Welcome to The Flourishing Teacher’s Field Guide. Whether you’re at work, at home or somewhere in between, you’re about to read some life-changing content!

This week, you’ll discover three super strategies that will show you how to build a better work-life balance.

Let’s jump in…

A Work-Life Balance Is Impossible For Teachers, Right?

I think that’s one of the most damaging things that teachers can tell themselves.

Yes, it’s a demanding job, and I’d be the first to say that there are times when getting any kind of balance between life and teaching is tough.

I spent many years as a teacher failing miserably to balance my work and my life. In fact, I went so far down the rabbit hole that for a long time I felt like my work was my life, and I really didn’t have any sense of balance at all.

It affected my mental health, my happiness, my friendships and, to some degree, caused me quite a lot of emotional and physical illness.

But more than all of that, my inability to separate work and life meant that I missed opportunities that I should have been able to take. Time with friends, time with hobbies, travel and peace of mind.

I learned to change, because I knew that if I didn’t, I wouldn’t survive.

We all have a huge workload, and so many of us spend far more hours than we should (or than is healthy) working at home.

In the evenings, through the holidays, at the weekends. And no one’s suggesting that it’s getting easier.

Less and less support, more and more demands, higher levels of anxiety…

But I profoundly believe that there are things we can do to change our relationship with work, even if the work itself doesn’t change.

And that’s the really important part. You probably can’t change the workload, the environment or the challenges you face on a day-to-day basis.

But you can change your attitude towards them. And that’s almost as good.

Here’s how…

3 Super Strategies For Balancing Your Personal & Professional Life

So, if we can’t change the challenges we face, how do we change the way we think about them?

It takes some practice, but here are the three strategies I use to help bring balance back to my life as a teacher.

They’ve worked for me, and I honestly believe they’ll work for you too.

Keep Your Perspective & Stay Positive

I believe I do a really important job. I’m delivering lessons, but I’m also changing lives, one day at a time. I’m a safety net, a pioneer and a therapist, all within a half-hour window.

But here’s what it took me years to realise… teaching’s just a job.

I’m dedicated, I’m engaged, I work as hard as I can, but it’s just a job. And the more I reaffirm that in my mind, the more I keep my work-life balance.

I’ve stopped bringing my work home with me, in my head and in my heart. I might work longer days at school to achieve that - but the payoff is that I keep work at work.

I actively focus on not thinking about it or letting it concern me once I’ve left.

It will still be there when I go back, and there’ll be plenty to do.

What’s more, if I start getting anxious about workload or any one of a thousand different stressors, I flip my thinking to focus on the positives instead. The positives of giving myself time to have balance, and the positive outcomes of the things I’ve done. Pretty soon, they outweigh the anxieties.

Keeping things in perspective sounds easy, but it can be hard for many teachers to switch off. You start bringing work home again, you start taking on your student’s problems, you blur the divide between work and home.

So…

Here’s What To Do Today

• Remove work emails from your phone & don’t have them on other devices.

• Actively engage in activities in which you ‘lose yourself’. For me, that’s cooking, which I why I almost always end up making family dinners.

• If working at home is critical (and I mean really critical) then set a specific timeframe and then stop. If it doesn’t get done in that window, it’s not getting done.

• Think about the future. Will the thing you’re worrying about even matter in a month? Almost always, the things we think are critical really aren’t.

• Stop planning your life around the work you need to do. Plan your work around your life instead.

• Repeat this affirmation: “My work is an important part of my life. But it isn’t my life. I’m allowed to stop and enjoy the world I’m creating.”

Let Go Of The Things You Can’t Control

One thing that really used to interrupt my work-life balance was my anxiety about what was going to happen tomorrow.

To a lesser extent, it’s still something I have to manage.

I get concerned about how classes might behave, how colleagues might respond to me, and how my managers perceive me.

And that used to steal such a lot of my life that it really adversely affected my work-life balance. More than preparation, marking, or creating resources, it was my worry about other people and what would happen that really upset my personal and professional balance.

• What if someone was cross with me?

• What if someone thought I’d done a bad job?

• What if a pupil (or a class) didn’t listen to me?

• What if I didn’t know the answer to something?

I learned to change my thinking and reclaim some work-life balance when I learned these two simple phrases by heart:

“Nobody’s watching.”

“Let them.”

Together, they sum up the mindset I had to use to reframe my teaching and build some balance.

As soon as I accepted that I wasn’t the centre of attention for anyone, and that, with a few reasonable exceptions, no one else was really watching me or thinking about me, I became free.

Free to make mistakes, to not be perfect. Free to relax and feel as though the pressure had been lifted. I was still dedicated to doing my best but I wasn’t going to worry any more about what others thought of me.

Mel Robbins, a popular online coach and creator, shared her use of the phrase “let them” recently, and it spoke to me immediately. If a parent wants to be difficult, let them. If someone is determined to have a negative opinion of you, let them. If a pupil refuses to respond in the way that you’re requesting, let them.

Now, this doesn’t mean a lack of discipline in the classroom or that you allow yourself to be the victim. It just encourages you to be emotionally detached and to stop trying to control the things, people and situations that are beyond your control.

That became an overnight game changer for me in terms of my emotional and psychological work-life balance.

Be Brave & Believe In Yourself

Sometimes, you just need to back yourself. You know how you work best, you know what you need to balance your life, and you know if you’re happy or anxious.

To be an effective teacher, I believe you need to be content, balanced, and authentic.

I was none of those things when I was living my life for the benefit of my workplace.

I didn’t allow myself the time, capacity or emotional freedom to live a life that complimented my work. I was too busy working!

So, to really grab that elusive work-life balance, you need to listen to what you need, embrace your way of working and be brave.

Live the life you want to live outside of school and learn to let the things that aren’t important go. Work out how to fit your work into your life, not the other way around. It takes bravery, belief, consistency and determination. But it’s worth it.

When you’re prioritising the things you want to achieve in your life over the work you need to do, and still flourishing as a teacher, you’ll know you’ve made it!

What Are You Waiting For?

We believe that teachers achieve extraordinary things under challenging circumstances and that we all deserve to be valued, supported and celebrated.

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You’re Doing Something Amazing!

We’re always blown away by how amazing our colleagues are and how dedicated teachers are to their students and to each other.

So, if no one else says it this week, thank you for all you do.

There are lots of people out there who think they could be teachers but will never have the impact that you do. Every single child you teach will remember you. They’ll remember what you gave them, how you made them feel and what you helped them achieve.

And that’s extraordinary. Just like you.

To stay that way, make sure you start using our top tips from this issue

In next week’s issue, we’ll change direction and explore 5 ways to build better relationships with your colleagues.

Until then, remember, you’re more than your marking, your lesson observations and your planning.

You’re you. And that’s all you need to be.