As the old saying goes, you have to be able to fill your own cup before you can give to others. And the saying rings true in the realm of teaching.

In modern teaching, the pressure to perform and provide has never been so high. In 2018, it was reported that 81% of teachers considered leaving the profession due to extreme workloads.

Alongside pressures from governing bodies, leadership teams and parents, it’s no surprise that many teachers are reaching burnout and experiencing mental health conditions.

According to research by The Guardian in February 2019, teachers experience more stress than any other job role in the UK.

With stress and mental health conditions on the rise, it’s essential as a teacher to find habits which can help you sustain your wellbeing.

After all, a happy teacher creates a happy classroom.

In order to help you discover a sense of balance and garner a better sense of wellbeing, we’ve revealed advice that could save your career.

Create Boundaries

With high workloads and the amount of marking required from teaching, it’s easy to bring work home.

If you must bring marking home, create a space that is dedicated to your work that doesn’t clash with the rest of your home life. Separating yourself off when needed will help you to distinguish between work and home life.

To strengthen these boundaries, it’s also well-advised to set a reasonable time for leaving school each day. Whether you stay a few extra hours to get paperwork done, designate a time and stick to it.
On your way home from school, it can also be beneficial to find ways to let go of the frustrations or worries of the day so that you’re not bringing these into your home environment.

Whether you take some time to meditate in your car, or even call a friend to just let off some steam before walking through the front door.

While talking about work at home is good for you, it’s important that you don’t continuously bring any negative energy into your home life and let it dominate your conversations with family.

Home should be a retreat; a place to relax and recover from the day.

Reward Yourself

Teaching can often feel like a thankless job role. Therefore, booking something special in advance to reward yourself for your hard work can help to keep you motivated.

Rewards have a positive psychological effect on our mood. Each time we feel rewarded, our brains release the hormone dopamine, which makes us feel great. The more we gain these rewards, the better our mood.

Look at each half term break as an opportunity to do something you love to get this fix of happy hormones, whether it’s booking a get-away to your favourite holiday destination, or doing something that’s been on your bucket list.

As well as larger rewards for those term-time breaks, also look at micro-rewards that can help keep you happy and healthy during the term.

This could include taking a long walk with friends at the weekend or booking a massage.

Find those little rewards that help keep you feeling rejuvenated and in a positive mindset.

Find Your Positive Tribe

When we’re unhappy at work, we have a tendency to moan about our issues with other colleagues rather than take practical action.

While in the beginning, this sense of solidarity can feel good for us as we feel we’re understood, continuing this behaviour can eventually have a negative impact on our mindset.

The more we speak negatively, the more we see our reality as negative. This can eventually lead us into a spiral of anxiety and depression.

Rather than surround yourself with people who feed off your negative emotions, find people who can help uplift you on your down days.

Be selective about the people you surround yourself with. Don’t fall into the trap of creating a circle of colleagues or friends who are only making you see the worst in the situation.

When we surround ourselves with positive and constructive people, we can begin to find solutions to problems rather than festering on them.

Keep Focused on A Goal

When we have bad days in a job role, we can often feel like ‘what’s the point’.

The negative emotions that are linked to this kind of attitude can begin to affect our relationships with others. Ultimately we may be feeling as though our lives lack purpose.

By having a goal, you can reduce the likelihood of this sense of loss. Instead, creating a goal you feel passionately about will motivate you to see the bigger picture, and how your hard work will help you reach that goal.

Take time to think of a goal that gets you excited and passionate. It could be a personal goal, or it could be related to teaching. For example, perhaps you’re passionate about climate change, so you’re going to make it your goal to help thirty children learn about the environment through an after school club.

Whatever goal you choose, personal or professional, embrace it. Your goal will help to lift you up when bad days occur and make you see the bigger purpose.

Remember You Are More

When you become a teacher, it can be a habit to wrap your identity around being a teacher. Everything about your life becomes about your career. But this can have a detrimental impact on how you feel about yourself.

You can spend so much of your time at school, and being a teacher that you can often feel lost about who you are and what you enjoy outside of your profession.

To give you a greater sense of self make time for hobbies and events that help you to take the teacher hat off. This could include going to local meetups or taking up a hobby you used to enjoy as a child.

Having regular breaks from ‘being a teacher’ can help you feel more connected to yourself, and help you to build resilience for when times are tough.