How To Know What You Want as a Teacher (Even If You're a People Pleaser)

If you're a teacher and someone asked you right now what you actually want, could you answer? Most teachers can't. You can tell me exactly what your students need, what your admin needs, what your own kids need. Ask what you want, and it's silence.

This is part 2 of a 3-part replay series pulled from the exact episodes that came out with my book two years ago, and they still hold up completely. We're covering the second step of the Inside-Out Teacher Framework: Choose. Once you've started observing your thoughts, feelings, and nervous system (that was part 1), this episode is about how to know what you actually want and use that to make real decisions, instead of letting everyone else's needs decide for you.

WATCH the episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB0N0UbkloQ

Why Teachers Struggle to Know What They Want (And What to Do About It)

If you're a people pleaser, this will probably sound familiar: you go looking for the answer to "what do I want" and come up blank, because you've spent years answering "what does everyone else need" instead. In this episode, you'll hear why that happens, why people pleasing shows up in almost every coaching conversation I have with teachers, and how to start figuring out what you actually want even when people pleasing has been your default for years.

What You'll Learn in This Episode

How to know what you actually want when people pleasing has made that question feel impossible to answer, the concept of "the manual" (the invisible rulebook we hold other people to, and hold ourselves to), why wanting love and belonging is the root of most people-pleasing habits, the difference between choosing consciously as a teacher versus running on autopilot, how to use your own senses and values to figure out what you want, why your brain fights to be right more than it wants you to be happy, and why goal-setting belongs in "Choose" and not "Align."

Episode Timestamps

0:00 Why teachers rarely stop to ask what they want

0:58 Podcast intro

1:05 Welcome back, part 2 of the coaching framework series

1:50 Signed book copies giveaway