Teaching is one of those professions in which you can give everything you have and still feel that you have not done enough. You can spend the day managing a classroom, supporting a child who is struggling, responding to parents, meeting deadlines and trying to deliver the best possible education, only to return home thinking about the things you should have done differently.
The lesson that did not go to plan stays in your head. The difficult conversation replays itself. The child you are worried about remains on your mind long after the school gates have closed and somewhere beneath all this sits the quiet expectation that tomorrow you will return, put on a smile and do it all again.
Teachers are expected to be patient, resilient, encouraging and emotionally available. They are expected to recognise when children are struggling, help them manage their feelings and encourage them to believe in themselves. Yet teachers are human beings, with their own fears, frustrations, insecurities and limits. They cannot be expected to offer an endless supply of emotional strength without occasionally needing some themselves.
The scale of the problem is difficult to ignore. The NASUWT's 2025 Wellbeing at Work Survey, which received responses from 10,347 teachers, found that 82% had experienced increased work-related stress over the previous 12 months, while 88% said their job had adversely affected their mental health. Workload was the leading contributor to work-related stress, with pupil behaviour and poor management also prominent factors.
These figures are not evidence that teachers are failing. They are evidence that many people working in education are being asked to manage considerable pressure. This raises an important question - while we are rightly concerned about the wellbeing of children, are we giving enough attention to the wellbeing of the people teaching them?
The problem with telling teachers to stay positive
When someone is struggling, the advice often arrives with good intentions. Think positively. Focus on what you can control. Do not let the difficult days get you down. Remember why you became a teacher in the first place.
There is some value in these ideas, but they can also create another burden. A teacher who is already exhausted may begin to believe that feeling overwhelmed is a personal failure, that frustration means they are not resilient enough, or that a good teacher should be able to cope with anything. This is where positive thinking needs to be understood differently.
The philosophy behind my book You Are Not Broken is not about persuading people to pretend that everything is fine. It is about recognising that we often make difficult experiences harder by attaching beliefs, expectations and judgements to them. We cannot always change the circumstances in which we find ourselves, but we can examine the assumptions that shape how we respond.
A teacher may face a genuinely difficult class, an unrealistic workload or a management decision they cannot influence. Positive thinking does not make those problems disappear. Nor should it be used to excuse poor working conditions or transfer responsibility from institutions to individuals.
But there may be another layer of pressure that deserves attention and that is the belief that every lesson must be perfect, every pupil must make progress every day, every parent must be satisfied and every problem must have an immediate solution.
Who decided that a good teacher must get everything right and what happens when that expectation becomes so deeply embedded that a teacher can no longer recognise the value of the work they are already doing?
The weight of being a good teacher
One of the most exhausting things about teaching may be the responsibility teachers feel for getting things right. It is not enough to deliver the lesson. You want every child to understand it. You want the struggling pupil to make progress, the disruptive child to settle and the quiet child to feel included. You want to be fair, patient, creative and consistent, even when you are tired and your own patience is running low. These are admirable qualities, but they can become a source of distress when they turn into impossible expectations.
Imagine a teacher who has a difficult lesson. Several pupils refuse to engage, an activity falls apart and the learning objectives are not achieved as planned. The teacher goes home believing the lesson was a failure. Yet another teacher might look at precisely the same experience and conclude that the lesson did not work, that there were things to learn and that a different approach is needed next time. The circumstances are identical. The interpretation is different.
This is not an argument for lowering standards or ignoring problems. It is an invitation to distinguish between what happened and what we tell ourselves it means. A disappointing lesson is an experience, not a verdict on your ability. A difficult conversation is an event, not proof that you are a bad teacher. A mistake is something you can learn from, not a permanent label you must carry.
You can take responsibility for improving something without turning it into a reason to doubt your worth. That matters because teachers need room to learn, adapt and make mistakes just as much as their pupils do.
The sculptor's lesson: remove what is weighing you down
In my philosophy, I often return to the image of a sculptor working with a block of stone. The sculptor does not create the finished form by endlessly adding more material. The work involves removing what does not belong, revealing what was already there. I believe the same principle applies to the way we think about ourselves.
When teachers feel overwhelmed, the instinct is often to look for something else to add. Another strategy. Another productivity technique. Another book about resilience. Another reminder to stay positive, but what if the more useful question is not what you need to add to your life, but what you could stop carrying?
Perhaps you are carrying the expectation that you must never lose your patience. Perhaps you believe that asking for help will make you appear incompetent. Perhaps you replay criticism long after the person who delivered it has forgotten the conversation. Or perhaps you have become so accustomed to putting everyone else's needs first that you feel guilty when you give yourself permission to rest.
These beliefs can become so familiar that we stop questioning them. They begin to feel like facts, but are they? Being a committed teacher does not mean being available every hour of the day. Caring about your pupils does not mean taking every difficulty home with you. Wanting to improve does not mean treating every mistake as evidence that you are not good enough.
You do not have to become a different person to feel better about your work. You may need to challenge some of the expectations and habits that have accumulated around the person you already are.
Five practical ways teachers can begin to let go
Changing the way we think is not an overnight transformation. It begins with noticing the thoughts that make difficult situations harder and learning to respond to them differently.
1. Separate the event from the story you tell yourself.
When something goes wrong, pause before deciding what it says about you. Instead of thinking, "I'm terrible at managing this class", ask, "What happened in that lesson and what could I try differently next time?" The first statement attacks your identity. The second gives you something useful to work with.
2. Challenge the need to be perfect.
Ask yourself what a good lesson actually requires. Does every pupil need to understand everything immediately? Must every conversation end in agreement? Is one difficult day enough to define an entire week of work? High standards can help you grow, but perfectionism can make it impossible to recognise progress. Aim to do your job well, learn from experience and accept that being human is part of the process.
3. Recognise what is yours to carry.
You are responsible for your preparation, your conduct and the effort you bring to your work. You are not solely responsible for every pupil's behaviour, every family difficulty or every decision made by school leadership. Some problems need professional support, better systems or management intervention. Recognising the limits of your responsibility is not an excuse to stop caring. It is a way of directing your energy where it can make a difference.
4. Create a deliberate end to the working day.
When possible, establish a small routine that signals the end of work. Write down the tasks that need attention tomorrow, identify the one thing that matters most and give yourself permission to stop. If a difficult incident is still on your mind, make a note of what needs to happen next rather than repeatedly replaying it. Switching off can take practice, especially when workload and expectations make it difficult, but rest is not a reward you must earn by completing everything.
5. Talk before the pressure becomes unbearable.
Teachers can become very good at concealing how they feel. They may worry about appearing unable to cope or adding to the workload of colleagues who are already struggling. Yet talking to a trusted colleague, a supportive manager, a union representative or a healthcare professional can help identify what needs to change. Where stress is persistent or affecting your health, seek appropriate professional support. You do not have to wait until you reach breaking point before asking for help.
None of these steps will remove excessive workload, inadequate resources or poor management. Those issues require action from schools, employers and policymakers. Personal reflection should never become another way of blaming teachers for the conditions in which they work.
The purpose is to give teachers practical tools for dealing with what they can influence while recognising when a problem requires wider support.
Schools must look after the people who look after their pupils
There is a limit to what individual teachers can achieve through changes in mindset alone. If a school expects staff to work excessive hours, provides little opportunity to recover from difficult experiences or treats wellbeing as a slogan rather than a priority, telling teachers to think positively will not solve the problem.
The NASUWT's 2025 Wellbeing at Work Survey found that 65% of respondents said their school lacked measures to monitor and manage stress and burnout. Two-thirds also reported that their school did not have an accessible school-based counsellor.
These findings underline the need for a broader response. School leaders should examine workload, communication outside working hours, access to support and whether staff feel safe raising concerns. Teachers need realistic expectations, supportive management and the opportunity to recover from the emotional demands of their work.
A culture that values staff wellbeing does not expect teachers to be endlessly resilient. It recognises that resilience is supported by good working conditions, healthy relationships and the freedom to ask for help.
And there is another reason to take this seriously. Children learn from what adults do, not only from what they say. When teachers demonstrate that mistakes can be examined without shame, that asking for help is a strength and that difficult feelings can be acknowledged rather than hidden, they model valuable lessons about emotional resilience. Supporting teachers is not separate from supporting pupils. It is part of creating a healthier school environment for everyone.
You are not broken
Perhaps the most important message a teacher needs to hear is also one we should be teaching children - you do not have to be perfect to be worthwhile. You can be an excellent teacher and still have difficult days. You can care deeply about your pupils and still need time away from them. You can be committed to your profession and question whether your current workload is sustainable. You can make mistakes without allowing those mistakes to define you.
The world will always provide expectations, opinions and opportunities to doubt yourself. Some of those expectations will be reasonable; others will not. The challenge is to learn the difference and stop treating every criticism, setback or disappointment as something you must carry indefinitely.
This is where positive thinking becomes meaningful. Not when it demands that you smile through exhaustion, but when it helps you question the thoughts that are making an already difficult situation more painful. Not when it asks you to pretend that everything is fine, but when it gives you the confidence to acknowledge what is wrong and take the next constructive step.
Teachers spend their lives helping children discover what they are capable of becoming. They deserve the same opportunity to understand themselves, recognise their own value and develop a healthier relationship with the pressures they face.
You do not need to add another layer of perfection to your life. You do not need to become invulnerable. You do not need to prove your worth by carrying more than you can manage. Sometimes, the most positive thing you can do is put something down. Because you are not broken and you do not have to exhaust yourself trying to prove otherwise.
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