A Vulnerable share on leaving teaching & overhauling my mindset

This week's share is scary, and magical. I didn't have the emotional intelligence 3 months ago to share like this, let alone this time last year when I put forward my resignation. Growth is a wonderful thing bby ⚡️

You may notice a few slight tweaks with my email design from this week onwards... I am simplifying and streamlining a few processes to free up some more space, including integrating my email and website servers! If you notice anything funky (funky like bad formatting, not funky like disco🪩🕺), then please shoot me a message and let me know!

I want to make this experience as easy to read as it can be, and I also want to deliver some really tangible benefits for you... I know our email inboxes can become really busy with an onslaught of marketing trash, so I want to ensure that this gets delivered to your inbox safely every week, and it's something that you're excited to sit down and read with a cuppa, or a wine after work if that's more your style.

I've moved into my era of ease and flow. I've spoken about it quite a bit on my emails so far, and I want to be really transparent with you guys. When I made the decision to leave teaching, it had been brewing in the back of my mind for quite a while. I knew that I wasn't feeling as satisfied with the job as I used to, and I also had a self-made promise at the forefront of my mind; a promise that I had made when I first started in 2016 and observed old teachers who were increasingly angry, resentful, and pessimistic about teaching teenagers. I promised myself that I would leave if I ever felt resentful about coming in every day, instead of excited and positive.

At a bare minimum, that's my standard for a job: I should be excited about the place where I am going to spend the majority of my waking hours. And after just 5 short years, I could feel myself reaching that point of burn out and resentment.

I started counting down for the weekends and the holidays more and more. I started groaning when the Sunday Scaries set in and I couldn't even enjoy the last half of my weekend any more. I felt myself feeling angry and frustrated about the pile of marking that I had sitting on my desk every holidays, and the ever increasing administrative demands that meant the fun stuff like excursions were placed on the too-difficult-to-deal-with list.

It wasn't really the kids... yes, times had changed and the kids changed with it as they have for generations and generations. Yes, covid had caused an infernal sh*tstorm in the education sector. Yes, technology was making it increasingly difficult for children to concrentrate in class. Yes, I did notice a loss in focus and motivation over the last 8 years of teaching. But that's the way that society is moving and it doesn't make sense to blame and point the finger or make anyone feel guilt and shame... as children, we're all born into a set of rules and regulations that make up our society; let's call it conditioning.

How we're raised and by whom is out of our control, just as it's out of control when the world undergoes massive technological advancements and completely reimagines the way we communicate and work and live in our lifetime. It IS in our control to manage how we react however, and that is an important distinction. Let me explain that a little further down...

I have past students who will read this email, and I have friends still teaching who will read this. It's intimidating to write, because I don't want to get it wrong. It's an incredibly nuanced issue, and I don't have the word limit here or even the perspicacity to really do it justice. This is just my opinion. I have still encouraged friends and past students to become teachers because I believe more than ever that the world needs smart, empathetic, and responsible role models. But the truth of the matter is that teaching HAS changed over the years and so have I.

It longer served me the same way that it had before, particularly, after the loss of my brother when it felt heavy to go into work, and even heavier to spend my days arguing with students who didn't want to be there in the first place, and who didn't see value in their lessons. What made it worse, was that I didn't see the value in a lot of it either. It was content that I had loved teaching previously, and they are still some of my favourite books and authors, but honestly, what is the point in teaching a novel to a class of seniors when only two students actually read it?

How can you meaningfully teach those lessons, and ask them to write an essay on the human experience of loss, when they might not have experienced anything close to it? It felt a little empty and ironic for me to demand they write imaginative texts evoking those feelings, when I knew that nothing in ink could remotely resemble the devastation of it.

It felt even more ironic to demand those things of them, when I, an adult who had experienced these very real human emotions stood at the front of the classroom stoically, zipping myself up from the inside, too afraid to show any hint of that feeling lest it spill out in front of everyone. I was asking them to demonstrate their vulnerability, while I was too scared to show mine.

In short, it was time for me to value my own self-made promise and leave, before I became that cranky dragon teacher at the ripe old age of 30. I attended masterclasses, I read newsletters and blogs of previous teachers, I applied for several jobs, and thought seriously about returning to TAFE or university to upskill. I was, quite frankly, stressed and lost about what else I could do outside of teaching, that would still allow me generous holidays to travel and a paycheck that went close to matching it...

I knew I didn't want to 'go backwards' and in a lot of ways, leaving teaching felt like a GIANT step back. I had spent a lot of money and time on a degree that I knew was only good for one profession, and besides that, who even was I without the job title 'Teacher'?

When you meet somebody new or enter passing conversation with an aquaintance, it's a close tie on whether they'll ask 'So where are you from?', or 'So what do you do?' after that introductory handshake. I've found that in certain circles that's exclusively how I've been introduced before, 'Everyone meet Haley, she's a teacher', and that's been enough for people to form an instant opinion of me. Most of the time, I've been really proud of that, even in the face of 'I don't know how you do it' comments, and my personal favourite 'Teenagers are such arseholes these days'... like they hadn't ever been rude at fourteen years of age 🙄

Without that title, and without work to talk about anymore, what else was there to me? Who was I? What fun tid-bits of conversation could I entertain with? My identity had become entangled with my profession... and as a teacher, it's not hard to see HOW this happens. Long days at work, emotional connections and welfare concerns for students, longer days marking, after hours training and excursions...

It became impossible to see myself as anything other than teacher, because it was so time-consuming, but also because I was so emotionally invested. And that's not a bad thing, I still have students who message me and thank me for the impact that I've had on their life, even years later. But as a single female, without a family to go home to, and without playing a team sport anymore, even my free time was almost exclusively spent on my career. I'm also taking complete ownership of the fact that I was a people-pleaser, and a perfectionist, so I spent hours upon hours of more time completing tasks that were frankly, not necessary.

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I'll save my story of finding coaching for another email, but I felt really called to write on this today to remind you that it takes courage to pause and reflect on who you are and what you want from life. When I reached that stage, I had no idea about the deep inner work that I would need to do to feel fulfilment again... I assumed that I could just change jobs and all of a sudden my problems would disappear.

I believed I would find a magic job that somehow had less hours, and less emotional connection required, so that I could have some time for myself again. I believed that getting my mornings back to myself would mean I could finally get back on track with my fitness routine and my healthy breakfasts and lunch prep, and that I would have more energy when I got home after work in the afternoons.

Boy, was I in for a wake-up call.

The only thing that quite literally saved me from repeating this pattern over again in a new job? A 12 week group mindset program that I enrolled in at the end of 2023. It woke me the F%&* up to the patterns of sabotage and delusion that I was running in my life. It massively helped me understand that teaching itself was never the problem... my own beliefs and lack of values were the issue all along.

I was spending all my time making eveyrhting perfect because I thought it gave me a sense of satisfaction, not because anyone actually expected me too. I was spending all my emotional energy on boosting student and staff morale and wellbeing, not because anyone had asked me to, but because it was the perfect excuse to avoid my own emotional wellbeing.

I was blaming the system for extra admin work, and the students for lack of motivation, when in fact I was scared to go inwards and realise my own lack of emotional investment, and the 'busy work' that I was creating to avoid myself.

If this is speaking to you, if you're sitting there reading this thinking faaaaaark how is that also my life, then I have something big coming for you in the next couple of months... I'm working hard behind the scenes to program it as we speak and I am so excited to be bringing this baby into the world. It's everything I wish I had known YEARS ago about my mind: what it is, the ways that it works for me and against me, and how to reprogram it so that I truly believe and live from the place that ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE IN LIFE.

I mean, c'mon... I'm writing this from my van Sandy girl, lit uppp and excited to be working on a Sunday morning, with a booking at the Cunnamulla Hot Springs this afternoon for a nice long relaxing soak... does it actually get any better than this?? Yes, yes it does. This particular vision might not be for everybody, but I bet there's a version of you out there daydreaming about what you WISH life could look like for you in a couple of years... and I bet it's not sitting in the same damn spot that you are now. Location-wise, maybe; job-wise, maybe; but circumstance-wise?

Hell nawwww. Who wants to be doing the exact same shit in 3 years day in day out? Not me 🙋🏻‍♀️

I want to grow, and evolve and feel more deeply, and experience more of life and love and laughter and joy. If you want that too, then this is your safe space to dream. And then when you think you're done, go dream bigger again.

Can't wait for the program to launch? Jump on my website and book if for a FREE discovery call with me this week. I have some limited availability left for 1:1 clients and I would LOVE to see your name pop up on my list this week!

For now, I am going to continue living my best life soaking in the mineral rich waters of Cunnamulla Artesian Hot Springs at their luxe new centre... see photograph above... seriously how dreamy 😍

I have another 2am Zoom call for my coaching training tomorrow morning, so I'm shamelessly going to be in bed early tonight. My plans are either, head back towards the coast, or keep going West from here. I'm still undecided, but that's the beauty of living life in the moment.

Sending you courage, laughter, and gorgeous sunsets all week long!

Haley 😘