The Present Teacher Podcast

5 Things I Needed to Hear as Someone Who Struggled with Teacher Work-Life Balance

• Helena Hains • Season 1 • Episode 105

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Did you struggle with teacher work-life balance and looking for a way to make things different this year? In this video, I share 5 things I needed to hear as a new and first-year teacher who struggled with time management.


These teacher time-saving strategies will help you confidently save time as a teacher, minimize teacher overwhelm, prevent you from staying late and start leaving work on time, and prevent teacher burnout.


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//  ABOUT

I’m Helena, a coach for new and first-year teachers sharing knowledge on how to have a thriving career and personal life.

The Present Teacher Podcast is a resource for classroom management, classroom organization, time management, and teacher wellness. Follow along and learn how to thrive in the classroom and in life.

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Helena Hains:

So a while back, I ran into a comment where someone asked whether or not it was bad or good good or bad to start leaving work on time, and this really got me thinking to when I first started figuring out a way to get my teacher work done in time for me to start leaving at contract time without taking work home. And so, as I was reflecting on this, I came up with five things I need to hear as someone who struggled with teacher work-life balance and was on their way to starting to leave work on time as a teacher. So, that being said, let's dive in. Hey, teacher Bestie, my name is Helena and I'm the creator of the Present Teacher Podcast. I'm a first-year teacher coach and in this podcast you are going to learn everything from simple, actionable classroom management, social learning and teacher wellness strategies. You know that impact you want to make in the classroom. Well, we're going to make it happen here.

Helena Hains:

First started teaching, I was one of the first cars there and the last to leave. I always had work that I brought home with me, and it seemed like, no matter what I did, my to-do list was endless. I could never get it all the way done, and I just completely felt like a failure. So much so that by December I was completely exhausted and reached burnout. And by May, when my kindergarteners graduated in a moment where I should have felt proud, I felt like a complete failure. I felt like I had failed my kids and I had failed myself. And while I was so busy trying to get everything done that I felt like I had missed emotionally being there for my kids. And at that point I had decided it's either something else it's got to get better or I can't do this anymore, because I didn't want to be a teacher who was constantly drowning in work that I couldn't actually be there to teach. So that's when I decided to make a difference. Here are the five pieces of advice I would give myself if I was just starting on my journey and if I was struggling with teacher work-life balance.

Helena Hains:

And the first one is your worth as a teacher is not measured by how hard you work. I'm going to say it again your worth as a teacher is not measured by how hard you work. You see, there's this unwritten rule in society, where society really loves to praise the people who work hard, the people who are constantly working, and out-hustle everybody else. But the truth of the matter is that hustling isn't always needed. In fact, I find the older I get, the more it is needed to work smarter, not harder, and this was something that I really struggled with as a teacher, because I felt like, oh, but if I make things easy and I'm not working hard, then I'm not a good teacher. But that's not the truth. The fact is, you get to decide what a good teacher is, and for me, my definition of a good teacher was someone who showed up for their kids and made an impact every single day. And I had already tried the hustle way, and the reality was that didn't get me any closer to being a good teacher. So instead, I started to pivot and ask myself how can I see things differently? How can I make this easy? And that's when I started to automate things and that helped me get out the door during contract time. And the truth of the matter is, when I found a way to do that, it actually made making an impact easier, and being a good teacher, by my definition, was easier. So take some time to ask yourself what does a good teacher look like to you? Is a good teacher someone who hustles 24-7, or is a good teacher something else. From there you can start deciding which way you want to go, but for me, my worth as a teacher doesn't matter how many hours I work. It's how I work and how I show up for my kids.

Helena Hains:

And a lot of people think, oh, but you know, leaving work on time is as bad. But the truth is, what are you going to do with that free time that you're going to have that you're not dedicating to work? Are you going to research new strategies to use in the classroom? Are you going to sleep in so you show up fully rested or go to bed on time? Are you going to go to the gym so you have energy throughout the day, or take care of your body and eat more healthy, nutritious meals so you have energy that sustains throughout the day? Are you going to pick up a hobby so you can, you know, have an emotional outlet other than work? Are all these things? Or spend more time with your family, or start a second business or a business? And then, if you make a list of all the things you're going to do with this new time, are any of those things bad? No, none of those things are bad. So does that mean that leaving work on time and not working so hard as a teacher is bad? Mean that leaving work on time and not working so hard as a teacher is bad? No, I had chosen.

Helena Hains:

I decided to look at things differently. I decided that wasn't the truth for me. In fact, making my life easier made me a better teacher, because I was able to make a more deeper impact with my kids. So again, ask yourself what kind of teacher do I want to be, and which one is going to get me farther or closer to being the teacher I want to be? And remind yourself my worth as a teacher is not measured by how much work I get done. Teaching gets to be easy. Teaching gets to be simple. Teaching gets to be fun. It gets easier and easier. The better it gets, the better it gets. I get to make it easy. I decide to have an easy teaching career. I decide that teaching gets to be easy for me. The second piece of advice I wish I would have heard, as a new teacher coming in that struggles with work-life balance, is it's not bad or cheating to make things easier.

Helena Hains:

Now, growing up, I can tell you exactly where this came from. Growing up, school came easy to me In a weird way. I could kind of sense when a teacher was going to say what they were going to say and I knew exactly where the answers were. It wasn't necessarily that I memorized the whole book or the whole lesson or anything. I just knew exactly which questions teachers were going to ask for understanding before I even knew what that was, and I could tell you where the answers were going to be as we were first reading the content.

Helena Hains:

And so, since school came easy to me, I started to feel guilty because that my skills I realized other people didn't have. And I started to feel guilty because that my skills I realized other people didn't have. And I started to feel guilty or like my skills helped me cheat in some way when it came to school. And so I stopped using some of the skills that I naturally had for school to make things easier because I felt like I was cheating. But the truth of the matter is it's not cheating to use your skills. It's not cheating to make things easier. You're not cheating out your kids if you make your life easier. If anything, you are making it easier for you to show up emotionally and hold space for them to show up as a teacher you want to be. It wasn't cheating for me to use my skills that I could, you know, figure out how teachers taught. Essentially, it just gave me more space to fully take in the content. Rest assured that if, when the assignment came up, I knew exactly what I needed to say. So all that to say it's not bad or cheating if you make things easier. It's what I like to refer to as working smarter, not harder.

Helena Hains:

So how can you make things easier for yourself? How can you make it easier in your classroom so you can show up with confidence and make the impact you are destined to make? You are not, you know, giving your kids less to make. You are not, you know, giving your kids less. Whether you write a lesson plan in an hour, 20 minutes, 10 minutes or five hours, does it change the way you present it to your students? No, absolutely not. Instead, your students are still going to get the lesson, regardless of how long it takes you. The same goes for all your work. You are not cheating the system or cheating the kids or cheating the teacher next door if you make things easy. If anything, you are showing them what's possible and you are showing up and have space to show up as the teacher you were meant to be.

Helena Hains:

So remind yourself that I am not cheating by making things easier. I am working smarter, not harder. I decide that things get to be easy for me. I decide that teaching gets to be easy for me. I decide to look for ways that make teaching easier for me. I decide it gets to be easy. I am watching for those ways to make teaching easier to come to me, because those days are mine. I decide how teaching goes for me and I decide to work smarter, not harder. The third lesson I wish I would have known is that it gets to be easier.

Helena Hains:

So one thing that is really hard to fathom is when I started teaching, I didn't really know that there was a way to make things easier. I just kind of assumed that teaching always had to be hard, especially with all of the people on social media talking about how hard teaching had to be and always was, and how it wasn't getting easier for them. I took that truth as face value. But the truth of the matter is you get to decide how teaching goes for you, and it gets to be easier. And when you see teachers in your building or online, who are leaving at contract time, instead of using their ways as a way to point out how you're lacking and you're not there yet and what's wrong with you.

Helena Hains:

I want to invite you to transition your mindset into thinking on how you can see things differently and look at it as instead look at it as motivation and inspiration of where you get to go. If they started where I was and now they are there, that means I get to be there too. So it gets to be easier, and the only difference between you and an experienced teacher is that they've had more time to figure out what's worked for them. The easier it gets, the easier it gets. The faster you get, the faster you get. The longer you teach, the easier it gets. While you are in your second, third, fourth, fifth year, you can use resources and models and strategies and frameworks all of these things you can use to make your life easier in the upcoming years, and you get to build off of that until it eventually becomes automatic to you. So let this be your reminder it gets to be easier. The better it gets, the better it gets. The easier it gets, the easier it gets. I decide that teaching gets to be easy. I decide to make teaching easier. Every single year, every single week, I decide to use what I've learned to help me make my life easier.

Helena Hains:

The fourth piece of advice I wish I would have heard, as someone who struggled with work or life balance, is the experts started exactly where you are Now I know I just talked about this often get to where they are now because they struggled with where they are or what that one thing was. So, for example, you heard my story where I really struggled with teacher work-life balance and now I've learned what works for me and I get to share what I know online with the community. I interviewed Brittany Blackwell from Teaching Mind, body and Soul and if you listen to her interview where we are talking, she shares how she actually struggled with work-life balance as a special education teacher and, after figuring out what worked best for her, she now shares with thousands of teachers online how it works for her. Oftentimes that teacher next door same thing. There's a small fraction of teachers that become experts because they do, but the truth of the matter is many of them became experts because they struggled. So instead of using where teachers are now as a you know, lack of, like I said, use that as inspiration of where you get to go.

Helena Hains:

The fifth piece of advice I wish I would have got, as someone who struggled with work-life balance, is you decide how teaching is going to go for you. If you decide that teaching is going to be hard for you, then teaching is going to be hard for you. But if you decide that teaching is going to be easy for you, and you are watching for ways to make teaching easier in ways that are aligned to you, in ways that don't feel like you're cheating the system, then those opportunities are going to show up. Whatever you decide is what often happens, and this is a whole layer of manifestation here that we could talk about. But I honestly believe that the universe God, whatever you believe in is constantly guiding us towards living the life we want to live, and the more we lean into what we want to do and we desire to do, I like to think of those as little nudges towards living the life we want to live. So, however you decide to live, your life is how it's going to be.

Helena Hains:

So ask yourself how do I want teaching to be? What does a typical school day look like for me In a perfect world. What does a perfect school day look like for me and what can I do right now? Or what do I feel called to do right now to help me get to where I want to be? The easier it gets, the easier it gets. I decide to make teaching easier. I decide teaching gets to be easy for me. I decide to look for ways that make teaching easier and easier for me and for me to get more faster so I can show up as the teacher I was meant to be and make the impact I was destined for. So that wraps up how the five pieces of advice I wish I would have gotten as someone who really struggled with teacher work-life balance.

Helena Hains:

If you found this useful, I would really appreciate if you could subscribe or leave a review or send me a screenshot of you tuning into this week's content so that we can share this content with more teachers who need to hear. And if you want to take this a step further, I want to invite you to check out the Ultimate First Year Teacher Guide. This guide shares all the questions I get in regards to working as a first or new teacher and the systems I use in the classroom to help me get out the door faster. And if you want to take it a step further, I am putting together the Present Teacher Circle. So the Present Teacher Circle is a community where we learn about the different systems to put your classroom on autopilot. I share behind the scenes on what it looks like to have my classroom management running on autopilot and things like lesson planning, parent communication or communication in general, prepping, grading all of those things and how I put it on automatic or I automate those so I don't have to think about it and I could start leaving work on time. So if you want to check this out further, make sure to grab the link in the description below to find out more. As always, remember we are stronger together and I will see you in the next one.

Helena Hains:

Teacher bestie, bye. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode. I hope that you were able to take away some value that will help you thrive inside and out of the classroom. It would mean the world to me if you could take five seconds righ now and leave a review on this podcast. And if you found this podcast especially helpful, make sure to take a screenshot of this episode right now and tag me on your socials to let me know you're listening as always. Remember that we are stronger together, with all the love in the world. Helena, aka the Present Teacher, see you next time, teacher Bestie.

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