With a new school year here and many of us already back at school and (yikes!) even seeing students already, you are bound to start having those dreaded, stressful thoughts that you left on your desk at the end of the year, start to find their way back to you.

Even if you are excited and feeling recharged form the summer break, you might find your thoughts starting to flicker back an forth between excitement and anxiety, the familiar pull that you know will eventually take over by the end of the year. I don’t mean to paint a dark and dreary picture for you, but to show that you are not alone in this. If you have ever felt the exhaustion of chronic stress or burn out, you know that it can slowly creep in and take over before you realize what has happened.

That is the bad news.

The good news is that this usually only happens because we go through the same cycle each year or excitement about the start of the new year and all that it could bring right on to the reality of the work it entails and then the sheer exhaustion it brings by Summertime. For most, this cycle gets slightly more difficult each passing school year, because the few months in the summer, where you could really take time to recharge and create some changes in your work-life balance, are spent ignoring the feelings while you relax for a few months, or you work like crazy in a PRN job or running errands all summer.

If you are looking to start this school year in a way that sets you up for more enjoyment (and efficiency) this year, all year, try these 3 tips:

• Schedule Smarter:
  • Schedules can be a nightmare, but they can be even worse it you create them without thinking about what you really need each day .
  • Instead of just plugging students into the times you have available, and then hoping you have time for paperwork, lunch, etc, try planning in reverse.
  • Take a good look at what hasn’t worked in the years before. Look at your energy levels throughout the day to help you schedule times for paperwork (and breaks!) when you are feeling more grounded or lower on energy. Then, for the times you are feeling more energized, start to plug in your students. You’ll feel better during your sessions and be more grounded (focused)during the monotonous paperwork tasks.
• Identify Your Goals:
  • You probably spend a good amount of time looking over and planning for your student’s goals, but what about your own? Take time to plan for your own professional goals (maybe starting a blog or podcast, taking a CEU course, finding a PRN position for the summer, less time spent on work outside of work, etc). Start to identify your goals, but also how these goals make you feel when you envision them happening.
  • Next identify what your daily goals are (energy levels, less stress, more time outside of work). How does this make you feel?
  • Then, map out how to create your daily goals and how to get to your bigger goals, and remember how you want to feel along the way.
  • Start small and make tony changes when you can. Even if things seem far off or impossible to reach, these small changes will help you to cultivate the feeling you are after, while the goals unfold and even change.
• Self care is the Best Care
  • You put a lot of time and energy into taking care of others. You need to put just as much into taking care of yourself/ Self-care is trendy, but it is not selfish or frivolous. It’s trendy because it is so needed right now. Self-care is also not selfish – it is taking time to tune in to what you need to continue to help others and show up as your best self, rather than to keep pushing through towards depletion and exhaustion. Once you hit those two, you won’t be able to to fully care for the needs of others.
  • Try taking a few moments each day to meditate/breathe, relax, move, eat or anything that is nourishing to your body and mind. Also, let it be something that allows you to tune in, instead of tuning out (like binge watching or downing a carafe or coffee or bottle of wine). It’s okay if what you tune into are feelings of “negativity” – this is how you work through them, instead of pushing them deeper down.
  • You can also set up a morning or evening or weekend day to take even more time to yourself, undisrupted, if that works better for you.
  • When you are able to take care of yourself, you are able to think more clearly, your feel more energized and you have a more positive outlook. All of these help to reduce your stress and lessen the effects of future stressors.

You can put all 3 of these into action or try one at a time. If you would like to explore this topic further and set yourself up for less stress and better stress management in the long term, try these SLP Stress Management webinars (you’ll get hours for your certification too!).

3 Common SLP Stressors and How to Manage Them  on Xceptional ED (1.5 CMH Hours)

Managing Common SLP Stressors before Burn Out Occurs on Northern Speech Services (2.5 ASHA CEU hours .025 units)

3 Biggest Stressors for SLPs and What to Do About Them on Speechpathology.com (1.5 hours ASHA CEU .15 units)

And for even more, make sure to join the SLP ToolBox, full of free resources to help you make your daily life as an SLP a little bit easier.

Much Love,