Have you ever felt the intense passion for teaching being overshadowed by the daunting realities of your work environment? This week on the Disrupting Burnout Podcast I delve into some eye-opening stories and share critical insights from educators teetering on the brink of burnout.
In this episode titled "Beyond Burnout: Facing the Realities in Education," we go beyond typical discussions about work-life balance or resilience. We explore the deeper systemic issues afflicting our education system—issues that lead dedicated professionals to suffer from panic attacks, hypertensive crises, and emotional breakdowns. Hear the real, raw stories of educators who adore their students but are finding their own health severely at risk.
As we gear up for our upcoming webinar on disrupting burnout, I invite you to reflect on the profound challenges educators face, such as lack of respect and ineffective communication in their workplaces. This episode serves as a poignant reminder that addressing burnout requires more than time management strategies; it demands a fundamental shift in how we support and empower our educators.
Whether you’re an educator, an administrator, or someone who deeply cares about the future of education, this conversation aims to stir your empathy and challenge you to contribute to positive change. Let's unite to forge healthier, more supportive environments for those dedicated to nurturing our future generations.
Join me in this heartfelt exploration, and let’s be the change we wish to see in the world of education.
Have you ever felt the intense passion for teaching being overshadowed by the daunting realities of your work environment? This week on the Disrupting Burnout Podcast I delve into some eye-opening stories and share critical insights from educators teetering on the brink of burnout.
In this episode titled "Beyond Burnout: Facing the Realities in Education," we go beyond typical discussions about work-life balance or resilience. We explore the deeper systemic issues afflicting our education system—issues that lead dedicated professionals to suffer from panic attacks, hypertensive crises, and emotional breakdowns. Hear the real, raw stories of educators who adore their students but are finding their own health severely at risk.
As we gear up for our upcoming webinar on disrupting burnout, I invite you to reflect on the profound challenges educators face, such as lack of respect and ineffective communication in their workplaces. This episode serves as a poignant reminder that addressing burnout requires more than time management strategies; it demands a fundamental shift in how we support and empower our educators.
Whether you’re an educator, an administrator, or someone who deeply cares about the future of education, this conversation aims to stir your empathy and challenge you to contribute to positive change. Let's unite to forge healthier, more supportive environments for those dedicated to nurturing our future generations.
Join me in this heartfelt exploration, and let’s be the change we wish to see in the world of education.
Friend, oh, my goodness, I got some stuff on my mind that I want to share with you. I am preparing for our webinar tomorrow on disrupting burnout in our team and, goodness, yeah, I got some stuff to tell you. So hang in there with me. This will be a shorty episode, but I need to say something to you. All right, let's go. All right, friend, listen, if you are new here, I'm dr patrice buckner jackson, but you can call me pbj. Welcome to disrupting burnout, where we are equipping you with the strategies for pouring out purpose without enduring the consequences of burnout. Friend, I'm not going to be before you long, but there are some things that are on my mind as I am preparing for our webinar that we're having tomorrow. So if you're listening to this and normally I don't date the episodes like this, but if you're listening to this after July 10th, then you probably missed the webinar that I'm talking about, but I'm sure that there are more coming. So hang on in there. I'm preparing for our webinar, where we're going to focus on disrupting burnout in your team. If you have been hanging out with me for a while, you know that my focus is on what I call heart work, meaning there are deeper strategies that we individually need to do to disrupt burnout in our own lives right. So I don't believe that time management or resilience or some new normal or even work-life balance is an easy answer or response or a solution to burnout. I think it's deeper than any of those things and if you've read my book, I've also said that I don't think work culture is the cause of our burnout. Now I do believe that work culture contributes deeply to burnout that folks experience and there's data to support that. But we got to go deeper.
Dr. PBJ:
I have been in preparation for this webinar. I have been reading the research and the articles about burnout. I have been listening to YouTube videos and podcasts and reading blogs and even groups social media groups of people who have left education and why they have left. I've even spoken to some people that I know to get their perspectives, and I'm here to tell you that we are in crisis. Education is in crisis is in crisis. As I listen to folks' experiences and their reasons for leaving the field, it breaks my heart to hear over and over how people have experienced panic attacks and hypertensive crisis and they've had to add or increase medication for anxiety and depression. I've listened to. Folks told stories of going to the doctor and doctor having a hard time figuring out what's going on with them, until the doctor says well, what do you do? Well, I'm an educator. Oh, that's what's going on. I'm an educator, oh, that's what's going on.
Dr. PBJ:
I have held space with people as they cried because their hearts are broken, because they love the work, they love their students, but their bodies, their minds, just can't take it anymore. And some of these conversations start about money right, and it's a real thing, let's be honest. But most of them, if not all of them, really boil down to respect, boil down to communication. Respect boil down to communication, boil down to people who want to be able to do their work well, but they don't feel equipped to do a good job. So they got into the work, loved their students. Their hearts break when they're no longer with their students. They're wondering if anyone is there for them now, or who's teaching them now, or are they treating them fairly? But at the same time, they knew they had to make a different decision for the sake of their own health.
Dr. PBJ:
All right, friend, I'm just popping in really quick because I need your help. Would you go over to Amazon right now and leave a quick review for Disrupting Burnout. You don't have to finish the whole book to leave a review and it doesn't have to be long or fancy, just your honest take on the book. I know that there's some algorithm fairies out there. If you leave enough reviews, they will share this book with other readers who need it. So would you help me out, would you help our friends out who haven't heard about Disrupt burnout yet? Go over to Amazon and leave your honest review for disrupting burnout. I appreciate you.
Dr. PBJ:
All right, let's get back to the episode. So in our webinar we are going to walk through some of this data, but we are going to talk about what leaders in education can do some practical steps at your level, right? So we acknowledge that there are many levels of accountability, there are many levels of politics, there are many levels of bureaucracy of politics. There are many levels of bureaucracy, and those pieces make it quite challenging, especially in education, to deal with burnout, because corporations or organizations who don't have those levels of accountability have more autonomy to make some decisions that may bring quicker relief to their people. But in education often it is not quick, often it is not as easy because of those levels of accountability and different things going on. However, there are some things that every leader in education can do in order to bring some relief to their people, and that's what we're talking about in our webinar. And listen if you're missed it. So if you're listening to this podcast now and it's after July 10th and you've missed the webinar, if you'll click the link here in the show notes, then we'll get you a recording of that webinar so that you can listen to it.
Dr. PBJ:
But here's what I really came to tell you. There are two pieces of this disrupting burnout. So so far we've been talking about the internal part, so what I call heart work. When you review the research, there are different theories concerning burnout and those theories talk about is it external, is it internal? Is it both, friend, is both? It's both.
Dr. PBJ:
So, internally, we have to work on what I teach here. You have to know what's in your backpack. You have to know what you carry, what beliefs, systems, definitions, ideas have been passed on to you or taught to you formally or informally, and they determine how you approach work and life right. So what are those standards that you carry, whether you are aware of them or not, that define how you show up every day and often drive you to burnout. Right, you've got to know how to build effective boundaries that work. So that's one of the things that we teach in Heart Work how to build boundaries that work, not just a cute little boundary that you write in your favorite journal and never look at again.
Dr. PBJ:
And finally, we teach discovering your brilliance what is your innate, unique value that you bring to the earth like nobody else? Because once you know what that is, you show up in that space and it freely flows from you without you forcing, pretending, overworking, overachieving. You can be who you are and know that that is more than enough. You no longer have to fight for your value or try to prove that you're valuable. When you know what your brilliance is, you know when you walked in the room value cameA-R-T heart work.
Dr. PBJ:
But there are external pieces and we have to be honest and acknowledge that there are external parts to this that we have to talk about. There are responsibilities that systems, organizations, schools, universities, colleges, school systems have, not just to our students but to our faculty and staff, in order to have a healthy, thriving work environment. A toxic environment can take a healthy person to a place that they are no longer healthy. So we do have to acknowledge what environment, what culture, what standards are we allowing, inviting, having people work through in order to educate, in order to serve, in order to take care of our students, and we have to take accountability for that. And, in spite of all of the systems and politics and things that are in place concerning education, if we have a leadership role in education, we have a responsibility to the people who follow us, and there are some simple, not easy things that we can do to start serving our teams right now, and that's what we're going to talk about in the webinar.
Dr. PBJ:
I also want to say this, and I'm going to close I'm still preparing for tomorrow, but I needed to come share this with you all I acknowledge that the folks who carry the burden of what I'm talking about you're burnt out as well. I acknowledge that and the data shows us this. The Gallup work survey global work survey that just came out a couple of weeks ago here in 2024, shows that managers have more negative impacts than non-managers. It shows that the engagement level of the manager is correlated with the engagement level of the team. What does that mean? If your team is burnt out, you are probably more so or experiencing more of those consequences. If your team is thriving, the data shows you're probably a thriving manager. So here's why I say that I want to respect and honor that as the leader.
Dr. PBJ:
You stand in the messy middle. You stand in the messy middle. You are in a position where mandates, expectations, requirements, decisions come down to you and also concerns, worries, trouble come up to you and you have no place for it to go. You are covering your leader and protecting your people and it is wearing you out. So we're also going to talk about what middle managers, leaders and that could be. You could be a dean and be middle management. You still have three or four levels above you. You can be a VP and be I know that's executive level but you still have several levels of accountability above you, right? So however you see yourself, I want to acknowledge that the leader in the messy middle carries most of the consequences and we've got to take care of those folks, because if we take care of those folks, then they can get to a place where they can take care of their people. So we got work to do.
Dr. PBJ:
I don't know if y'all are in this with me, but I would love to hear from you, I'd love to have this conversation with you and I'd love to share more, and we will. We'll share more here on the podcast, we'll share in the webinar tomorrow. We'll see where it goes. But I feel a burden on my heart, a responsibility to take care of those who take care of everybody else, and I think it's about time that we do that. All right, that's all I got for you today. I want to go get ready for the webinar tomorrow, but I just needed to come share my heart with you and I hope to hear from you. All right, friend, as always, you are powerful, you are significant, you are brilliant and you are powerful, you are significant, you are brilliant and you are loved. Love always, pbj.
