Self-Care Excuses for Teachers Debunked {Part 2}

In Part 1 we debunked our first self-care excuse “self-care is selfish” and learned that “self-care is ACTUALLY selfless.” Check out this article for a refresher.  Without further adieu, we will debunk our next self-care excuse….

I don’t have time

This is another easy self-care excuse that we tell ourselves, especially as teachers.  There isn’t a lot of time and with how many expectations, new students, lesson plans, copies and other things that we have to worry about it’s true that the last thing teachers want to hear is that they need to do more.  It’s easier to just say that you don’t have time and move on instead of really consider how just shifting a few things around may open up a whole new world to you.

So if you were already thinking that self-care is selfish, hopefully you are now seeing how the very act of caring for yourself actually helps everyone else in your orbit.  When we’re healthy, other people don’t have to spend energy and resources trying to figure out how to help us. But, this excuse about time may have popped up right as you were getting comfortable with this self-care idea.

Our brains are definitely wired for negative, so I have no doubt that it may take a little time and effort to reframe this, but we’re going to try.  So I guess the exercise I want you to go through is to really consider how you use ALL of your time. Are you really productive or are you just wearing a busy badge?

This might be hard to get honest about.  I know it was hard for me. And sometimes it still is.  I used to run around (and sometimes still do) like the world was on fire. Like all the things I was doing were so important.  I certainly was doing a lot of things but if I was honest, I wasn’t always using my time as efficiently as possible.

So, I’d like you to see if there are places where you could uncover a little bit of time in your day to practice a little school self-care routine.  Remember, we’re not trying to fit in grand gestures, we just need to find a little time in the day to slip in some self-care moments.

Here are some places to find the time…

-Planning time, lunch time, or other small breaks

-Time spent on social media

-Moments in the morning

-Moments after school is over

So go through a little self-reflection and see if there can be time uncovered in any of those places.  The goal is to find about 10-15 minutes/day that you can reclaim as your self-care moments.

So we’re changing this excuse from I don’t have time to I found time.

After you find some time and you feel ready to move on, check out {Part 3} as we debunk the final self-care excuse and give you a final way to move from feeling selfish to being selfless!

If you’re already on board with creating your own daily school self-care routine and are ready to let these excuses go, check out Teaching Well’s FREE COURSE 4 Self-Care Solutions in Five Minutes a Day.

This course will give you the exact daily school self-care routine that I use every day to make sure I get those moments of self-care into my schedule so that I’m living selfless, instead of selfish!