Teacher Motivation: Tips to Get You to the End of Term

Inside: Find clever strategies to improve your teacher motivation, which will lift your spirits and move you seamlessly to the joy of the school holidays.

It’s been a long term already. Your motivation is low, but you keep showing up…. because you’re a teacher!

Each day, in the last weeks of term, do you feel yourself dragging your feet as you make your way to the car in the morning?

Do the soles of your shoes feel like they are stuck with thick chunks of mud?

Or maybe it’s just the load of marking in your teacher bag.

But you reluctantly drive to work and ask yourself, “How many weeks are left until the holidays?”

If you get to this point in the term and it becomes all too much – you, my friend, are in desperate need of some motivation.

I know teaching is draining and exhausting.

It’s tough to push through to the end of term and make it unscathed, motivated and still in good spirits.

But how do teachers stay motivated?

Motivation is like ‘the little train that could’

“I think I can, I think I can.”

You imagine the little train trying to chug to the top of the massive mountain to overcome the pain to see the exquisite view from the top.

But, to really make it successfully to the end of term, what’s needed are some practical strategies to help you with you make it through.

What does help teacher motivation?

I read a great article from Teacher Wellbeing recently.

It suggested 3 tips to help with teacher motivation, which I thought would be helpful to share with you.

Tip 1. Positive Mindset

According to the article, motivation can be improved with a positive mindset.

To create this feeling of positivity, a helpful suggestion is to use reminders in front of you such as: changing your password and make it a Mindset Password.

This is a clever idea!

The idea is that you would change your password to a positive affirmation to help with your motivation.

You would use it to remind yourself of the good things in your life or some possible suggestions for taking care of yourself.

Here are some of the suggested examples:

1day@aTime
Let!tgo
8reathe!
URock123

I like this because it’s a really easy way to keep the positives out in front plus to not to forget about your self-care.

If you need help with Teacher Self-care read here for some related articles.

Tip 2. Slow Down

For a teacher to hear to slow down sounds like an impossibility.

I know, I hear you!

Try to be intentional about slowing down. Remind yourself to ‘walk, don’t run.’

You know that teaching is a marathon and not a sprint. You know that your to-do list seems never-ending.

You also know that it will take all of your energy to get through to the end of the term.

So, slow down and remember to walk and don’t run.

I think this is a must to keep reminding yourself of every day.

To help with the slow down, you could also use mindfulness in the classroom to become more present in the moment of your busy day.

Don’t let the urgency of tasks drive you every second.

Tip 3. Pass the Ball

You’ve heard the phrase: “Don’t sweat the small stuff!”

But this can be easier said than done as a teacher! All the things you have little control over.

Here is an idea that might help.

Pass the ball is an activity for whenever you are feeling frustrated about something.

I think you would definitely relate to having teacher frustration!

Here’s how Pass The Ball works:

Step 1: write down your frustration on a piece of paper including all of the emotion you’re feeling.

Step 2: Read this emotional frustration to yourself.

Step 3: Screw the paper into a ball.

Step 4: Throw the paper ball into the bin and get rid of it.

I do like this one!

Having a representation of the frustration in front of you that you can get destroy and discard, is genius.

If you know that you can’t change a situation and you’re feeling frustrated, pass the ball!

Bin the frustration by writing it down, screw it up and throw it away.

Delete the negative emotion (if you can) and move on.

Other helpful tips to improve teacher motivation

Over time, I’ve developed some of my own ideas to help keep motivated enough to persevere to the end of the term.

These 8 tips are some common-sense strategies to help you push through to the holidays, hopefully improving your motivation:

8 useful tips to improve motivation:

Do one thing at a time – when we multitask, it often spreads us too thin and we don’t achieve much. So endeavour to keep focusing on one thing at once. You’ll be more productive!
Have a list and prioritise your tasks – refer to my article here (with a free printable to-do list and prioritising strategy. This help with the overwhelm and improve your productivity too.
Look for the light at the end of the tunnel – holidays will be here before you know it. Be positive – the end is near! I find it useful to have enjoyable things planned for the holidays and then it’s easier to focus on these goals
Practice self-care at school – read my article here with some practical self-care strategies for the classroom (with a free printable self-care cheatsheet)
Plan out the rest of your term and the beginning of next term (know what’s coming your way)
Do one big task per week. – say ‘No’ to all the others
Plan your holidays to include self-care
Be positive and practice gratitude. This is key! It may surprise you how it can change your attitude. Read here how teachers can improve their wellbeing with Gratitude Journalling.

Ultimately, teacher motivation does come back to having a positive mindset and taking care of yourself.

After following these tips for improving teacher motivation, you will be saying, “I know I can, I know I can,” like the little engine that did. Because in doing these things you’ll have created a positive plan to help lighten those heavy feet on the way to the car each morning.

And by implementing self-care practices while still at school, your holidays won’t be spent on the lounge recovering from exhaustion or being sick but enjoying your life with your friends and family.

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Teacher Motivation: Tips to Get You to the End of Term

Motivation is like ‘the little train that could’