How Do We Balance Teaching While Being a Teacherpreneur?

We have dedicated our careers to teach, to empower the next generation through learning, to allow children and young adults to become fully functioning critical thinkers in our society….

Yet, many don’t seem to understand the stress and struggle that goes along with these goals. As teachers, we often overwork ourselves “for the sake of the kids” and have a tendency for perfectionism that has been placed upon us by administration and/or state regulations.

We struggle with managing the gap between what we know we should be doing in order to be most effective (or even what we are told we should be doing) and what we are physically capable of doing. 

I call this the Teacher Gap: a no man’s land that cannot be overcome unless we sacrifice ourselves for the cause. And even though you are a giver, you do not have to give everything. 

You deserve to have the space to be with your family, friends, and whatever you want to do outside of school. This includes your teacher business, which may be adding even more constraints on your time and your energy.

In this article, we will discuss how we balance both teaching and a teacher business using stress management and time management systems.

Teaching, Personal Life, and Teacher Business, Oh My!

There are so many things to get done in one day. Add onto that the decision fatigue from classroom teaching and the never ending responsibilities from home life and running your own business, it's no wonder so many teachers are burning out.

What we need are work life balance habits that will allow us to enjoy the best of both worlds. And no, I don’t mean do a face mask at the end of the week and listen to yet another PD from admin about taking care of yourself (when they don't give you the time, space, or decrease in responsibilities to do so effectively). 

I mean we take things into our own hands. 

What is Work-Life Balance?

Work life balance is simply stress management plus time management.

Once we have the skills of both, we can hone systems that allow us the space to breathe, think, and make decisions that benefit our lives best.

We need to find the specific strategies that work for our unique circumstances. Just like our students, we are not all standardized with the same needs. Unfortunately, this means we may have to do a bit of trial and error with the help of self-awareness to allow us to find the strategies that work best in our circumstances.

Rewiring our Teacher Habits

Start by rewiring your teacher habits. These are the habits that have come from your current circumstances and are absolutely impacting how you run your business and your personal life. We need to allow ourselves the space away from teaching and create room for our own identity outside of “teacher.”

I know you are looking at me with confusion and a little bit of worry. It’s okay. I have been there too. My whole identity was being a high school teacher, so when the chronic stress was landing me in the urgent care and I had to decide who I was outside of teaching…I felt lost and alone and like I had left my very being behind.

But we are so much more than teachers. We are hard workers and caregivers and learners and supporters and CEOS and designers and photographers and curriculum writers and researchers and athletes and so much more. 

We just have to take the time to allow these other facets of ourselves to shine as well. 

By allowing some space inside the Teacher identity, we also allow ourselves to let go a little more: from the overworking, perfectionism, sacrifice, overwhelm, burnout cycles, and feeling like we have to go it alone.

These behaviors are not allowing us to grow as people and are stagnating the growth we could have as business owners as well. 

Making it Sustainable

So we have discussed self awareness and rewiring as a tactic to create better balance. Now, let’s talk about other ways we can make a sustainable change toward work life balance. 

If we plan to teach and have a teacher business, we have to use those time management skills and stress management skills in conjunction with each other.

For instance, we need to learn how to set boundaries on our time in the classroom and on certain tasks (stress management skill), while also learning to prioritize different tasks to complete them most efficiently (time management skill). 

If we can more regularly set specific goals on our time and know what is going to be most important in each moment, then we can more easily move from one task to the next to become more efficient and effective long term.

Creating sustainable work life balance as a teacher and teacherpreneur is difficult, but not impossible.

We want to make sure we can keep things up long term, which means that there have to be cuts somewhere. Reflect on what is most important to you and where you want to spend your time. Make all of your other decisions based on that priority. 

Note: This does not mean that you should go so far as to work into the night and only have 2 hours of sleep trying to get it all done right away. Leave yourself space to recover if you want to create sustainable habits for long term success. 

Teacher Business Balance Framework

The following is my signature Teacher Business Balance Framework. I designed this to help teachers and teacherpreneurs become more confident in their ability to create the work life balance of their dreams. 

Everything that I do revolves around this system and I have used it myself to curate the systems I use today in my business and personal life. 

1. Understand stress management and time management, specifically in how these affect teacher business owners.

1. Reflect on your current coping mechanisms and systems to focus on what is truly serving you.

1. Explore new strategies to see what works best for your lifestyle and business needs.

1. Build habits based on the strategies that work well.

1. Curate a system that can help you and your business grow. 

Start small. You will not create a fully functioning and automated system in your business or your personal life in one day.

And if you need more support in how to create these systems in either sphere of your life, feel free to set up a 1:1 Confidence Call so we can work together to figure it out.

The key here is that you are not alone. 

You have support to balance teaching and your teacher business so that you have more time with yourself and your family after the school day is over. 

Next Steps

If you want to learn more about stress management, time management, or work life balance for your teacher business, head over to the blog for access to all of my articles so far (with new ones every week).

You can also get a little more hands-on help, by signing up for the Newsletter. On the first Tuesday of every month, you will receive a free resource directly to your inbox that will give you a new tip for creating your unique work life balance. 

Plus, you receive the FREE Stress Relief Toolkit right away after adding your email! 

Who doesn’t love a good freebie?

And if you are still shaking your head thinking, “Jewels, I need more accountability and support than an email” Then the Teacher Business Balance Membership is for you. 

Every month, you will receive a workbook that will help you build systems in your business and less stress overall. We will workshop through this workbook together and support each other in the private TBB community space. Head over there today to get started on your balanced business journey.