Mental health in teaching: Redefining self-worth

Charlie Burley aka The Teacher's Health Coach shares his experience with mental health struggles as a teacher, and how he sought to make long-term changes to how he saw his self-worth.

I stood there, frozen.

The eyes of my year six class fixed upon me as my own frantically flicked around the room at what felt like a million miles per hour. My heart hammered in my chest. My throat felt like someone had hold of it. My skin prickled as though it were on fire.

I was having a panic attack.

Just moments before, a child who found it very difficult to regulate themselves emotionally, and who had been reintegrating back up to a full-time timetable, had entered the room after a disagreement at break time.

Without warning, papers, pencils, and then chairs, went flying across the room. I had dealt with almost this exact same scenario many, many times in my five year career to date - but this one was different.

This time, my mind was sending me a signal: I wasn’t okay.

Breaking point and burnout

There were several events that had contributed to my reaction that morning, and my subsequent diagnosis of chronic stress and anxiety. I had recently separated from my partner of five years; it was my first year teaching year six; the stress of SATs was wearing down on me; and - most difficult of all - my LSA had been diagnosed with terminal cancer earlier that year. Just a few weeks after the events outlined above, she would pass away.

These things were undoubtedly factors that influenced my mental health around that time and played a part in me hitting burnout at just twenty-six years old, after only five years in the classroom. 

But there was something much deeper going on beneath the surface…

Something I had struggled with all my life, in one way or another, that had reared its ugly head as soon as I started my teacher training: I tied my self-worth to my work.

Struggling with boundaries and saying "no"

My self-image and how I felt about myself was almost synonymous with what happened inside school. This is a part of educators’ mental health we almost never speak about. However, it’s incredibly difficult to set and maintain boundaries, or to say “no” when you feel something is unreasonable, or to put your needs ahead of the needs of others, if you don’t feel like you’re deserving of it.

If you don’t feel worthy of being well, taking almost any action towards it is going to be inconsistent at best, and impossible at worst.

Realising this through my own counselling and then coaching journeys was truly a turning point for me. I knew that I needed to address the fact that I was tying my own opinion of myself to external validation and what others thought of me (and, if I’m being entirely honest, often tying it to the attainment of the children too!)

Rebuilding your self-worth

Today, I want to share with you three things that helped me (and hundreds of other school staff) let go of guilt, distance ourselves from the “self-care is selfish” dogma and build better boundaries around work. This was all achieved by rebuilding our self-worth away from school - which helped us become even better educators in the process.

1. Controlling the controllables

It’s a very human thing to seek control of what is around us: objects, people, events.

It’s a way for our brains to create safety through certainty, filling in the blanks so we can look ahead and ensure we’re not in harm’s way. But, not only is it impossible (and exhausting) to try and control everything, we have absolutely no control over other people’s judgements or opinions. Tying our worth to them is a gambling game and we end up trying to rig it by people-pleasing, not setting boundaries and setting our expectations of ourselves extremely high.

If you ever find yourself worrying about what others think, nervous about what’s coming up or comparing yourself to others, come back to your circle of control:

Entirely outside your control is your Circle of Concern, these are the things that might worry you, but you have absolutely no control over: the weather, the time of day, the traffic.

Closer to you, you have your Circle of Influence. It’s important to note that again you have no direct control here, but you might be able to behave in a way that influences these things: other people’s behaviours, the outcome of an interview, a child’s attainment.

And finally, you have your Circle of Control, with you at the centre. The only things that are within your control are your thoughts, and therefore your actions. Everything else is external, and trying to control them is almost guaranteed to bring frustration, disappointment and a feeling of discontent.

Every day, come back to your controllables (thoughts and actions). These are what really matter.

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2. Creating your Confidence Collection

Our brains build our beliefs on evidence - real or perceived. Whether it’s from our experiences, our conditioning, or our values, we hold memories and truths in our minds that colour how we see the world each day. 

Think of it like a library. Each time you experience something, your brain flicks back through the archives to find out what this means. It finds the book on that specific experience, and you respond accordingly. This is great, creating shortcuts for our behaviours and saving us time and energy, but it can also work against us.

For example, if you had a parent who would always praise your grades or your teachers’ reports, rather than the effort, your library will likely tell you that others validating outcomes feels really good - and it’s how your worth is judged.

As an adult, this can make it really difficult to stop seeking external validation. Interestingly, this can also work with the other extreme. If we didn’t receive any praise at all, we can find we’re constantly striving to prove ourselves. 

But we can use this library analogy to build our own Confidence Collection. A stack of undeniable proof that you are awesome!

Here’s how to give it a go:

• Take a quiet moment by yourself. Top tip: it works even better if you can find a fixed time of day to do this regularly - e.g. your morning commute or when you brush your teeth at night. 

• Write down examples of times you were the person you want to be. It can be anything: an obstacle you overcame that day, the effort you put into something, a time you made a positive choice. It might be something you achieved or how you helped someone, but it doesn’t have to be.

• Come back to it when your self-worth wobbles. It’s inevitable, you will have days where you feel like a rubbish teacher, parent or maybe even a rubbish person! Come back to your collection regularly.

3. Set and stand by your own expectations

The final idea I want to share with you comes back to the core of improving your self-worth: self-compassion.

Life isn’t linear, especially for us as school staff. Every day is different, things don’t go to plan and we are always adapting - literally hundreds, if not thousands, of times a day. 

But we can still have a tendency to expect only the very best from ourselves, every day. There’s plenty of external pressure like this in education at the moment as it is, but we can sometimes fall into the trap of putting even more of it on our own shoulders.

Think of it like this: if you set your sights on being a 10/10 every single day, anything up to a 9 is going to feel like failure.

What we can do instead is moderate our expectations slightly. That doesn’t mean having low standards or doing half a job, it’s simply about tuning in to what resources you have right now (energy, headspace, emotional bandwidth, time, etc.) and being really frank about what feels reasonable right now. 

A useful lens here is “What would I advise a friend to do in this situation?”

I know that others will inevitably have expectations for you. There will be deadlines (these are often more flexible than they’re made out to be!), and accountability and scrutiny at times. But just make sure you’re not further compounding this pressure internally too. It’s helpful to check in with this from time to time.

Change takes practice

Changing how you see yourself isn’t a one-time action, nor is it a quick-fix; it takes regular practice, a realistic process and time - lots of it! As we say at The Teachers’ Health Coach: ‘small steps x regular reps’.

But I can promise you that it is one of the most important parts of improving our relationship with work, our health and with ourselves. You are deserving of your wellbeing, just by virtue of being here. You don’t need to prove or produce anything to be worthy of feeling well. It’s something that just is and that deservedness is there, in every day.

And so I’ll leave you once again with that reminder, and I hope it hits home:

Your work is not your worth.

Want to reduce workload and give your wellbeing a further boost? Wayfinder from Learning by Questions enhances progress for pupils and reduces marking time for staff. Find out more about Wayfinder for your school. 

Or if you'd like to hear more from Charlie, you can download Sophie B's Guide Through Year 6 and see Charlie's contributions alongside other helpful guidance from educators...