The Rebranded Teacher
The Rebranded Teacher
How to Avoid TPT Burnout
The episode delves into essential strategies for TPT sellers to avoid burnout while maintaining a thriving business. We share practical steps including setting measurable goals, following a minimalist plan, taking planned breaks, and actively engaging with a supportive community.
• Understanding the signs of burnout
• Importance of setting measurable expectations
• Establishing realistic and manageable goals
• Benefits of committing to minimalist strategies
• Significance of planned breaks to recharge
• Fostering community connections to avoid isolation
• Concluding thoughts on maintaining balance and passion
Free Rebranded Teacher Facebook Group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/749538092194115
My Instagram Account:
https://www.instagram.com/laurentschappler/
My Tik Tok Account:
https://www.tiktok.com/@lauren_tschappler
Welcome to the Rebranded Teacher Podcast. My name is Lauren Fulton. I'm a full-time teacher, author and seller on Teachers, pay Teachers and I help other teacher entrepreneurs grow their TPT businesses in a way that's purposeful and sustainable. So if you're looking for actionable, step-by-step ways to grow your business, you're in the right place. Let's get started. Let's talk about how to avoid TPT burnout, and for this one we're going to need to get comfy. So, if you have the ability, stop what you're doing, pause this podcast, grab your favorite drink, have a little sit down, because we're going to chat for a couple minutes about something we've probably all been through and we're trying to avoid again.
Speaker 1:If you've been selling on TPT for any length of time, then you know how real the burnout can be and how absolutely stagnating it can be for your business. Because one minute you're trucking along, you're doing all the things, you're running on adrenaline, you're checking all the boxes and you're feeling super productive about your TPT business. The next minute, you don't know what happened. It's like you got hit by a train and you don't want to do a darn thing in your business anymore. Like you don't wanna open up the computer, you don't wanna check your email, you might wanna look at your dashboard, but only if it's inspiring, but that's pretty much it. Or maybe you're at the point in burnout where it's not like you don't wanna work, but it's like you only want to work selectively. You know you only want to do the very few things that you enjoy doing, and those are likely the things that are not going to get you the best results in your business. So if you've been there before or you're there now, then I have some tips for you, because I've been there many, many times. So if you are in this space right now, I want you to stop and take a deep breath and whatever expectations you have set for yourself whether that bar is super low, of just like I'm just going to log in today and just look at my dashboard or I'm just going to respond to my Q&As, like whatever I want you to remove those expectations from yourself and we want to start really fresh with the expectations that we're going to have for us and for our business. And if you're not in that place right now, that's great. Let's talk about how we can keep you from getting there, especially if you're starting to feel like you're doing a lot but you're not getting the results that you want.
Speaker 1:Generally speaking, it takes a lot longer to burn out. If what you're doing is working Like. I can run on vibes and adrenaline for a really long time. If I'm bringing in money while I'm doing it, you know what I mean. But the second that I stop hitting the goals that I want to reach, I am really struggling to find the motivation to continue and I kind of just want to throw in the towel for a couple of weeks and like not do anything. And while it's really good to take a break, to take a rest and we're going to be talking about that a little bit later on we don't want to abandon our TPT business in order to get that rest. So let's kind of put some things in place.
Speaker 1:The first thing that we need to do whether we're in a state right now or whether we're trying to avoid that state of burnout is we need to set some goals and expectations for ourself, and the trick is that we want these goals to be very measurable. Now let's talk about what I mean by measurable. By measurable, I mean that I need to be able to, at the end of the day, look and see did I hit that goal, or did I not? So if my overarching goal on TPT is to get more views on my TPT products, then I need to set a really measurable goal so that I can know definitively whether or not I hit that goal. Like I don't wanna set goals based on feelings. I don't wanna set a goal of being more productive. I don't wanna set a goal of having a better work-life balance. I don't wanna set a goal of having a better work-life balance. I don't want to set a goal of just sitting down and working at some point this week. Like that's not it. I want to set something that's very measurable.
Speaker 1:And the second part of setting this measurable goal that is super, super important is that that goal has to be well within my reach. Like it has to be something that I can actually do and something that is completely within my control. Like it has to be something that I can actually do and something that is completely within my control. So here's an example I could set a goal that I want to get more traffic to my TPT business. That's a big overarching goal, but it's not measurable. So then if I set a goal of, like next month I want to have 10,000 views for my TPT store. That's measurable, but it's not completely within my control. So a good example of this would be to set a goal that I'm going to search engine optimize 10 products in my TPT store. That is something that is both completely within my control and should help me increase my views, but my feeling of success is not then dependent on something that's outside of my control, like whether or not teachers feel like searching for those products, whether or not the TPT search engine algorithm responds well to the changes that I've made, or how well my traffic campaigns run that month.
Speaker 1:So setting a goal that is measurable and setting a goal that is completely within my control is going to be the very first step in avoiding burnout. Whenever I have these big goals for like, oh, I want to earn $500 a month on TPT, like that is a measurable goal At the end of the month I can look at that goal and I can say I either met that goal or I didn't meet that goal. But I might feel like a failure if I set that goal of making $500 a month. I did everything in my power but it didn't happen. So that's where it's gonna be super important that I'm making sure that they're measurable and they're well within my control. Otherwise, I'm gonna feel burnt out because I'm doing, maybe even all the right things, but I'm not hitting the goals that I've set for myself.
Speaker 1:So, while a lot of monetary goals, traffic goals and things like that are really fun to set, if you find yourself being someone who's prone to feeling burnout, then I would probably not even set them. If I'm being honest with you, like if I am feeling super stressed out in my business, I don't set any kind of goals or expectations for myself. Like I'm not going to set a I want to grow my email list by 2000 people this month kind of goal, because if I don't hit that goal, that might make me feel more stressed and more burnt out and even if I'm just like a hundred people away from it, I still didn't meet my goal, which is going to feel really discouraging, and we don't want that. The next thing that we want to do is we want to commit to a minimalist plan. Now, there are three key words in that sentence. The first keyword is commit, the second keyword is minimalist and the third word is plan. We really need to commit to a minimalist plan in order to avoid burnout.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about an example of a minimalist plan that incorporates measurable goals that are well within your control. So right now, I am on Instagram and TikTok. Now, who knows how long I'll be on TikTok with all the things that are up in the air, but in this moment, right now, I'm on both, which, by the way, I'm going to drop my handle down below. If you want to follow me on Instagram, you absolutely can. I think I mentioned it in a previous podcast and I think some people found me, but maybe they didn't have the right handle and they were following me on some of my other socials that I actually don't keep up with. I'm going to drop that down the side of the description so you can follow along with my day-to-day life if you're nosy like me. Okay, back to the minimalist plan.
Speaker 1:So right now, my minimalist plan is to post every single day, post a reel every day for 30 days. It's minimal, it's one single measurable goal and it's well within my control. So I have control over whether or not I post something that day. It's minimal because I'm not asking myself to do a whole bunch of different things at once, and it's something that I can easily pair with a strategy. So if I'm finding myself wanting to do the most one day, then rather than trying to post two reels or trying to leave a bunch of comments or follow any other type of plan, I can simply look for a strategy that I can pair with the reel that I'm going to post. So on days where I feel like doing a little bit more, I can go seek out some information that's going to help guide my plan for the day, or I can just post my reel and be done with it, and it's the same thing on TPT.
Speaker 1:You want to create a really minimalist plan for yourself, like one or two things that you have to do every month or every week, or maybe even every day, but probably not every day. Maybe you have a goal for filling your store with more resources and so you say okay, every month I have to make five products, which means I need to average about one to two products a week. That is well within your control to create one to two products. It's something that you can do. It's minimal in that it's not requiring you to also go out and do all the marketing for it, to create Pinterest pins or any of that kind of thing alongside of it. All you're having to focus on is creating those resources. It is something that is absolutely going to move your business forward. It could definitely be something that helps you increase views for your store and for your products and help you increase your revenue. It can help you reach your overarching goals for your TPT business by setting measurable goals that are well within your control and following that minimal plan. So then you're not having to try to hit and meet multiple goals every single day because that's overwhelming. So that's the minimalist part of it and that's the plan part of it.
Speaker 1:The third part of this is the commitment part, and I know you guys, this is really hard. The commitment part is probably the toughest part of it. The third part of this is the commitment part, and I know you guys, this is really hard. The commitment part is probably the toughest part of everything, because when we start to feel that burnout, we really start to pull away from those goals or plans, or we start to chase the squirrels in our business and we start to want to do the other things that are way more fun than the initial plan that we had. So the commitment part is absolutely key for making sure that everything that you're doing is going to work.
Speaker 1:So, with the committing, I like to set a short time period if it's something that I feel like is gonna be kind of tough for me. So I know that posting every single day is something that is a pretty big time commitment on my end. So I set myself a 30-day goal. It's long enough to get a good idea as to whether or not what I'm doing is going to work, both for my schedule and if it's going to work strategically on the platform. But it's not so long that I can't do it without hitting burnout, right.
Speaker 1:So set yourself a time period and commit to that time period and let yourself know that at the end of that time period, if the strategy that you're utilizing isn't working, you don't have to keep going with it. It's that simple. And then you do not deviate from that plan. Once you've set that plan in place, whether you feel like it's working for you or not, we don't deviate from that plan period. Exclamation point we just don't. And the reason for that is very simple.
Speaker 1:If you start something and you commit to it and you don't finish it, then two things are gonna happen. Number one you're telling yourself that you don't have to follow through on commitments in your business, that if you get into something and you decide that you don't like it, you can just decide to drop it, and that's not a great long-term strategy for your business. The second thing is that it's going to promote more burnout, because, you know, the fastest promoter of burnout is feeling like you're doing something and it's not working. So if I get into the middle of something and I commit to it and then I decide I don't like this, this isn't working, or this isn't what I wanted to do and I'm gonna go do something else, I'm gonna come up with another plan, I'm gonna commit to another plan. Then I'm constantly stopping, starting, stopping, starting, stopping, starting, stopping, starting, and then that's how I'm going to get burnout again. Now we talked about this next part a little bit earlier. Now I told you earlier about this next part that we're going to talk about it and this is super important.
Speaker 1:You need to take a break, and I don't mean just like I'm in the middle of doing something and I'm feeling burnout, so I'm going to take a break. I mean you need to have planned breaks. You need to take a break before the burnout hits. Especially if you're prone to burnout, you need to make sure that you're planning multiple, frequent breaks for yourself. Now.
Speaker 1:A break doesn't have to look like taking a two-week vacation or skipping a month of TPT. A break could be something as simple as this Saturday, I'm not working, so I'm going to work three Saturdays in a row and on the fourth Saturday that's my rest day I'm not going to work. A break could also mean that for a month, you work on TPT during the week, but you give yourself the weekends off. A break could also mean that you're going to take planned vacations, like absolutely. But whatever that break means to you, you need to make sure that you have it planned, because when we take unplanned breaks for our business, that's when things really start to fall through the cracks, and then we start to feel that pressure and that overwhelm of oh my goodness, there are things that I'm supposed to be doing that I'm not doing right now. And then we start to feel overwhelmed because we're going to get further behind and this is not what we planned, and I really don't want to go back right now because it's going to mean catching up on all of this. So make those planned breaks and then have your dedicated rest days. The dedicated rest days may be your planned break, right. It may be not working on Sunday or making sure that your evenings are open so that you don't have to work in the evenings and you can work early mornings on TPT or work over the weekends whatever works for you but make sure that you have dedicated rest days in your schedule so that you're not working every single day, because you will burn out doing that and it may take a long time to get there. But you still wanna make sure that you are having some sort of work-life balance so that you're not feeling like you're always working.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for being here on the podcast. You guys, if you haven't joined our free Facebook group, make sure you joined it. We have a Facebook group just for TPT sellers where you can come, ask questions, share advice, share expertise, and you really wanna make sure you're part of a good, strong TPT community. That's one of the ways that you can help avoid some burnout too, because when you're a part of a good, strong community, you don't feel like you're having to throw things at the wall to see what sticks. You're able to get some advice, able to get some feedback on your products, on the things that you're doing, and so you don't feel like you're doing it alone. I'm putting the link in the show notes for that free TPT seller community, so make sure you have joined it and I'm gonna see you guys right back here next week.