Relatable Burnout - What to do Now

Raise your hand if you can relate. 

People are coming to you with their notices of resignation, telling you they are moving out of the area, taking a break from education or changing to a different role. You can see it in their eyes. They are tired. They have no more creative solutions to bring to the table. They just went through three years of nearly constant upheaval and pivoting, from being the heroes to being shamed for not being superhero enough. You have staff that spent the last five months juggling a constant stream of viruses working their way through their own young children at home, setting off a domino of days without substitutes and sub plans for both them and you, as you managed the site. One year was disrupted by the onset of the pandemic, the next interrupted and restricted by Omicron, and the current year has been plagued by unfilled positions and fatigue all while a relentless cold and flu season have persisted with the background of Covid still lingering, but losing its center-stage role.  

In each conversation, you half listen to the news they are sharing, you express an appropriate level of enthusiasm for their next role, but your thoughts are almost drowned out by the very real pressure that “where am I going to find someone to teach XXX?”. You're half listening and half panicking. Some of these meetings you could see coming when the request for a quick meeting came your way, but others blindside you and add to your own increasing stress and ever-increasing workload. 

Every educator you know is burnt out.

Every school principal and assistant principal is drained.

Every district office administrator is maxed out.

Everyone.

Even you.

And there are still nearly three months of school left. 

It’s time to talk meaningfully about restoration and rejuvenation. The resilience has been used up.

What does that look like for an educator? 

Restoration and rejuvenation only come when there is space made for both to occur. To restore is to bring back to the previous desired state and to rejuvenate means that energy and vitality are added. This means something has to fall off of the ask list and a then pure block of time, that is given back to everyone, shows up. It’s both as simple and complex as lifting just one responsibility from the teachers and naming the explicit reason it is going away. This will allow you to give that gift to your staff and also for you all to start enjoying the benefits of restoration. It’s simple because it’s one uniform action. Identify it and do it. But it’s also complex. Landing on the right one thing to take off of the list of demands requires several leadership skills to come into play. Sometimes referred to as “whitespace” which opens up on a crowded calendar, it is the explicit and purposeful removal of obligations and responsibilities that take time on one’s calendar and not putting anything back in its place.

Restoration follows from purposeful action that you take for your team and yourself. 

1. Finding something that can be eliminated as a task or responsibility or postponed is complicated. Sometimes it means finding money to outsource the task. It also means running the idea through the bargaining agreement/contract to ensure you can indeed take that off everyone’s plate and outsource or eliminate it. Sometimes it means making time for your own creative thinking about what truly can be dropped in the workflow - what form doesn’t have to be filed, what unit doesn’t have to be taught, what supervision can be reimagined to free up time. 

 2. Communicating so that everyone understands the “why” and puts boundaries in place to protect the  restoration and rejuvenation time and path you’ve decided upon. That includes you thinking of who you have to communicate with across the organization / district to observe those same boundaries. If you take away  a job function, but don’t name it, nor protect it from others who now see an opening for a quick meeting, or use for anything other than restoration, defeats the purpose and just shuffles the overwhelm to a new place on the calendar. 

 3. Show and maintain your commitment by consistently and clearly naming the sole purpose for the change is to support everyone to focus on restoration and rejuvenation. Name it. Repeatedly. Clearly and Kindly. Name it. Put a reminder to yourself so that you honor it for yourself too. 

But once the time is blocked and the breathing room for some initial restoration is made, what’s next?

Rejuvenation. As a leader, you can help to center conversations around the wellness of educators. Include yourself in this, don’t always hold the caretaker role without participating in restoration and rejuvenation yourself. 

1.  Center the topic in your meetings. Lean on the Social Emotional Learning (SEL) resources of your district and modify for adults. Build the practice of breathwork, walking meetings and art therapy into your time together as a faculty. Build a culture of naming what it is people do to protect the boundaries of a newfound block of time and also what they seek out as rejuvenating. 

2. Recognize that different things are rejuvenating for different people. Create space for people to identify that which truly restores them. For you, it might be a good run, for someone else it's a book with tea  on their sofa.

3.  Lastly, find the joy in the work for yourself. And make a habit of seeing it and naming it. Put that type of energy out into your world. 

During one of my toughest stretches as a Principal, I found myself in a situation where on the best days, there were still dozens of hours of essential work left undone. There were students in need, teachers depleted and angry messages, emails and notes to absorb.

My leadership coach at the time directed me on one of our meetings to make a list of 10 things that I had accomplished that day. There were as many or more unmet needs and painful interactions in my day, but I listed the ten. I put words to the actions and then I could see in writing the amplification of what I had done in alignment with my values and vision. She instructed me to make that list nightly before I left the school. The first weeks it was a task to complete, but as it became a habit, it also shifted how I showed up for work. I was looking for what I was able to do and met the other tasks with more grace, patience and clear thinking. I turned my practice outward to others and made a point to name at least five positive things I saw in place in every staff members' day. It became a habit and a practice and I started to look for the asset in everyone first, before the conversation about what still had to be done. 

 Name it as a Rejuvenating and Restorative Practice 

Seeing the asset, the things that are joyous, connected to children and connected to a shared vision and naming it becomes rejuvenating for you and the person you are sharing with. 

• Bring a notepad and jot down three things for each staff member as you interact with them throughout the day and Just tell them, then and there
• Collect a list of what is happening and share it back to the person in a group setting (in departments or full faculty). 
• Build a public list and post it in a shared space - the teacher’s lounge, front office mailboxes or digital shared space. Keep it as a running list that you can build on and everyone can always see. It builds a sense of hope and starts to shift the culture. It becomes something people will do on their own.
• Or, as Elena Aguilar writes in Chapter 7 of her book Onward (2018), adapt the :”Secret Admirer” tactic from the Tribes curriculum. This is where you assign adults another adult to observe and name the positive things they see this person doing and then share. 

 This Harvard Business Review article, "Research: A Little Recognition Can Provide A Big Morale Boost" (March 29, 2021) says as much in the focus on simple, consistent and genuine symbolic gestures to affirm the work of people in the public sector. The small act of naming and valuing is rejuvenating for the person being seen for their contributions.

When you build one or more of the above into the flow of your day, you will start to see the energies change. The time for restoration must be honored and named. The habits for rejuvenation must be genuine. But the benefit to the energy and morale of the school as a whole is substantial. 

And as the leader, it’s essential that you are treating yourself with the maximum grace and respect of anyone on your team. 

Allow the time for your own restoration and rejuvenation so that you can continue to share your gifts with the world. And reconnect with the joy that brought you into the profession.