How to avoid burnout by taking time for the things you love
I don't know about you, but the older I get, I seem to spend more and more time thinking about my own mortality. Tell me I’m not alone.
This post covers the T in my SUSTAINABLE acronym (taking time for the things you love) and is the fourth blog post in this series about how to make teaching feel more SUSTAINABLE.
If I hear about someone in my community who's facing a tough time, who’s had a health scare, or an accident of some sort that’s impacted their family, I can't help but put myself into their shoes and wonder what I would do in their place.
Honestly, it's weird to think that one day in your life will be your very last day on this planet - and most of us will never know when that is.
Which begs the question: What is worth your time?
The obvious answer (the one you’d be inclined to give because you think it’s what you should do) is that you'd spend it with friends and family. And that’s probably true.
But maybe you’d also love to spend it traveling and seeing amazing places you’ve always wanted to see.
Or maybe you’d finally finish writing your book because you’ve had something to say, all these years, but were too afraid to share and now it’s the end of the line.
My point with going into this is that you would spend your time doing what you love, with the people who matter most - whatever that looks like for you - without thinking twice.
Day-to-day stuff that normally takes up the majority of your mental and physical energy wouldn’t matter anymore.
And I know that isn’t real life (luckily) and that hopefully you and I both have many, many tomorrows in our futures. Real life means laundry and food prep and doing things we don’t want to do, sometimes.
But, I think keeping the very real truth about how fragile life is, close to your heart, makes it much easier to loosen the grip on some of the things you think you should do. This makes space for things you want to do and the things you’ve been too scared to do, so you can stop putting them off until someday when you’re brave enough.
All you have is now.
I’m sure thousands of books have been written on this topic. But it’s something we either don’t want to face (because it can be depressing) or are too busy to give attention to.
But the truth is that no one is promised tomorrow and no one wants to leave this life with regrets.
The problem is that for whatever reason, the day-to-day stuff that we’d all agree doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things gets way more attention and mental energy than all the things you’d love to do.
Let’s daydream for a minute.
What’s your thing?
You know. Something that, assuming you’re well-rested and given a couple of hours away from your expectations as an adult, you would happily wrap yourself up in and enjoy to your very core.
When did you do that last?
Because when you're too tired to do your very favorite things, or you feel like there’s no time, it's draining. And when you overwork PLUS you don't prioritize doing the things you love or spend quality time with the people you love, you feel like you’re drowning and you know you’re on a crash course with burnout.
Now, if you're serious about staying in this profession because you still enjoy it but you want to make teaching feel more sustainable (I work mostly with teachers - but this goes for all professions) it means you have to take time to do the things you love doing because life is for fun and joy and bliss and it's not meant to be working 24/7.
It's really not.
If today WAS your last day, chances are most of what's written on your to-do list right now could go undone and no one would notice or REALLY care. This means that you could do things today that would fuel your energy and light you up from the inside, making you feel more inspired which makes everything feel easier, including the teaching stuff and the home stuff.
You deserve to have space for YOU in your own life, doing the things you want to do. Period. And if not now, then when?
That doesn’t mean you shirk your responsibilities, but it does mean you matter, and how you want to spend your time, matters too.
What would happen if you tracked your time for the next 24 hours... 48 hours…or 168 hours… (that’s a week, if you didn’t know).
What patterns do you think you’d notice?
What would you be most proud of?
What you be embarrassed about or cringe at?
What do you think you’d want to change?
If you’re feeling brave - try it. Track your time for a day or a couple of days and see what you notice. Then, ask yourself how you feel about how you’re spending your time.
And, most importantly: If you’re not happy about what you notice - what can you do to change it, even in a small way?
Have you ever heard of “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying” by Bronnie Ware?
Well, it’s just what it sounds like. Research was done with folks on their deathbeds, approaching their last days, regarding how they lived their lives and the regrets they had.
One of the top regrets: “I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”
Nobody wants to get to the end of their life and feel regret for the things they did or didn’t do. And, no one wants to have a health scare or something tragic happen in their lives that shocks them into living their life the way they actually want to.
You deserve to live your life the way you want to now and to spend your time the way you want to spend it.
Right. Now.
What would that look like for you?
What would it look like to spend time more with your friends, express how you feel, do things that bring you joy and happiness, not work so hard, and be true to yourself?
Because, remember, these are things that are within your control.
How would teaching feel more sustainable if you took more time for the things you love doing instead of always putting them off and letting other stuff that doesn’t matter take the precious time you have?
Think about it.
Maybe journal on it or even try to track your time to see how you’re actually spending it.
But also, reflect on how your life and the demands on your time will evolve. What will be different for you in 3 years? Five years? Ten years?
How you spend your time changes with your season of life.
And that’s what we’ll focus on in the next post, so stay tuned.
