicator is the sense of not being good enough. Teaching is perhaps one of the most difficult jobs in the world. It requires a lot of giving all the time. We pour into the lives of our students every day and sometimes there isn’t much innovate and creativity in the tank left. Sometimes we feel as though our students could have done better or we could have done better in teaching them. In reality we did our best with what we had at the time. And there is nothing wrong with that. You can only do your best you can’t do more than that.
So then, supposed we have ticked all three boxes and we are in a state of burnout. What should we do to fix it? There are four suggestions from the article:
Prioritize self care, Shift your perspective, Reduce exposure to stressors and Seek out connections.
Self care means what it says. You have to take care of yourself first. You have to rest, eat well, get enough sleep and do things that make you happy and you have fun doing. The papers to mark and the lessons to plan are going to be there tomorrow anyway but I feel like eating a piece of cake from Lady M today. So, go and get it and eat all of it. Eat 2 if you feel like it. Forget about the calories. Did it make you feel good? Savour the feeling. Build your soul back up.

In my next post I will expand on the other three remedies. But for today, be encouraged, we are all good people and we do our best everyday.

Amen