If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it 400 times: “Take care of yourself or you’ll burn yourself out.” So let me take a minute and be #401 to pass along the message.
Take care of yourself, before you burn yourself out!
But seriously….hello pot, it’s me kettle. My creative process is basically all or nothing. Either I work 18 hours a day or I do the bare minimum because I’m so exhausted I fall asleep at 6pm. Correction, that is what I used to do. This year I’ve had stress impact me in a way that forced me to figure out a way to manage it. I guess that’s what happens when you run full-steam ahead for five years. I’d call myself crispy on the edges and actively avoiding burnout.
For me, there is one simple key to managing the stress. And by simple, I mean super easy to say, but really hard to implement day-to-day. Find your priority. Your priority is your family or friends who are like family. It’s the relationships that will matter far after this progress report season. It’s the babies you’ll never see small again. It’s the conversations with your mom over coffee. Those relationships are the most important priority in your life. It’s being happy and kind to the people who love you the most. It’s having enough energy to have a conversation with your spouse at the end of the day. You have to stop putting them down to the bottom of the list and start keeping them at the top.
Making your family your priority doesn’t mean you don’t finish your IEPs on time to be compliant. It doesn’t mean you don’t meet your IEP minutes and you just tell your boss you didn’t have time. But…. maybe it means you don’t bake cookies and create styrofoam snowmen with your special day classrooms in January. Maybe it means you play go-fish with a deck of articulation cards instead. Maybe it means you use an articulation app on the iPad in 8/10 therapy session in January. Maybe it means you print a no-prep packet from TpT and call it a win.
To make your family your priority, you have to get the most done in the time you have allotted. Decide when you have to leave work and leave work. Don’t take your computer bag home every night. That’s just going to make you feel guilty during your precious family time. I come into work 30 minutes early every day so I can work while it is quiet. Losing 30 minutes from 7:15am to 7:45am doesn’t cost me anything but sleep. But that same 30 minutes at 7pm everyday would be terrible. Cut out all the extras that take up your time on things that aren’t crucial. Outsource it (PTA moms and 5th grade girls will cut your lamination). Skip it (sorry, no lunch in the cafe). Combine it (make templates for everything).
Most importantly, accept that you are only human. You’re incapable of doing everything perfectly. What you’re doing at work is good enough. You don’t have to have the world’s best IEP goals and every single lesson Common Core Aligned and up to Pinterest worthy craftiness. I’m not a perfect daughter, sister, or friend. Why do I expect myself to be a perfect SLP? It’s unreasonable. Do your best in the time you allotted for work. Then go home and make your family the priority. If you don’t accept that you can’t possibly do everything, you’ll never feel accomplished at work and that dread and guilt will follow you home. Then you won’t give your family what they need or deserve, which will make you feel guilty every day at work. Quite the cycle!
I admit this isn’t easy. My fingers are singed on the ends from burnout. Every time I feel that start to happen, I focus on my priorities and let everything else fade away for a while. I give myself permission to do some self-care. A pedicure, a few hours to read a book, a day with the Hallmark channel. My favorite way to implement new self-care habits is on my iPhone with an app called Streak. The app works as a positive reinforcement system to keep track of new habits. The idea isn’t that you’ll record an action forever, but that you record your success for a few weeks until something is a habit. My current Streak goals include 8 hours of sleep and 6 glasses of water per day. These are what I know I need to give my body to be its best. I’ve also added a 10 minutes of closet clean-out per day (but so far I’m failing at that streak.) It’s a nice way to hold yourself accountable until that self-care becomes a habit. You know on the airplane how they remind you to put on your oxygen mask first? Same thing applies here. Make yourself happy, healthy, and whole. This will help you support your own family and your students.
The other strategy I’ve implemented that helps me, is to email myself. If an idea or question or worry pops into my head at 8pm about work, I open my email on my phone and write it in an email to myself. That way I know when I get to work at 7:15 it will be waiting for me. I don’t have to keep rolling it over in my head all night. It helps me put work back out of my mind!
Creating self-care habits, giving myself time to rest when I feel close to burnout, and focusing on my priorities are part of my fire prevention plan. I’ll do my students a lot more good if I keep myself happy and healthy and whole in 2017.
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What a great post! Thank you for making me feel better about using artic cards & not being creative and crafty all the time. Sometimes it feels like a competition with other SLPs to be the best, to be perfect! Given the scope of our practice, perfection is impossible! Thank you for putting it all into perspective for me!!! I needed this! ?
Thank you so much, Jenna! You have given a huge gift to the world of SLP in your online work and this post is no exception. Enjoy your break!
Thank you Jenna, I’m a teacher and I follow your post…This was very refreshing and helpful towards helping me work on leading a more balanced life..School in any capacity can be all consuming. I’m grateful for the reminder to keep my family first! Many blessings on your 2017 school year.
You are SO right! It applies to teachers just as easily as it does for SLPs! Merry Christmas!
I wish you were around when I was a burnt out SLP. I retired a few years ago, but continue to learn.
Oh my gosh, I email myself, too!!! I’m glad you’re realizing this now! I didn’t figure it out until I was 54! I regret the time I lost!
I so needed to read this today. Your words struck a chord in me. I became an empty nester this fall when my last 2 left home, one to college and one to marriage. I let myself become engrossed in work, putting in way too many hours on school. I am going to enjoy my break with my daughter who is home from college, bake, watch movies, … I will make more time for being with friends, going to see older friends who rarely get out, sleeping 8 hours and doing just what I want for a couple of hours a week. Thank you for sharing your gifts with other slps. Merry Christmas to you and yours, Jenna!???❤
Merry Christmas Nancy! Hugs to you! Cherish this time with your kids!
Nancy, I experienced that same thing when I became an empty nester. I let my job become my whole world & it almost ate me alive. i’m still working to find a meaningful volunteer opportunity that will help fill the void my sons left when they left home. BTW I ended up adopting 3 rescue dogs!
I’m a part-time CFY/SLP turned SAHM until sometime after baby girl #2 arrives next year & while I still have the praxis to pass and 6 months of my CFY to complete…. my baby girl (20m) and baby girl on the way will never be in the seasons of life they’re currently in again, I’ll never get this time back, and I don’t regret one.single.second of being a mama bear over being an slp. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve gotta finish those things (& have a plan to/everything worked out ?) & LOVE this field but… mama hood trumps. Thanks for this sweet blog post!!!! So so so so so good/inspiring! You’re amazing!!!!!!!!!!
You’re making the right choice! It is hard to balance but love on those babies!
As women – we feel the need to do everything to perfection. Thank you for this reality check. Looking forward to checking out the Streak app! Happy Holidays and a restful break to you Jenna!
What a great post!! Just what I needed to read today. We all really need this time to refresh and revitalize ourselves!!
I love your instasrories on instagram, your blog, your fresh ideas. I always admired your youth & energy. To me, it’s nice to heat your not superhuman! After 26 years in this field, I feel myself slowing down. I don’t like that I can’t be like my 35 year old self, but it’s ok. I have many available resources at my fingertips.
It’s something that is learned from experience as practice-the fine art of balance. If either way is overdone, one suffers. Great post and loved the Mother Teresa quote at the end!
So true Jenna!! I have 36 years experience as an SLP, retired now. There comes a point in all our careers that we have to do this sort of soul searching and align our priorities. It’s a struggle to keep that balance. Your truthfulness and honest will enlighten other SLPs and that they are not alone in this struggle.
Thank you!
Jenna,
I am a huge fan of yours and this post just put another star in your crown! Your talents are many and your energy seems endless to me. I’m so grateful that you recognized the signs of stress and heeded their warnings. Thank you for sharing your experience and offering strategies. You are an amazing person and SLP! Thanks for sharing your gifts and insights with us all. We are lucky that technology can bring us all together for support. Wishing you a joyous, fun holiday with those on the top of your list!! ?
Great post! Thanks for the reminder! Working moms need to read more of this-type of message.
Jenna, thank you so much for this inspirational post. I needed to hear this because you just described my life perfectly! I am relaxing this week, not doing an ounce of work, and enjoying myself! happy holidays:)
My mom, a retired teacher, tells me often “your health, your husband (we don’t have kids), and then everything else. Hire a cleaning lady and don’t bring your computer home every night. It’s okay for you to prioritize going to a workout class instead of supervising the 2nd/3rd grade concert.” Easy to hear, hard to implement as you say.
I agree with everything you wrote, and I have been subscribing to this way of thinking all school year. However, caseload/workload is huge in all of this. They say you can’t organize clutter–you have to actually get rid of some of it. The same holds true for caseload–you can only cure so much with organization and scaling back the grandiosity level of activities. I would love to hear about successful attempts to make administration understand that staffing levels must be appropriate for students to master their goals and for SLPs to stay in districts.
Thanks for addressing the stress!
Thank you Jenna! I am happy to know others are feeling the same way I do! It has been a great break! Your posts have helped me to survive my caseload. Balance is key!! I’m pray you are around for many years to come!
I also really, really needed to hear this! Thank you so much for sharing. I’m going to bookmark this and come back to it when the stress and guilt start creeping up again. And congratulations on your engagement!!
A very inspiring post! I think I shall add this to my favorites and re-read it when I’m feeling a bit frazzled. My mantra is ‘People over Projects’ after reading, The Best Yes, by Lysa Terkeurst. It may seem simple in nature but a bit harder to really live out. Some days I have it and on others, not so much. But we are all works in progress, right? Thanks for this post, there is a lot of wisdom in it. Best wishes in 2017!
Happy New Year!
What a great post . . .needed to read this. Love, Love, Love what I do but after 16years as an SLP I am feeling crispy around the edges. This career is a marathon not a sprint so I need to remember to pace myself!
Perfect time of year for this post! I started getting up at 5am to get things done for work before I leave the house. For me being in private practice, it’s easy for it to consume your life! I don’t answer phone calls or texts after 6pm. I might make an activity at night or write a blog post but I generally try to save that for my work day on Fridays.
Thank you so much. I really needed this today. I especially love the quote from Mother Teresa. I have a new quote posted outside my room for the staff every Monday morning. Today, I just didn’t have the energy to find a quote or even take down the board. I know exactly what to put on that board tomorrow, and it will help me, and the other staff in the building, remember that we have to take care of ourselves to care for our students.
Thank you.