Teachers in Transition - Ep 240: Seeing the Bigger Picture , Overcoming Overwhelm, and Navigating Uncertainty

In this episode of Teachers in Transition, Vanessa Jackson explores the power of perspective, resilience, and community in navigating the stress and overwhelm that comes with teaching—especially for those contemplating a career change.

She begins with a powerful story about how helping others can instantly boost our mood, sharing a real-life experience of lending a hand and seeing the positive impact firsthand. Then, she shifts focus to the concept of pointillism, using art as a metaphor for the teaching experience—sometimes, we’re too close to the dots to see the big picture.

In the second segment, Vanessa provides a practical hack to combat overwhelm: Drop Some Things. She discusses the importance of setting boundaries and reassessing priorities, especially when the weight of responsibilities feels unbearable.

Finally, she dives into decision-making in times of uncertainty, inspired by an experiment conducted by a Duke University professor. She challenges listeners to consider how they navigate ambiguity and whether their current decision-making strategies align with their long-term goals.

💡 Interesting Links & Resources:

• 5-Minute Guided Relaxation Meditation
• Turtles Helping Turtles
• Stanford Article on the fact that People want to help more than we realize. 
• Book Recommendation: Atomic Habits by James Clear
• Aaron Dinin and the 11:45 class – Questions of Failure and Ambiguity

Connect with Vanessa

Vanessa@TeachersinTransition.com
Leave a voicemail or text at 512-640-9099
Connect with Vanessa on LinkedIn!
Schedule a free Discovery Session with Vanessa here
Follow Vanessa on Bluesky @beyondteaching.bsky.social

Transcript

Are you a teacher who is feeling stressed out and overwhelmed? Do you worry that you're feeling symptoms of burnout - or are you sure you've already gotten there? Have you started to dream of doing something different or a new job or perhaps pursuing an entirely different career - but you don't know what else you're qualified to do? You don't know how to start a job search, and you just feel stuck. If that sounds like you, I promise you are not alone. My name is Vanessa Jackson; and I am a career transition and job search coach, and I specialize in helping burnt out teachers just like you deal with the overwhelmingly stressful nature of your day-to-day job and to consider what other careers might be out there waiting for you. You might ask yourself, What tools do I need to find a new career?  Are my skills valuable outside the classroom?  How and where do I even get started?  These are all questions you deserve answers to, and I can help you find them.  I’m Vanessa Jackson. Come and join me for Teachers in Transition.  

***Hi!  And Welcome back to another episode of Teachers in Transition. I am your host, Vanessa Jackson – I’m a career transition and job search coach who specializes in helping educators just like you. I taught in a middle school classroom for 25 years, left teaching to work in the corporate America in the world of staffing. Now, I provide tips and suggestions to help with stress and mental health, hacks to help your day, and tips for job-hunting and career transition.  Today on the podcast we are going to talk about quick tips to boost our mood, a perspective shift using pointillism, and a career transition tip from the Clarity step which is step two on our shift out of the classroom. 
 
 I am so happy you’re here!  Let’s dive in!
 
 

Segment 1: Helping Helps the Helper

I want to start today by telling you a quick story about my son and his truck. My son recently had to pick up his truck from the repair shop after the shop had closed. Now, I love this repair shop, but the driveway to get there? Sketchy on a good day. While we were there, another couple was struggling to unload a truck from a U-Haul car hauler. They were clearly having a hard time. My son, frustrated about the lingering repairs on his truck and maybe just a little annoyed at my well-meaning educational treatis about cautious driving, was in no mood to hang around. But just before he left, I caught his attention. I said, ‘You know, we should go help them. They need more manpower.’

So we did. We spent some time troubleshooting, working through a few different approaches, and finally found a way to get their vehicle safely off the hauler, even though the angle was awkward. The couple was very grateful, but you know what? The real transformation was in my son. The grumpiness disappeared. His whole mood lifted. He was standing taller, speaking lighter, and by the time we got back in our own car, he was almost… cheerful. And it reminded me of something important: Helping helps the helper.

When you're burned out, when teaching has taken its toll on you, when it feels like you're running on empty—one of the simplest and most effective ways to recharge is to help someone else. It doesn’t have to be a big thing. Small acts of kindness give us a dopamine boost, a sense of purpose, and a moment of connection. And sometimes, that’s exactly what we need to shift our perspective."

Segment 2: Quick Hack – The Pointillism Perspective Shift

"Perspective is everything, and at this time of year, it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. The spring semester in teaching is like a pressure cooker. Deadlines are looming, standardized testing is on the horizon, and the weight of student progress feels heavier than ever. It’s easy to get lost in the daily grind and forget why we’re even here in the first place.

Let me introduce you to one of my favorite ways to think about perspective: pointillism. If you’ve ever seen a pointillist painting—think Georges Seurat’s Afternoon at the Park —you know that up close, it’s just a bunch of tiny dots. Nothing makes sense. But the moment you step back? A full, beautiful picture emerges.

I learned this lesson years ago while babysitting. I took the kids I was watching to the Houston Museum of Art. Taking young boys to an art museum may not sound like it would be fun for them, but I explained very carefully that there was really only one rule at the museum – Don’t.  Touch.  Anything.  (Of course I explained why… that was baked into my personality WAY before I started teaching.  One of them, a five-year-old boy about to start kindergarten, was especially intrigued a lot of things, but paintings are paintings, you know?  We stood in front of a pointillist painting, and I explained it to him, ‘If you stand super close, all you see are dots. But when you take ten steps back? That’s when the picture appears.’

He took that as a challenge and had to test that out. He’d rush up close, then sprint backward, marveling at how the dots transformed into a picture. A docent kept a wary eye on him, probably ready to intervene if needed, but he never broke the one rule: don’t touch the art.

We do this in teaching, too. We zoom in so close on the day-to-day stressors—the paperwork, the meetings, the difficult students, the overwhelming workload—that we forget to step back and see the full picture. The impact. The growth. The progress. Sometimes, we have to trust that there is a bigger picture, even when we can’t see it.

In fact, I’ll be that you’re looking around thinking that other people have their lives SO MUCH more together than you do.  
 
 Probably not. 
 
 I find it to be a very dangerous thing to compare where I’m at to others because I always come up short and  that's a topic for a whole ‘nother podcast.  But I would like to talk for a moment about the fact that you can be the most amazing you that there is, and you can do what you want to do. 
 
 I go to the gym three times a week and in my gym I am one of the older women in the class and I am one of the larger women in the class and none of that matters. You know that movie Jumanji, the original one, but Robin Williams one?  And there's the scene with the stampede that runs through town and at the back of the stampede is this little wheezing rhino. That's me and my exercise class. I am the wheezing rhino at the back of the pack, but let me tell you something. I'm still running with the pack. The women in my class who are younger than me are so strong and they are so beautiful and I am so glad to have the opportunity to be in that class even though I'm not the fastest.  Sometimes I'm one of the last ones to finish my sets, but because I exercise with this group of women, I push myself harder than I would than if I was at the top of a different class.  But it never means that I am less – I win because I am working on making my life better and I am making regular progress in building strength and endurance.  

So here’s my challenge for you: Step back. Whether that means taking a deep breath, a walk, or simply reflecting on where you’re heading, find a way to gain perspective. You’re not just living in the dots; you’re creating art, and art is sometimes messy. 

Segment – Hack  – Drop Some Things

"Now, let’s talk about overwhelm. It’s real. It’s constant. And if you’re transitioning out of teaching, it can feel like you’re juggling all the things—your job, your job search, your family, your responsibilities, and let’s not forget the mental and emotional toll of leaving behind a career that has shaped you for so long.

But here’s a truth I need you to hear : You do not have to carry everything. Some things? You need to drop.

Think of it like the parable of the growing heap. If I put a single coin on a table, that one coin doesn’t make me rich. But if I keep adding coins, eventually, the pile grows so large that I am rich. Now, replace coins with obligations, tasks, and responsibilities. If you add one extra duty at a time, eventually, your plate is so full that it overflows. You’re drowning.

So here’s the actionable step: Make a list. Either write it down or talk it out—voice memos work too. List everything you’re doing. Then, identify what you can let go of. Maybe it’s an extra committee somewhere. Maybe what you let go of is saying ‘yes’ to  after-school tutoring session when you really do need that time for yourself. Remember, self-care is not selfish. Maybe it’s giving yourself permission to take a break from job applications for a week so you can recharge. 

I recently had a wake-up call. Between work, a program I am working on, my personal commitments, and just life, I realized that the routines I had put in place were no longer working, and that was stressing me out more than if I had just paused to adjust them. Moreover, as I am working on classwork in data and statistics, after awhile it made no sense. When coming back the next day with a fresh set of eyes, it DID make sense. Sometimes you are just too tired to make sense of all the data coming in. it is important for all of us from time to time to reevaluate what we are doing and how much time it gets of our lives.  We only get a limited number of hours every week. And as I’ve said before that I stole somewhere else – you can do anything, but you can’t do everything.

So I’m giving you permission to do what’s best for you! Drop something that longer serves you. Prioritize yourself. And trust that in doing so, you’re making space for something better.

And moving onto our segment on career transition and job search, let’s talk about career transitions and decision-making. I recently came across a story from Aaron Dinin, who teaches entrepreneurship at Duke University. (I may be mis-pronouncing his name.) 
 
 he was teaching on a day where bad weather was expected so the university had cancelled classes starting at 12:00OM – noon. HIS class started at 11:45.  And in the video clip, which I will have linked in the show notes.  Because the snowstorm had everything at the university cancelled starting at NOON, but HIS class started at 11:45.  That left a question of whether or not it meant that HIS class was going to meet or not.  But he felt that because it was an entrepreneurship class exploring things like failure and ambiguity, he thought that rather than telling his students whether or not they had class, he would just not tell them anything and just see what happened.  
 
 And he asks, “ Let's see who shows up for my 15-minute learning to fail class.

One person shows up. 

He asks, “The university is canceling class at noon, our class starts at 11:45, I didn't tell you anything  - why did you decide to show up?

 The student answers, “I'm gonna show up because I like this class.”

And immediately Aaron likes this answer.  He says “Ooh, that's a that's a good answer.  I am going to give him an A - even though it's a class called learning to fail!
 
 The next student comes in, and he says, “why did you still show up?”
 
 And the student replies,” because it's 15 minutes!”  That is, as Aaron points out, is fifteen minutes of knowledge acquisition- which is priceless.  
 
 

He asks a third student, “Why did you think you should show up to class?”
 
 

And the student says, “I thought I’d show up in case you did.”

Then when the fourth students comes in, and he asks again, the student says, “I honestly thought this was something you would do.”

Overall, four students out of 21 showed up for the class – which wasn’t a great showing, but it was a good lesson. Then he turns and speaks to the group and says “Why did I do this? Why didn't I just tell my students that class was cancelled?”
 
 And the answer is, in moments like that - where there's moments where there's no clear right or wrong answer? Those are the moments where we really learn about ourselves. Life isn't about following instructions (although it FEELS that way inside of a school) - it is about navigating ambiguity.  The way you handle uncertainty and the way you make decisions when the data isn't obvious. It says a lot about how we'll handle real challenges elsewhere. For in Aaron’s class that day, there was no correct choice -  but it was how students made their choice is what mattered. Did they seek out information the knowledge acquisition)?  Do they trust their gut? Did they follow what everyone else was doing?  Those patterns weren’t just something that would show up for that class, that patterns show up everywhere all the time.  Even though Aaron was sure that his  students were focused on the question should I come to class, should I NOT come to class,  the important things was: How do we make decisions when things aren't clear?”  and “Is that the way I want to be making them?  Which is a question we should be asking ourselves in our job search and not just surrounding the weather.

The point? Life is full of ambiguity. It is about navigating this uncertainty. That when we make  decisions when the rules aren’t clear  and it says a lot about how we’ll handle real-world challenges.

So in a career transition, we’re facing a LOT of ambiguity. Should you stay in teaching? Should you leave? What job should you look at next? What is s the next step?

Here’s the question to ask yourself: How do We make decisions when things aren’t clear? And more importantly, Is this how I want to be making my decisions?

I would argue that you need to be making your decisions from a place of knowledge, and that’s where that clarity step comes into play. 

We have to know ourselves. We have to know what we're good at. We have to know what we like to do. We have to know what they're hiring for ,and we have to know about how long it takes to get a job in the worst job market since -  probably ever. They're saying now it's an average of nine months to get a job. which is three to four times longer than a three month teacher shuffle that we're all used to.

 It is so important to have defined steps - to know yourself, to be prepared to dive into the world of entrepreneurship if necessary, it is time to start working on those side hustles and those sides incomes to stockpile money for your career transition. But also take a moment and reflect on your decision making patterns.  Are you seeking out information? Are you trusting your gut? Are you doing what everybody else is doing? These are the questions that guide you through these times of uncertainty. And if you would like to work with a coach one on one, that's absolutely possible.

But Before we wrap up, I want to leave you with one last little story today.  There’s a simple little 16-second YouTube video about turtles. In this clip, a turtle flips onto its back and struggles to right itself.  It is flipping out.  It’s little flippers are going 90-to-nothing – it is panicking. The moment its fellow turtles see what’s happening, they rally. They move toward it, creating the support it needs to flip back over. And the moment the turtle realizes the other turtles have surrounded it, it stops flipping out It calms down. It knows help is there.

We need to be those turtles for each other. And when it’s you on your back, struggling to flip over? Allow others to help you.

That’s how we get through transition, stress, and overwhelm and burnout—by recognizing we don’t have to do it alone.
 
 if you’d like to talk more with me on how to create an exit strategy or how to leave the classroom, you can head over to my calendar at teachersintransition.com/calendar to book a time.  Most of my call times are set after the standard school day, because believe me – I understand that the LAST thing you want to do while at school is get caught having a conversation about escaping it!

Thank you for listening to Teachers in Transition! If you found this episode helpful, please share it with a friend, subscribe, and leave a review. Until next time, remember: Step back, let go. You’ve got this."

That’s the podcast for today! If you liked this podcast, tell a friend, and don’t forget to rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts. Tune in weekly to Teachers in Transition where we discuss Job Search strategies as well as stress management techniques.  And I want to hear from you!  Please reach out and leave me a message at Vanessa@Teachersintransition.com  You can also leave a voicemail or text at 512-640-9099. 

I’ll see you here again next week and remember – YOU are amazing!