A reflection on educator wellbeing, presence, and the quiet cost of postponing our own lives.
“Just make it to the holidays.”
If you’re an educator, chances are you’ve had that conversation with yourself.
I’ve certainly had it.
After more than 25 years working alongside teachers, school leaders and education systems, I’ve come to realise that education has a rhythm unlike almost any other profession. The cadence of the teaching year quietly shapes the way we think, work and live.
Term 1 begins with optimism. “This year will be different.”
Then reports arrive. “Just get through reports.”
Term 2 rolls around. “We’re nearly halfway through the year.”
The holidays come and go, often with a head cold or complete exhaustion, and before you know it, it’s Term 3. “Just hang on until Christmas.”
Without even noticing, we become experts at postponing our own lives.
We’ll exercise later. We’ll spend more time with our family later. We’ll rest later. We’ll reconnect with ourselves later.
The problem is that while our minds are living in the future, our lives are happening now.
Our children aren’t waiting. Our partners aren’t waiting. Our friendships aren’t waiting. Our health certainly isn’t waiting.
Only our attention is.
Research into attention, mindfulness and neuroplasticity tells us that where we place our attention shapes not only how we experience our lives but also how our brains change over time [1,2]. Every time we tell ourselves, “I’ll look after myself when things slow down,” we reinforce a pattern of postponing our own wellbeing. The encouraging news is that the opposite is also true. Small, intentional practices of presence, self-awareness and healthy boundaries strengthen new neural pathways that support resilience, emotional regulation and wellbeing [1].
Looking back, I don’t think I realised how much I had normalised living this way until one conversation changed everything.
The Conversation That Changed Me
Many years ago, I arrived home after several days of presenting and travelling.
Like so many teachers and leaders, I’d spent every waking moment giving. Talking. Listening. Supporting. Encouraging. Problem-solving.
By the time I walked through the front door, I had absolutely nothing left.
All I wanted was ten minutes. Ten quiet minutes where nobody needed anything from me.
I often joked that I wished I had Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak. Not forever. Just long enough to disappear while I decompressed.
My husband worked in a profession where much of his day was spent in quiet concentration. My work couldn’t have been more different. From the moment I woke until the moment I went to sleep, I was communicating with people. Presenting. Teaching. Leading. Coaching. Supporting.
Somewhere along the way, I’d unknowingly created what I called my “decompression dash.” Walk in. Keep your eyes down. Don’t make too much eye contact. Put the kettle on. Make a cup of tea. Head straight for the couch. Recover.
That afternoon I almost made it.
Instead, my husband came and sat beside me. He looked directly into my eyes and quietly said, “Nikki… we need to talk.”
Immediately my heart started racing. Ironically, I’d recently completed a course on effective communication. I remember thinking: “Lean in. Maintain eye contact. Listen.”
Inside, though, I was terrified. Trying to soften whatever was coming, I quietly said, “I love you.”
He smiled. “I know.”
Then he said something I have never forgotten.
“We got married because we loved each other and wanted to build a life together.”
He paused.
“You’re out there in the world giving every part of yourself to students, teachers and everyone else…”
Then he looked at me with incredible kindness and quietly said,
“When you come home… we get the dregs.”
There was no argument. No defence. No justification. Because he was right.
I looked out into the backyard and watched our children playing.
In that moment, I realised I had spent years teaching others how to create environments where people felt seen, heard and supported, yet I had forgotten to create that same environment for myself.
Looking back now, I realise I had become incredibly good at saying yes to everyone else, yet I had almost forgotten how to say yes to myself.
I had spent years working in a profession that is, by its very nature, other-focused. Every day I was asking: Are the students okay? Are the families and carers okay? Is my team okay? What does everyone else need from me?
Somewhere along the way, I stopped asking the most important question of all:
“What do I need?”
It wasn’t that I wanted to leave education. Quite the opposite. I passionately love what I do, and I wouldn’t want to work in any other profession. The work wasn’t the problem. The way I was doing the work was.
I had forgotten how to care for the person doing the caring. I had lost my own voice. I had stopped listening to what my mind, my body and my heart were trying to tell me.
Instead, I let the small moments build invisibly. The difficult conversations I avoided. The boundaries I never set. The invitations I accepted when I should have said no. The exhaustion I ignored. The belief that if I just kept giving a little more, somehow everything would work itself out.
None of those moments seemed significant on their own. Together, they slowly eroded me.
Standing there, watching my children play, I realised something profound.
I didn’t need to change careers. I didn’t need to find another purpose. I needed a different relationship with myself.
I needed to relearn how to put myself first — not because I was more important than everyone else, but because if I wasn’t well, eventually I would have nothing left to offer the people who mattered most.
Putting myself first felt uncomfortable. It even felt selfish. Yet neuroscience was teaching me something very different.
Wellbeing isn’t something we earn once we’ve looked after everyone else. It is one of the conditions that allows us to care for everyone else well.
That realisation changed my life. Not overnight. But one small practice at a time.
Five Small Practices That Changed Everything
People often ask me what I changed after that conversation. The truth is, I didn’t change my whole life overnight.
Neuroplasticity teaches us that lasting change doesn’t happen through one big decision. It happens through small, repeated actions that gradually become our new normal [1].
These are five practices that have made the biggest difference in my life. They’re simple, evidence-informed, and perhaps most importantly, sustainable.
1. Arrive Before You Begin
Before you open your laptop. Before you answer your first email. Before the students arrive. Pause.
Take one minute. Feel your feet on the floor. Notice your breathing. Ask yourself one simple question: “How do I want to show up today?”
Research shows that even brief mindfulness practices improve attention, emotional regulation and executive functioning [2]. That one minute won’t change your timetable, but it may completely change how you meet it.
I still do this before presentations, meetings and difficult conversations.
2. Remember That “No” Is a Complete Sentence
This one took me years to learn.
Many educators are natural helpers. We say yes because we care. We say yes because we don’t want to disappoint anyone. We say yes because we believe that’s what good leaders and good teachers do.
Until one day we realise we’ve said yes to everyone except ourselves.
One of the most powerful leadership lessons I’ve learnt is this: No is a complete sentence.
You don’t have to justify every boundary. You don’t have to apologise for protecting your wellbeing.
Every time you say no to something that drains you unnecessarily, you’re saying yes to something that matters — your health, your family, your energy and your ability to continue making a difference.
Healthy boundaries are not selfish. They are sustainable.
3. Leave Work at Work
For years I thought walking through my front door meant I had left work behind. I hadn’t. My body had come home. My mind hadn’t.
Now I intentionally create a transition between work and home. Sometimes it’s five slow breaths before I get out of the car. Sometimes it’s listening to one favourite song. Sometimes it’s simply sitting in silence for two minutes.
That small ritual reminds my nervous system that one role has finished and another is about to begin.
My family deserve my presence, not just my physical arrival.
4. Have the Difficult Conversation
One thing I’ve learnt over the years is that the conversations we avoid rarely disappear. Instead, they quietly occupy our minds. They drain our energy. They become stories we replay over and over.
Whether it’s with a colleague, a leader, a parent or someone we love, respectful and timely conversations create clarity. Avoidance creates emotional clutter. Courage creates space.
Every difficult conversation I have had has been easier than the weeks I spent worrying about having it.
5. Ask Yourself the Same Question You Ask Everyone Else
For years I asked everyone around me how they were going. Students. Teachers. Families. My team. But I rarely stopped to ask myself.
Now I ask one question every single day: “What do I need today?”
Not next holidays. Not when the reports are finished. Today.
Sometimes the answer is a walk. Sometimes it’s asking for help. Sometimes it’s saying no. Sometimes it’s simply going to bed earlier.
The answer changes. The habit doesn’t.
Because the moment we stop asking ourselves what we need is often the moment we begin losing ourselves.
Wellbeing Isn’t Personal — It’s Contagious
One of the greatest misconceptions about wellbeing is that it’s personal. It isn’t.
The evidence consistently shows that our emotional state influences the people around us. Researchers describe this as emotional contagion — our emotions, tone, body language and energy affect others, often without either of us realising it [3].
As educators, that matters.
Students don’t simply learn from what we teach. They learn from how we show up. School leaders don’t just shape strategy. They shape culture. Families don’t simply experience our time. They experience our presence.
One of the things I often say when presenting is this:
Our students are not lying awake at three o’clock in the morning worrying about us. Yet many educators lie awake worrying about everyone else.
Perhaps this Term 3 we can change that. Not by becoming someone different. But by remembering that our wellbeing isn’t the reward for doing the work. It is one of the conditions that allows us to do the work well.
So tomorrow morning, before the first meeting, before the first email, before the first student walks through your classroom door, pause. Take one breath. Ask yourself one question.
“What do I need today to be fully present?”
Because the greatest gift we give our students, our colleagues and our families isn’t another hour of work. It’s the quality of our presence.
It’s Term 3. Stop waiting for your life to begin. It already has.
References
Tang, Y.-Y., Hölzel, B. K., & Posner, M. I. (2015). The neuroscience of mindfulness meditation. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 16(4), 213–225.
Hölzel, B. K., Lazar, S. W., Gard, T., Schuman-Olivier, Z., Vago, D. R., & Ott, U. (2011). How does mindfulness meditation work? Proposing mechanisms of action from a conceptual and neural perspective. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(6), 537–559.
Creswell, J. D. (2017). Mindfulness interventions. Annual Review of Psychology, 68, 491–516.
Jennings, P. A., & Greenberg, M. T. (2009). The prosocial classroom: Teacher social and emotional competence in relation to student and classroom outcomes. Review of Educational Research, 79(1), 491–525.
Roffey, S. (2012). Pupil wellbeing — Teacher wellbeing: Two sides of the same coin? Educational and Child Psychology, 29(4), 8–17.
McEwen, B. S. (2017). Neurobiological and systemic effects of chronic stress. Chronic Stress, 1, 1–11.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. Guilford Press.
Hatfield, E., Cacioppo, J. T., & Rapson, R. L. (1994). Emotional contagion. Cambridge University Press.
Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. (2013). Primal leadership: Unleashing the power of emotional intelligence. Harvard Business Review Press.
Hattie, J. (2023). Visible learning: The sequel. Routledge.
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