School for School Counselors Podcast

When You Love School Counseling But Hate How It Feels

• School for School Counselors • Episode 148

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You love school counseling.

You believe in the mission.

But right now, it just isn't feeling right.

If you’ve been wondering whether you’re burned out, questioning if you can make it through another year, or feeling disconnected from the work you once loved... this episode is for you.

In this episode, we talk about:

  • Why April and May hit school counselors especially hard
  • The difference between burnout and professional fatigue
  • Five evidence-based strategies to protect your energy, motivation, and heart
  • Why now is not the time to make big career decisions

Forget about self-care clichés. We need to talk about real tools to help you finish strong- and remind you why you started in the first place.

Whether you're tired, frustrated, or just not feeling like yourself at work...

You're not alone. And you're not broken.

Let’s talk about how to keep showing up without burning out.


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⭐️ Want support with real-world strategies that actually work on your campus? We’re doing that every day in the School for School Counselors Mastermind. Come join us! ⭐️

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Our goal at School for School Counselors is to help school counselors stay on fire, make huge impacts for students, and catalyze change for our roles through grassroots advocacy and collaboration. Listen to get to know more about us and our mission, feel empowered and inspired, and set yourself up for success in the wonderful world of school counseling.

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Speaker 1:

If you've caught yourself wondering here lately, can I really do this again? You are probably not alone. April and May are tough. Everything kicks off, everybody's running even faster than usual and then you have the fatigue that sets in. Right that miles-long race to the finish line. Everybody's sick of each other. Right that miles long race to the finish line. Everybody's sick of each other, and you're all just so tired of striving and striving and going.

Speaker 1:

April and May also tend to cloud your judgment a little bit, definitely kind of put a damper on some of your joy and maybe even your sense of purpose for your work. It's chaotic, it's emotional, it's exhausting and it is also not the time to be making big career choices. So what you're feeling right now is probably not burnout. If you've made it this far in the school year, my money is that you're feeling something entirely different. It might be professional fatigue.

Speaker 1:

In this episode of the School for School Counselors podcast, I'm going to let you listen in on a mini masterclass that I provided to my School for School Counselors mastermind members. We talked about what professional fatigue really is and how to keep going and pushing through without losing the part of you that really cares about your work. And we didn't talk about fluffy stuff. We didn't talk about me time or scheduled self-care or any of that baloney that never works in the real world. We talked about real, sustainable ways that you can protect your energy, protect your time and your fire, your passion for your work, even when you feel like you've hit the wall in a marathon. So if you're tired, if you're still trying to push through, but you feel stretched thin, you feel ready to give up, or you're wondering if you really have another school year in you, this episode is for you. Hey there, welcome back to the School for School Counselors podcast. I'm Steph Johnson, a licensed professional counselor, full-time school counselor, just like you, and the founder of School for School Counselors, where we've been leading the school counseling conversation since 2020.

Speaker 1:

This is a podcast for school counselors who are juggling it all and you're wondering when it's all finally going to make sense. If you're tired of school counseling advice that sounds like it came from Pinterest, you're in the right place Around here. We're keeping it real, we're keeping it grounded and we back our information with clinical research, not trends and opinions, because you deserve more than pretty graphics and recycled ideas. If you're ready to get clear, get bold and recycled ideas. If you're ready to get clear, get bold and get moving. Let's stop guessing, let's start leading. Here we go, all right.

Speaker 1:

So, as I told you, we're going to be listening in on a real mini masterclass that I held with my School for School Counselors mastermind members. I did this masterclass about a month ago because I wanted to make sure that they were fully equipped for the rest of the spring semester. I wanted them feeling confident and inspired as they endeavored toward the end of the school year, and I thought it would probably be helpful to you too. So I'm going to let you listen in, but I want to let you know, even though you will only hear me in this podcast episode you will only hear my voice there was tons of discussion and member feedback along the way. Those, of course, have been edited out in the interest of confidentiality and of brevity, but I promise you there is such rich, awesome conversation going on in the mastermind that, if you love this masterclass, you have only seen a taste of what's in store for you when you join us in the School for School Counselors mastermind.

Speaker 1:

All right, here we go. All right. So we're going to be talking about maintaining professional stamina. What I did not want to do with this and what I was very, very afraid of was giving you some sort of holier-than-thou, self-care-sounding talk where it feels like you know we're just saying take care of yourself, make sure you me time. All this stuff. That doesn't help in the spring. I don't know about y'all, but that does not help me in the spring, when behaviors are off the wall, everyone's irritable and angry. It feels like teachers are stressed, admins are stressed and nothing for nothing. People start moving around a lot on campuses this time of year, and so not only do you have the movement and the consternation and anticipation that causes, but then you also see people surrounding those moves start to get really nervous, right? Because maybe their teams are changing or maybe they're worried that their teams are going to be changing and admins are interviewing and it's just a bunch of stuff going on all at once.

Speaker 1:

So how do we maintain professional stamina in the spring, knowing that we're walking into environments where there's a lot more behavior, where there are a lot more parents who feel like it's time to finally get vocal, where we have testing, anxiety and all the things going on? How do we keep our bearings? How do we make sure that we can keep it all together in the spring? So I came up with five ideas, and the good news is these are evidence-based. I can provide the research citations for you, so these are not just out of my head. This is like I always say. It didn't come from me, out of the Dunkin' Donuts drive-thru.

Speaker 1:

But as we walk through the spring, we need to keep in mind that when we start to feel like we're experiencing burnout, it may not actually be burnout. It may be systemic drain, which is a little bit different, because you're being drained by the imperfect system within which you work. And as school counselors, we are no strangers to this, because we have a lot of really wild expectations of our roles, people who don't understand what we do and are expecting entirely too much of us. And again, you know, as we crescendo in the spring, it just feels more and more intense. So it's important to keep in mind that it's not you, you are not the one that is broken. It is a system that is not aligned for you. The system is broken, it is not you, but you still have to work in it, right, it's not like we can do what a lot of people tell you, draw those boundaries. You know like, hold the line. I don't know if you've ever tried that on a school campus, but it doesn't work exceptionally well. So what can we do instead? What can we do to work within this system to maintain our stamina so we don't feel like we're burned out by the time we get to May or June?

Speaker 1:

First is protecting our start, which seems kind of silly, but, like I said, there is an evidence base behind this. Controlling our day, having a quiet entrance to the day, maybe adjusting our start time a little bit, if we can, so that we have kind of that gradual entry into what we're going to be doing. Maybe focusing on an affirmation or an image to remind us why we keep showing up. My official on-duty time on my campus is 7.15. That's when I'm expected to be ready to start, and in my place. So I typically try to get to work between 6.45 and 7 o'clock. That gives me enough time to walk in the door, turn on the lights, get the coffee maker going. That's the most important part.

Speaker 1:

Check the calendar and just kind of try to ease into the day. I'll look over my list of students that need to be seen, kind of triage them in my head and just mentally prepare myself for what's coming up in the day. I find that the mornings that I don't do that and I come flying in at the last minute, my whole day feels like chaos. So easing into your day is one way that you can maintain your professional stamina. Now, some of you may not have that luxury and I get that so if you don't, you might want to find other times of the day that you can just stop and take a brief pause. What are some times that you can just take five minutes to kind of recalibrate and think about why it is that you're there? It sounds so stupid, but I promise you there is an evidence base behind this.

Speaker 1:

So think about what is one thing that you can implement tomorrow to protect the start of your day. One thing that you can implement tomorrow Is it getting there five minutes earlier, is it making sure that you've got your caseload list arranged and organized for the following day. What is it that is going to help you protect the start of your day so that you can start in the right frame of mind? I want you to seriously think about that right now. Be intentional about this, write it down, do something so you don't forget.

Speaker 1:

The second thing we're going to do is set a limit. Even if we can't say no, we're going to set a limit. Now, this is a little bit different than setting a boundary. So normally people will tell you things like that's not a school counselor responsibility. You have to set that boundary. You have to say that is not my responsibility, According to the ASCA guidelines, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That never works. I've never had one single person come tell me that that was effective. But we have to remember that leadership on your campus does not mean that you have to overfunction so so often because we can and we're in a position sometimes to shoulder a little bit more of the load.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes we know the situations more intimately than some of the other people on our campuses. We tend to take on a little bit more responsibility than is absolutely necessary. So we have to know when our part of things is done and we have to be able to contribute to situations without solving them. That is hard, especially when you have people coming to you with like behavior concerns, or this kid is going to fail or whatever is going on on your campus. You can contribute your skills and expertise, but you don't necessarily have to solve everything. But it's easy for us to fall into that default mode right of, I'm a fixer. We can't fix it and solve everything. Sometimes other people are in a position to do that as well.

Speaker 1:

Follow up on things, but don't chase. Some of our reluctant parents come to mind. Now, I'm not saying call them once and then give up. That's not what I'm saying at all. And we know that building relationships with distant parents are really important. But at some point we have to stop chasing right. We don't wanna be like the rejected boyfriend that just can't take no for an answer. We wanna be able to know when to stop, and I think we're okay with that. But sometimes we over-pursue situations or we over-pursue trying to get the reactions that we want to get from other people. We over-invest in certain things, so we've got to be real careful about that.

Speaker 1:

And then supporting but not implementing by ourselves Is this really our load to carry? This week's topic in the podcast behavior plans comes to mind. We cannot solely be responsible for those behavior plans. Ideally, we would be on a team that's helping implement right, and so we want to make sure that we put ourselves in a position to support as often as we can without implementing. So why am I talking about this? Because, especially this time of year, when things get rolling and we're running 100 miles an hour, a lot of us have a default mode of just going. Let me just take care of it. Let me just take care of it. Let me just take care of it Because it's easier than having to find people or get people to buy in or to delegate or to come back around and check up. Sometimes it just feels easier to do it yourself.

Speaker 1:

But you may be also degrading your professional stamina if you choose that route. So set a limit, even if you can't say no, and that's not necessarily an outward limit, that might just be a limit for you. Yes, I will help with this situation, but I'm only going this far. I'm not offering anything else. Does that make sense? Let's look at this before we go on. Where might you be overreaching? What are some situations where you might be overreaching that you don't necessarily need to? Could be behavior, could be student academics, could be parents, attendance, committee work. Where are you overreaching so that you can kind of tamp back from that a little bit? You can kind of let go, everybody with me, all right.

Speaker 1:

Number three make micro moments of joy, not of rest. Usually, when people are talking about not burning out or professional self-care and things like that, and they say, you know, take just a few minutes, take some deep breaths, be mindful, and all that is great, but if you really want to maintain professional stamina, you need to be chasing moments of joy instead, because you don't need a nap, you need a spark of joy. That's what's going to get all those hormones pumping. That's what's going to help you feel better about your work and more optimistic about why you're there and what you're doing. So you need to be chasing intentional moments of joy, of awe, of connection. What is it that powers you through your day? What are those little micro glimpses of things that you can catch, that can carry you forward? And don't just notice them and let them move by. Really sit in them, really savor those moments.

Speaker 1:

True story I was in a classroom this morning with a kid that is just really giving his teacher a run for her money, and so I walked in and I was implementing the behavior plan that had been written by one of our behavior specialists and so far had not been touched. And so I was in there modeling for the teacher how to implement this behavior plan. And this little dude is doing everything he can do to try to be a turkey. And finally he caught on to what I was doing. Every time I saw him do something that was positive in the classroom, he got a tally mark. It was that simple and I was really hyping him up. Hey, every tally mark. It was that simple and I was really hyping him up. Hey, every tally mark you get, you're going to get to spend a minute with me at the end of the day. Hey, how many tally marks can we get before you leave for music? I'm just really hyping it up. And about I don't know 10 minutes into it, the class was getting up. They were transitioning to another activity. He got up, walked over to me, looked me right in the eye and he said Ms Johnson, I never knew being good could be so much fun. And that was my moment today and I was like, oh, I'm going to hold on to that because he's finally getting something. He may not remember it tomorrow, but today he felt that and that was my goal and I may carry that for a couple of weeks, because I was super excited to hear it out of that one kiddo.

Speaker 1:

See what kind of intentional moments of connection or joy or awe you can find in your day, there's going to be something right, even if it's just. You know, the kid that never smiles smiles at you. It could be something really simple. But collect those moments of joy, especially when you're feeling tired and defeated. Especially when you're feeling tired and defeated, what brings you the most joy in your work and what can you chase? What are the things in your day that you can intentionally look for? It's like, you know, when people tell you, don't look for red cars, you see them everywhere, right? What are the things you're going to be looking for that you're going to bring to the forefront of your mind? All right. So we have kind of slow started our morning. We've gotten it off on the right foot, we have kind of decided where we're going to draw the line for ourselves as far as how involved we're going to get in situations, and we're chasing those intentional moments of joy.

Speaker 1:

The next thing we're going to do and this is kind of a hard one for me to talk about is measuring the right things, and the reason that I say that is especially in our school counseling world, where we are expected to be so data-driven, down to recording how we're spending our time minute by minute. It is so easy to fall into the mindset of that is what matters. It is so easy to fall into the mindset of that is what matters, right, and we're constantly criticizing ourselves, measuring ourselves, sometimes critiquing ourselves by the way our time is running throughout our day, and we get caught up in a feeling of responsibility for the things that we're being asked to do. Now we talk a lot about that in data discussions, but really the point I want to drive home here is we can't just measure ourselves by our use of time and our moment-to-moment obligations, because that doesn't give the full picture of what we do or why we're there. The institutional metrics are just supporting pieces of data, but really what we want to be looking at are the personal outcomes, the relational outcomes, the reason that we all got into school counseling in the first place.

Speaker 1:

When we used to hold our get the job cohorts and we would ask people what brought you into school counseling or what's the number one thing that you most want to achieve as a school counselor, nine times out of 10, people would say building relationships right, building relationships with kids, building relationships with community all those things. Our work is about the relationship. It's what draws us in. We're relationship people, so we can't forsake that part of us. For the institutional metrics. It's great to know how much non-counseling time you have, it's great to know how much direct contact with students you have. All those are helpful and useful, but they don't define you, and so we've got to be super careful that we don't fall into that trap of defining ourselves just by our numbers. So what values are most important to you in your work? What do you really want to stand for as a school counselor? I'm going to finish up with our mini masterclass here, the last one. I really want to emphasize this Let people be wrong about you. Just let them and I'm not trying to steal the title of that new book, but let them be wrong about you.

Speaker 1:

We, as school counselors, carry so much on our shoulders as far as our reputations, people's perceptions of the work we do, and now, with many of us having mandates where we have to log our time minute by minute, we feel that pressure too. We feel the pressure of are we doing enough? Are we doing enough in the right categories? Or, you know, looking at that institutional data rather than our own values, data in our work, and it gets overwhelming. I'll be real honest with you On my campus there is one particular teacher that spares no opportunity to try to, you know, hoist something else onto me. She doesn't think I work very hard. She thinks my job is very easy. She thinks that I must have a lot of downtime because she doesn't see what I do all day right. And we all have people like that on our campuses that don't understand our work, that don't know what we do, and I used to be one of those people.

Speaker 1:

Before I became a school counselor, I didn't have any idea what I was going to be doing. I thought I was going to be talking to kids about their feelings and that was going to be pretty much it. I didn't know when I decided it was time to leave the classroom. That was some of the criteria I used to select counseling instead of something else. It looked pretty easy. I figured I'd be able to go to the bathroom whenever I needed to and that was good enough for me. I'd be real, real with you. So if I thought that, I know we have other people on our campuses that feel that way.

Speaker 1:

So we have to let people be wrong about us and we have to be okay with that. We have to get to the point that it just doesn't bother us anymore. Let them do what they're gonna do. It doesn't change me, it doesn't change the impact of my work or how I feel about it. That sounds simple, but that is really hard to do, right? And some of you may be in that situation now where you just feel like you're just constantly being judged, you're being watched, people are wondering what you're doing. So right now, think of two people and I don't want you to say their names out loud but think of two people whose opinions you're not gonna let matter anymore. Who are the naysayers, the criticizers, the ones that give you the look? Who are those people? Imagine their name, get it in your head, see their face and in your mind's eye, tell them your opinion of me doesn't matter anymore. That seems simple, but I'm telling you it is so profound Once you can get there and let go of the weight of their expectations on your shoulders. Really really hard to do, but so worth it and so beneficial to your stamina on campus. Your stamina is not about pushing through. It's about protecting your focus, your fire and your reason for doing what you do, for showing up every day and serving students and families, community members, sometimes staff members. Your professional stamina is what allows you to get all the way to the finish line at the end of the school year, and it's not easy.

Speaker 1:

I used to run marathons a lot. I was on a running team and we would run together. If you've ever run a race like that, you know that there's a point about between mile 20 and 22,. A marathon is 26 miles where you hit the wall, where you feel like you just can't go another step, where you feel like why did I sign up for this? I was crazy. There's no way I can do this. I'm not going to make it. It is wild the ideas that you have in your mind as you're running and I don't want you to hit the wall.

Speaker 1:

I ran a race one time in Dallas, texas. It was at the American Airline Center, if you're familiar with Dallas a huge, huge venue, and I was running on one of the charity teams. We had raised money for cancer research. We were waiting under the stands to go out and run the race. It was super cold. We were all kind of huddled together and an older gentleman walked up and he said hey, I just want to thank you for what you're doing. And we all were just kind of like oh yeah, you know no problem, yeah, we, we love to do it. And he goes no, you don't understand. He said the money that you raise through your organization is the money that funded the medicine that's keeping me alive. And we were like, oh my good, like, oh my like. You're never prepared for somebody to tell you something like that. And he had tears in his eyes. His wife was there. They were both crying. Just thank you so much for what you do. You have no idea the impact. Race right and we start running. That was the race that I hit the wall the hardest, mile 21. And I'll never forget.

Speaker 1:

I looked at my marathon partner, who's still, to this day, my best girlfriend, and I looked at her and I said I can't do this anymore. I can't, I cannot finish this race. And she's like no, no, come on, steph, you got to do it, you can. I'm like no, you don't understand, I can't do it. And I took two or three steps over towards the curb, over to the side of the race, and I was ready to drop out and about step two or three, I hear somebody shouting from the sidelines y'all, this is a true story. He was yelling for me, go, go. And he was calling me my racing nickname was Fast Dog. Long story, we wore it on our jerseys Go, fast Dog, you can do this, don't give up.

Speaker 1:

Now how he knew that I was heading that direction to drop out, I will never know, but it was that same man. Come on, you can do this, keep going, keep going. And I felt this surge of energy and of hope and optimism. And my body still hurts so bad. Hope and optimism, and my body still hurts so bad. But I was determined to keep going and I finished that race. And so I want you to focus on things like that. What's going to bring you across the finish line, what's going to restore your faith and hope and optimism? And I hope some of these ideas have maybe helped you aim in that direction. And, if not, let us be your cheerleaders and let us give you across the finish line, because it's way more fun to finish the school year feeling invigorated and energized than completely beat down right.

Speaker 1:

You don't have to be a machine to get through this. You just have to keep your heart intact, and that's the stuff we never talk about in the school counseling world. We talk about self-care and boundaries and appropriate responsibilities, but we never talk about keeping our hearts intact and what it is we need to fuel our soul as we move through our work. So this isn't about surviving the school year as we move through our work. So this isn't about surviving the school year. It's about protecting the version of you that still cares, because once you get to the point that you're indifferent and you don't care, that's when you know you're in burnout. Make sense, all right.

Speaker 1:

So which are you going to start first Out of the five that we talked about? All the strategies, all the tactics what is the one thing that you're gonna start first? Make an intentional commitment to doing that. I would love to know what you choose. I would love to know if anybody has some ideas about what do you want to start with first? All right, I'm going to let this go here. I'd really honestly didn't mean for this to go this long.

Speaker 1:

It almost ended up like a full master class tonight. So thanks for hanging in there with me on this, but it was just, it was really on my heart and I felt like we just needed a boost and we needed some encouragement for the rest of the spring semester to bring us across the finish line. So I appreciate you participating in this with me today. All right, I hope you enjoyed that peek into some of the things that are going on in our School for School Counselors, mastermind, and I hope it helped you reconsider how you're working on campus these days Some small shifts and intentionalities that you can bring into your day to really help you maintain your stamina to get across the finish line and declare victory at the end of the school year.

Speaker 1:

Hey, as I mentioned before, there was tons of conversation and insights and ideas that came about as part of this masterclass. Those were edited out because I didn't want to disclose other mastermind members' information. I wanted to keep it on the up and up here in this episode. But if you can imagine the depth of information that we're turning out in the mastermind and then also the richness of the discussion and the ideas and the insights, I hope you are realizing that this is the place for you, even though the school year is almost over for most of us.

Speaker 1:

We are gearing up for some pretty amazing things going on in our mastermind this summer. We're going to continue with our monthly masterclasses. We are going to continue with our weekly chats. Those are going to be turning into a no-stress book study during the summer so that we can develop our skills and become more competent and confident in our craft. We use the summer for doing that so that when the fall comes around we're ready to rock and roll. We are also right now heavy duty in the middle of planning season for closing out this school year and starting the next school year with a minimum of stress, with a minimum of overwhelm, so that we can just walk in and know exactly which direction to start going.

Speaker 1:

So if that sounds wonderful to you and I hope that it does you can get more information about the School for School Counselors Mastermind at schoolforschoolcounselorscom. Slash mastermind. All right, well, that's it for this episode. My friend, if you're ready for tools that actually work and support from someone who is walking the same hallways that you are day in and day out, make sure you follow the podcast and stick with me, because here we're not gonna be giving you trends or fluff. We're only gonna be giving you real talk for real school counselors, because we're stronger and smarter together. I'll be back again soon with another episode and in the meantime, I hope you have the best week. Take care.

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