How to Love Your Career Again

Hello friend and welcome back to another episode of Artworks for Teachers. I’m your host, Susan Riley. And today it’s just you and me, because we’re going to be talking about something that I have personally experienced and something that I’m watching so many other educators going through right now. And that is deciding whether or not to stay. And now in the past, if you comb through our archives, you’ll find that I have addressed the subject of burnout, as well as how to know when to stay and when to go. But I’ve never actually talked about this, which is how to start loving your career again, especially if you’ve fallen out of love with it already. Now, I think this is important because when we’re thinking about our careers, it’s not an end all be all, right? It’s not a black and white situation as much as we often wish it could be.

And so while we talk about burnout and there are teachers, yes, colleagues of mine that I know that have left the profession for their mental health, for their wellbeing, and for a variety of other reasons, that’s not the only way to turn things around sometimes. And I wanted to share a personal example with you today because quite honestly, I have been going through this myself over the last 18 months. And most people wouldn’t guess that. Some people, my very close network, when I meet with them, they’ll tell me they think that there’s something a little off, or that they suspect that something is going on under the surface, but they’re not quite sure what it is. So I’m just gonna share with you today, I’m gonna be really vulnerable, that I have been going through this myself for the last 18 months. And in the last three months or so have really figured out for me what is working on bringing me back to myself and back to loving the career that I’m in. And so I want to share what’s been working for me so that if it helps you, that you can continue in a career you love or have loved in the past. Now

At first, I thought when I was starting to go through this process, I first thought it was burnout, right? If we think back 18 months, what was unfolding 18 months ago was 2022. It was right after the pandemic where everybody was kind of trying to figure things out. And things were kind of settling into what we now know as a new normal, right? You can’t ever go back. So what our new normal was, which was completely different than what I had signed up for in 2014 when I started the institute. And so I had to really struggle quite a bit in 2022 and it continued into 2023. I was floundering quite a bit. I was trying to remember, what about this did I love? Because things are coming at me that I don’t love at a very harried pace. And I…

I don’t know what to do, right? And so I really started to fumble quite a bit. I also started to make poor decisions. Not poor decisions, let me back that up. I started to make decisions that were not as carefully thought through as they probably should have been. I made some hiring mistakes. I made some mistakes with where the vision of our organization was going, because I myself, could not find a vision that I could really get into. And so things were kind of unraveling. And in 2023, they really started to unravel for me a lot and very, very quickly. And I started to notice that this was a pattern, not just for me, but now it was starting to become a pattern for my team. And that was not something that I wanted to cultivate at all. So I had to get really real with myself.

and determine is this burnout? If it’s burnout, what do I need to do in order to fix that? So in 2023, at the beginning of the year, I decided this might be burnout. This might be, I’ve worked myself now to the bone to accommodate all of these new things since the pandemic. And as everything else evolves, what schools will invest in, what they won’t invest in.

Where their priorities are what teachers really need there’s all of this swirling around and so I thought well this might be burnout so I gave myself permission to take some time off and kind of regroup in March and That was helpful Except that I didn’t have a plan for what happens when I come back So I got, you know, all rested and rejuvenated and I even got a little bit excited about coming back to work and then in April everything that had been there before was still there. I had not dealt with the systemic issue, the underlying issues that were going on and so when I stepped back into it, it was like everything crashed back into me again. It’s like a secondary wave that was bigger than the first just kind of hit me across the face.

And for those of you who are returning from a break right now, who maybe you were able to rest and rejuvenate yourself over break, but you never dealt with the underlying issues that were causing the stress in the first place, when you have are entering back into the classroom these past few weeks, you might have felt like this wave is just slapping you across the face again, right? So I realized about halfway through the year burnout is not the issue.

I need to be better about recognizing the signs of burnout faster so that I can deal with the underlying issues that’s causing that burnout and then relax and rejuvenate and come back. But in fact, what the real problem was, was that I was falling out of love with what I was doing. I started to question, is this for me? Is this really what I want anymore? Everything is so different than when I started, I don’t know that this is the right space for me anymore. If this is resonating for you, my friend, this episode, I promise you, is going to help you tremendously. I wish that I had this episode when I started going through this, because these questions are normal. They’re so normal. And it’s not that when you start having those questions, it’s not a sign that you have to leave. It might be something that you want to consider but there is another way through it. And so I realized when I was having these questions of, do I even wanna do this anymore? What are the ramifications for that? If I leave, then this domino effect happens, right? And then what happens to everything that I have built and all of the people who are counting on us and the programs that I’ve invested in and like all the questions that are swirling in your mind, right? As I thought through them,

I really started to understand I’ve been through this before. Anytime that my career has come to a crossroads, I have been through this before. And at every one of those crossroads, I’ve decided to leave. I’ve decided I’m done. I’m going to try something new. I’m done. I’m going to go try something new. So then I had to ask myself the hard question. Do you want to do that again, or are you willing to stick it out which reminded me of a great question that my therapist have asked me in the past about my relationship with my husband. Do you want to keep going or do you want to leave? Which is the option. And if you were married for anything more than about a year and you’re past your honeymoon stage, you know that this question is real. It’s just a normal part of marriage, right? So when I’m thinking about my career, I’m like, I have been here before. I’ve been to this crossroads before.

And in other places in my life, I’ve decided to stick it out. Why not in my career? I could totally do this in my career, which got me to thinking about, how do I fall back in love with what I’m doing? Very much like if you are in a long-term relationship, the honeymoon stage does not stick around very long, and you have to figure out how do you cultivate that feeling, right, to be able to invest yourself into it. How do you cultivate that into a place where you are joy-filled, right? And so I thought about that in terms of my career. And I’m hoping that in these steps that I’m gonna share with you, you can start considering your career this way as well. Now, to get started, I always start with research, right? I’m a big research gal, and so, because I want hard data, I wanna know, is this normal, is this real? What are some steps that others have tried?

I don’t want to have to reinvent the wheel if I don’t have to, right? So what I found is that Gallup does a survey every four years, and every four years the results are exactly the same. What’s interesting is that the results in their latest survey after the pandemic are actually the same as the results from their last survey prior to the pandemic. In this survey of 25 million workers in 189 different countries, only 13% of the people surveyed actually loved their job. And so we heard a lot during the pandemic about people who were quiet quitting, people who were just, who were giving up on what they were working on as just a job and pursuing their passion career, and then going back to a job because their passion career couldn’t pay for it. There’s so many things that were going on, right, that this churn. And so I thought in the data that we would have found after the pandemic that perhaps more people would report loving their job because they left something that they didn’t enjoy. Nope, nope. Still the same. 13% of people report loving their job. Everybody else either report that they are satisfied in their job, they don’t love it, or they hate it. And 40% of people report hating their job. So.

That started to get me thinking about, okay, well then what do these 13% who love their job, what do they do, right? What do they cultivate? What did they know that might be able to serve me as I try to fall in love with my job again? Because the other things that I started to see in my research were really fluffy pieces of advice. Like, to fall in love with your job again, remember your why.

Educators, how many times have your administrator or somebody else said, just remember your why for being here? Yeah, no, that doesn’t work anymore because the problem with that is that the why that got you here is not the why that’s going to get you where you want to be. You just say that one again, that was a gem for me when I was learning this. The why that got you here is not the why that’s going to get you where you want to be.

So remembering your why only does one thing. It pulls to the surface the stuff that you wanted to happen that didn’t. And that’s painful. So we’re not gonna do the fluff stuff of just remember your why or I couldn’t believe this, but some business magazines actually said in their articles on how to love your job again, people said, go take care of yourself. Draw yourself a bubble bath once a week.

Make sure that you have habits that make you feel good. Okay, that’s great and all. And I think we’ve talked about the bubble bath thing before, especially in burnout, in the episodes about burnout. But bubble baths don’t get you that far. Bubble baths pop, they fade, they go cold. That does not help me long term, right? So.

I started to dig a little bit deeper and figured that these 13% of people must know something that the rest of the world does not because I have a feeling that the people who are writing those articles about remember your why and draw yourself a bubble bath are in that 40% of people who hate their jobs. I want to learn from the 13%. So what I’ve discovered in that 13% is that there are a couple of nuggets that are going to really help us to understand and drive home the process that it’s going to take to re-fall in love with our job. Because remember, most of us got into education for the love of it. We did, right? It’s not for the money, it’s not for the fame and fortune, right? It’s because we wanted to make a difference. And we feel called towards being a teacher. We feel that calling, that pull, right? That’s why we got into it in the first place. And so, and we loved it in the first place. So how do I fall back in love with that again? During this whole process, I discovered that there is a difference between a purpose and a calling. A purpose is set in stone. It is what you are put on this earth to do. I am a person of faith. I truly believe that, you know, God put me here for a reason. I believe, that God put me here as an educator and I can teach you about almost anything. Right now I’m teaching you about arts integration and STEAM in our organization. But I could very well teach a child how to read. I can teach students how to count. I could teach you how to start a business, right? There’s lots of things that I could teach, but the purpose of my life is as an educator.

That’s what I’m sent here to do. That’s who I am, essentially. Right? Your calling is how that purpose manifests. So your purpose is set in stone, but you could have so many different callings throughout a lifetime. That’s important. When people tell you that teaching is a calling, it’s really important to understand teaching your calling or is teaching your purpose? So that’s the first question I want you to think about, right? What is your purpose? So calling is the place where the purpose has an opportunity to shine. If your calling is to be a teacher, or if your purpose is to be a teacher rather, is your calling as an elementary teacher in a classroom? Is it as an arts integration specialist that coaches others? Is it as a leader which manifests as a administrator in a school building or perhaps in central office? Is it tutoring after school? What does the calling look like that supports your purpose? Now this was huge for me.

It took me a long time to really sit and think about what is my purpose. If I had one word for what that purpose could be, what is that? What is that for me? And cause it could manifest as a lot of different ways, right? I could be a business person. I could be a marketer. I could be an educator. I could be a mother. I could be a wife. What is my purpose?

So before you make any other decisions, before you’re working through this, consider what is your purpose, and then think about what you’re doing in your job. That’s your calling, right? That’s what you’re actually doing right now. Is that the best way to support your purpose? So in a real life example, for me, as I was going through this, I thought, well, if my purpose is education, if it is to educate people, and I could do that,

Any way that I wanted, I could go back to the classroom as a music teacher. And for a couple of nights, I actually had dreams that I was, and I thought, Ooh, maybe that’s something that’s like appearing for me as a sign. It wasn’t. But my brain was really thinking about it. Should I, does my calling manifest as back in a classroom somewhere? Does my calling manifest as doing some teaching people how to start their own businesses as teachers, how to come out of the classroom and start your own business, or start making a living as a teacher doing something else. I could certainly do that, right? And there are things about each of these ideas of callings that light me up. But at the end of the day, when I was thinking about it, and I thought, what’s the best way for me to start my own business to continue to educate people, because that’s my purpose, that’s what fills me up. Is it in this current job? Is it in this current role? Is it in this current job? And for me at the end of the day, the answer was yes. This is the job, this is the calling that I am meant to do. So if that is true, then I gotta figure out a way to fall back in love with this sucker, right? Because I can’t.

Continue down the path that I can that I’ve been on where I’m feeling resentful. I’m feeling tired I’m feeling frustrated my view of the world is starting to become more negative because I’m In the you know seeing people’s worst sides of themselves sometimes You know when we hop into customer care or something other some other element I’m starting to see all of these pieces and none of that cultivating my love of my purpose or my calling. So I gotta find a way to fall back in love with this calling, right? And so this is what I started to do. I started by reminding myself that life is a story, right? We are writing a new chapter every time we open our eyes in the morning. So it’s important to remember if we’re writing the story, what story are we telling ourselves?

That’s I love that phrase from Brene Brown. I remember it all the time, especially when I’m working with people and there are challenges involved I start to ask what is the what is the story? We’re telling yourself here. And is it true? Right, you can always reframe your story And so when I’m thinking about Reframing this and falling back in love with it. I gotta remember what story am I telling myself if I’m in the cycle of?

There’s nothing good here and I’m just stuck. That’s a pretty negative, bad story to be telling myself. But if I can reframe that into there are opportunities here for me to plug in, for me to help, for me to make a difference, that’s a whole other way to look at that story. So the first step that I have actually found, and this is backed up by research,to understand that you need to be able to reframe the situation that you currently have. You can’t necessarily just jump out of it, but you can reframe it. The next piece back to through research and that these 13% of people do other than reframing their story is they know their aptitude. They know what they’re good at. So they’re clear on their purpose, they’re clear on their calling, and they are good at what they do, right? So I want us all to be thinking about what are the things that we’re doing that we’re good at? Because that’s gonna light you up. But what are the things that we’re doing that we’re not good at, we’re not designed to be good at, right? Those are probably the areas where we’re finding the most frustration. So is there a way to eliminate or very much kind of loosen the things we’re not good at, right? That’s something else to start to consider. So these are all swirling around in my head and I’m thinking about, okay, how am I gonna put all this together? And the first step for me, this is actually a pre-action step, was to work backwards from what I wanted. And you kind of have that understanding from what I started to suggest about purpose and calling, right? You gotta work backwards. I do this in lesson design all the time.

So of course it makes sense to do it for ourselves in our decisions for life, right? You gotta work backwards. So you gotta think about what is it that I really want? What do I wanna experience? What is it that I really want from this career? Do I really want the retirement plan and the security of the retirement plan and the healthcare after I retire?

That is an honest to goodness question. I’m not being sarcastic or facetious. There are many people for whom that is their reason. That’s what they essentially want. That’s okay. That’s totally okay. But if that’s what you want is the security of the retirement package and the healthcare, then your decision-making process moving forward is going to be very different than someone who wants to have more freedom in their day to do what they want with students and to have fun again in the classroom. See what I’m saying? So you need to decide right now what is it that you want from this career. And there’s no judgment. Nobody’s gonna judge you for this except for yourself because this is for you, right? But once you know that, then the next steps can fall into place much easier. All right, so.

I’ve challenged you twice now. Think about what is your purpose and from your purpose, what is your calling, right? And is your calling matching your purpose right now? Is it feeding to your purpose? And number two, what do you want? What do you want from this career? Now we get to move into the action steps in order to make that happen, okay? So I’m gonna use the example of…

Let’s say that I do want more freedom to work with my students to do what I’m good at, to experiment and create some more joy in my classroom so that I leave the classroom feeling like I’ve made a difference and it has also filled my teacher cup, right? That’s what I want, right? So, first step is to make a list of everything that we used to love about our work. Now, this can be painful, but it’s like ripping off a band-aid.

I want us to go back and think about, remember that, remember your why? This is not remembering your why. This is what specifically you used to love about your work. And think, even if you have to go all the way back to right out of college, okay, what were the things that you loved? For me, it was always the students, right? The student reactions, my relationship with those students. It was seeing the light bulbs go off in their heads when we would kind of pull something together from math and music or from ELA and music. I could see the light bulbs, the flickers, and that was awesome for me. I loved the people that I worked with. We were a collaborative team. We respected one another. I could trust those people. I loved my administrators. They were tough but fair.

and if I had a problem with a parent or student, they had my back, right? These are just some examples for you. I want you to think back all the way, as far as it takes to go back to the time that you actually loved your career, think about what it was and write those things down. In this position, I ended up writing all about how I loved serving teachers, serving more teachers here than I could ever do in a classroom or in central office, the freedom to make my own schedule, the ability to be there for my daughter to get off the bus at the end of the school day and still be able to serve teachers and create content and share really great arts integration lessons. These were all things that I loved at the beginning of my work, right? So create a list for yourself of everything that you used to love about your work. And step two is that when you look at this list, I really want you to look at this list, heart the things that still light you up. Like put a little heart next to the things that still light you up, right? And anything that doesn’t light you up anymore or that no longer apply, I want you to cross out. So it’s important to recognize the things that have stuck around, right? The things that even after COVID, after everything else that has happened in education, these are the things that still light me up. I still love seeing the aha moments. I just get to see them in teachers now, right? Instead of students sometimes, unless I’m in a school visit. And when I’m at a school visit, oh my gosh, those students light me up, right? I still find joy in my team. I trust my team, right? So those are still things that I can heart and love. But there are things that are different. Like it doesn’t apply anymore. Get my daughter off the bus because she’s a high schooler and you know she she’s an after school musical rehearsal until 9 p.m. every night. So that is not as appropriate for me anymore. Cross that out, right? It’s also not always true that leaders will back us up anymore with parents. I think and I hope that is turning around in 2024. And I think we’re finally gonna get back to a place where there’s a balance there, but that’s not always the case. And so that might have to come as a cross out, right? So look at your list and determine what you still love, heart that, and cross out the things that you don’t or that no longer apply. Now, number three is super important.

You have to give yourself permission to grieve what you have lost in this work, in the work as educators, when we take a look at what we used to love and what no longer applies and what no longer is working and what we don’t love anymore. Grieve is a love word. Grieve means that we loved something enough to miss it and long for it and be sad about it, right? If we didn’t love those things, we wouldn’t feel that kind of grief.

And so you have to give yourself permission to feel that grief. I think some of the strongest pieces that have prevented us from doing this work of figuring out where we need to go next has been the avoidance of step three here. I know it was for me. There’s so many positive things in my life and everybody’s like, focus on the positive, affirm the positive, get more of what you want with the positive, don’t focus on the negative.

I agree with that to a point, but there is a point where you have to acknowledge that because of events that were beyond your control, education for better or worse has changed. And it’s okay to grieve what you lost and that was not your doing.

Right? I grieve the time when people gave everybody the benefit of the doubt. When people sought the good rather than automatically assuming the bad. I grieve that. Because that’s what I’ve seen happen. And I gotta be able to grieve through it because otherwise I can’t acknowledge that is a reality and that I have to let that piece go. I can’t let it go if I don’t grieve for it. So step three is to sound silly but truly grieve for what you have lost. Okay? Then make a list of everything you currently appreciate. Maybe not love, right? Cause you’ve already got your hearts there from your other list of things that you still love. But what are some things that you can appreciate about your work in addition to that first list, right? So what are some things maybe that have come along that you could appreciate a little bit, if you gave yourself a little bit of time to learn how. For example, could we appreciate the fact that if we had to meet virtually now, we know how to do that and it can be quick and easy. It’s not painful, there’s not a tech curve to learn. Sure, we can appreciate that, right? Can we appreciate that there are different ways now that we can quickly assess our students? Sure, I can appreciate that gets rid of a ton of grading time, right? There are things now that are changed, again, through nothing that we have any control over, that we can also appreciate. So I want you to think about what are some things that I can appreciate now and just make a list of them. Again, you don’t have to love them, but just to appreciate them. For me, in this situation, in my scenario,

It was, we closed down our physical office space. I can appreciate the fact that on a snow day, I don’t have to shovel my way out the door. I can walk to my office, right? I can appreciate the ability to have some schedule freedom, right? There are things that, again, I have no control over, just happened as a result of everything that’s going on in the world, that I could learn to appreciate. So I have this list, right? Now, what do you do with it? Now you’re gonna take one item from that appreciation list to pursue for the next 30 days because habits are formed over 30 days. And we want to develop the habit of pursuing and appreciating the things that we have access to.

Think about when you first date someone. Isn’t one of the highlights of dating or of pursuing a new relationship of any kind, the pursuit from someone or your pursuit of someone, right? The more you pursue them in lots of little different ways, sending you flowers, sending you an email, sending you a voice message saying they’re thinking of you, those little things over time, you do them enough.

I guarantee you, you will start to fall in love with that person, right? So the same is true of our career. Small, little, purposeful things that we pursue. So that’s why I’m saying don’t look at your whole list. Pick one item that you want to pursue over the next 30 days. Now what does pursuit look like in this scenario?

So for example, if you have chosen the freedom to explore arts integration, let’s say that is something that you can appreciate because your administrators have said, if you wanna try arts integration, go for it. If you have that freedom to do it, let’s say you picked that, right? What are some ways that you could pursue that? You could pursue that by trying a new arts integration strategy with your students and seeing how they respond. Taking a workshop like the Teaching Transformed Workshop, that we have coming up in February. It could be reflecting on an arts integration lesson that you happen to see or that you happen to do in your classroom. It could be picking an arts area to explore for yourself. So maybe you want to grow in an arts area. Maybe you want to learn the ukulele or maybe you want to learn some watercolor techniques and you explore that because you know that that’s going to help with some exploration of arts integration in your classroom. So you pick one thing that you wanna appreciate, and then all kinds of little actions that you can take, nothing big, but just small little actions that you can take to pursue that one piece for appreciation. Now, I’ll tell you what happened when I did this. For me, when I made that list and I selected some things to appreciate, then I was able to cultivate that appreciation into something that blossomed into something that I truly value and love. So for me, I started with the freedom to map out my own schedule. I’ve always set a really rigorous schedule for myself, even now, right? Like, get up, 7 o’clock. By 7 o’clock, I’ve already got my shower, I’ve already exercised for the day, I’ve had breakfast, and I’m ready to roll, right? And then…

I will cut out work by four, unless I’ve got some other really big project in which case I’ll stretch that a little bit. Like I’ve been really, really rigid with my schedule. There’s no reason for that, because nobody is my boss. I am my own boss, right? But to get out of that habit, I had to appreciate the fact that I have some schedule flexibility and then I got to play with it. So I thought, ooh, okay, so if I can play with.

Let’s see if I can cut out between 1130 and noon on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday to read a couple of chapters in a book that I’m working on, right? That I want to be able to get up my reading count and I’m going to take some time in the middle of my day to actually read some books. And then I want to try to cut out of work by three so that I can make sure.

I have time to go back to take some piano lessons because even though I know how to play the piano, I need some lessons because I’m rusty. So I’ve been actually playing with that. For the last 30 days, I’ve been able to pursue this idea of schedule flexibility. And I will tell you, the more that I’ve been able to pursue this and take small little actions, the more I’ve fallen in love with this and I’m not going back to that rigid schedule over myself.

Right? The more I have come to really appreciate what this kind of work allows me to do for myself, to fulfill my own self, as well as others. Now, that’s just one example. There’s lots of others. I’m working on a new book. I’m working on coming up with some new workshops and facilitation tools for leaders. It’s exciting but I was able to pick one from each time for 30 days and really pursue it. And I’ve seen so many great results from that. And it’s lighting me up again about the possibilities that exist. And I will tell you, I have really come to love what I do again, but it has been a journey. And it has been through these seven steps that I’ve really understoodhow to cultivate that again. It’s not through bubble baths, it’s not remembering your why, it’s being really purposeful about these ideas and putting them into small action steps that you can take day by day. Now, what happens if you put this into action and you realize, I really don’t love this and I don’t really wanna continue in this way? What you’re discovering is that your calling is changing. Your purpose is the same.

But how do you want it to look? It might need to look different. But why not take the next six months, we’re in January right now at this recording, why not take the next six months to figure that out? So that when you get to the end of the school year, you are crystal clear on whether or not you’re staying or you’re going. If you’re staying, you have a rejuvenated love for the field and a passion for your purpose, right? And if you’ve decided this isn’t for me, you’ve done that by taking every step available to you so that you can let that go with peace and know that another calling will come along. So I hope that this episode has been helpful for you. It’s taken me a really long time to be ready to share that and to also offer some support.from what I’ve gone through in the last 18 months. And so I hope that is supportive and helpful for you. If at any time you are needing support in that, remember we have a downloadable, a free downloadable over at artsintegration.com forward slash artworks so that you can download that’ll walk you through those steps, help you keep track of everything so that you can make sure that you are doing it with purpose and outside of that,

I do hope that no matter what you decide and whether or not this is the calling for you, that your purpose is deep-seeded in you and that whatever it is you choose to do next supports that purpose because that is the most important thing we can be cultivating. So until next week, take care of yourself and I will see you at our next episode.