How to Become a Teacher Without Losing Your Mind: Building Your Wellbeing as You Enter the Profession
Dr Dagmara Chmielarz
28 September 2026
Your first month of working in a school is behind you. You have already taught your first lessons, you know your students a little better, and you are becoming more familiar with the daily timetable and the school corridors. Perhaps you now remember where to find the documents you need, who to turn to with a particular question, and some of the unwritten rules of the staffroom.
At the same time, you may be starting to realise just how much being a teacher actually involves. It is not only about teaching lessons. There is lesson preparation, marking, paperwork, meetings, conversations with parents, responding to students’ needs, working with colleagues, and constantly making dozens of small decisions. On top of that, there is often the pressure to appear, right from the start, as though you know exactly what you are doing.
After your first month, you may already have some answers to the questions you were asking yourself before the school year began. Will I be able to manage the class? How will I build relationships with my students? Will I find my place within the team? Will I manage all the responsibilities?
This is also a good moment to ask yourself another, equally important question: how do I want to work so that, several years from now, I still have the energy, satisfaction and sense that this is the right profession for me?
Your first month in school does not have to be a time when you prove that you can do everything. It can be the beginning of learning not only how to become a good teacher, but also how to become a teacher who knows how to look after themselves. Professional wellbeing does not begin only when we are already completely exhausted. It is worth building it from the very first months of your career.
You do not need to know everything straight away
As a new teacher, you may feel that you should immediately know how to teach effective lessons, manage challenging behaviour, speak confidently with parents, understand every procedure, and somehow also create engaging materials for every class you teach.
But your first year of teaching is not a test of whether you can be the perfect teacher. It is a period of intensive professional learning.
Not every lesson will go well. Not every decision will turn out to be the right one. Sometimes a class will respond very differently from what you expected. This is a normal part of gaining experience.
It is worth allowing yourself to say, from the very beginning: “I don’t know how to do this yet.”
You are developing your teaching skills through practice, and that process will continue for many years. You do not need to have the fully developed version of every skill on your very first day. 🙂
Do not try to solve everything on your own
Every school has its own language, habits and unwritten rules. You cannot learn all of these from policies, handbooks or official documents.
That is why it is worth identifying, as early as possible, the people you can turn to with specific questions. Who can help with documentation? Who can you speak to about a challenging class? Who can advise you before a difficult conversation with a parent?
It might be your mentor, another teacher who works with the same class, a school psychologist or counsellor, or a member of the leadership team.
You do not have to work everything out on your own. Asking for help is not a sign of incompetence. It is one of the most practical ways of learning the profession and becoming part of a team.
It is also worth observing more experienced teachers, inviting them to your lessons, watching them teach, and noticing which approaches might also work for you.
Watch out for the “I have to prove myself” trap
When we start a new job, we often want to show that we are committed. We may agree to additional responsibilities, projects, cover lessons or organising events. We may spend long evenings preparing materials, respond to messages after working hours and use the weekend to catch up.
Doing this occasionally does not necessarily have to be a problem. Schools are dynamic environments and there are times when the workload simply increases.
The problem begins when an exceptional level of effort becomes your normal way of working for months at a time.
That is why it is worth thinking about your boundaries early on. How much time am I willing to spend preparing a single lesson? When do I respond to messages? Which additional responsibilities do I genuinely have the capacity to take on?
The aim is not to do only the bare minimum. The aim is to make sure that being committed to your work does not require you to continuously exceed your own limits.
Do not create everything from scratch
So how can you make things easier for yourself?
Not every lesson needs to be an original project. Not every resource has to be created by you.
You can use a textbook, tried-and-tested exercises, resources created by other teachers, or solutions that someone else has already tested.
It is easy to fall into the belief that the more work we put into preparation, the better the lesson will be. That is not always the case.
Part of becoming an experienced teacher is learning where your time and energy genuinely make the greatest difference.
When work ends, really let it end
School can stay in your head long after you have left the building. You may already be at home and still be analysing a lesson, thinking about a student’s behaviour, replaying a conversation with a parent, or going over everything you did not manage to finish.
Remaining in “school mode” all the time can be extremely draining, so it is worth gradually learning how to consciously close your working day.
A simple end-of-day ritual can help. Write down the two or three most important things you need to do the next day, organise your materials, close your laptop and switch off work notifications.
This means you do not have to carry an entire mental to-do list with you throughout the evening or constantly remind yourself of everything that needs to be done tomorrow.
It is equally important to build a life that exists beyond school. Relationships, movement and exercise, interests, time with people you care about, and simple rest are not rewards that you need to earn after being “productive enough”.
They are part of the recovery that this profession requires.
You do not need to be a teacher twenty-four hours a day in order to do your job well. Being able to disconnect from work, rest and take care of your own resources does not mean you are less committed. On the contrary, it can help you maintain your energy, attentiveness and satisfaction with your work over the long term.
If you would like to learn more about how to consciously support your wellbeing and protect yourself from overload, we invite you to read our article “Take Care of Yourself So You Can Take Care of Others: What Teachers Can Do to Support Their Own Wellbeing”.
Learn to recognise your own warning signs
Burnout is a process. It usually develops gradually, when prolonged overload and work-related stress begin to exceed our ability to recover.
That is why new teachers should learn to recognise the warning signs that matter to them.
These might include persistent tiredness, irritability, difficulty switching off and resting, feeling overwhelmed, losing satisfaction in your work, or becoming increasingly emotionally distant from your students.
Not every difficult week means burnout. It is worth paying attention, however, when this state continues for a longer period and begins to feel like the new normal.
And one more thing: burnout does not mean that someone is not suited to being a teacher.
It may instead be a sign that something needs to change in the way you work, the responsibilities you carry, the support available to you, or the expectations you place on yourself.
Build your own definition of a good teacher
At the beginning of your career, it is easy to compare yourself with others.
There will always be someone with better resources, more creative ideas, greater calm or an apparently stronger connection with their students.
These comparisons rarely help.
Instead, it is worth asking yourself: what kind of teacher do I want to be?
Perhaps someone whose way of working reflects their values, their capacity and their own beliefs about what good education looks like?
Your own teaching style develops through experience, observation, experimentation and reflection.
That is why, early in your career, it is worth learning how to ask for help, use existing solutions, set boundaries, rest without guilt and respond to the first signs of overload.
Not because you should never feel tired.
But because exhaustion should not become the price you pay for being a good teacher.
And you do not have to learn all of this on your own.
If you are at the beginning of your professional journey and are looking for a supportive community of teachers who, like you, are relatively new to the profession, while also wanting a space where you can ask questions, talk openly about challenges and receive mentoring support, we invite you to join our course and support group:
“From Chaos to Calm – A Course for Early-Career Teachers.”
This is a small group for teachers in their first 0–4 years in the profession, combining practical teaching skills with mentoring, shared experience and mutual support.
Across six sessions, we work on areas including:
- classroom management and responding to challenging student behaviour,
- conversations with parents and other difficult communication situations,
- working with diverse and inclusive classrooms,
- project-based learning and developing future-ready skills,
- lesson and resource planning, including the use of AI and tools that can make everyday work more efficient,
- teacher wellbeing, boundaries, assertiveness and recovery.
We work with real situations from participants’ everyday professional lives, share experiences and look together for solutions that can be applied in school almost immediately.
Because sometimes the greatest relief does not come from another piece of theory, but from being able to say: “I don’t know how to deal with this.” and hearing another teacher reply: “I understand. I’m going through this too.”
The course is led by Kay Czepli-George – psychologist, therapist, teacher mentor and educational leader – and Dr Dagmara Chmielarz – trainer, educational leader and teacher mentor.
The group is small, with between 6 and 10 participants, creating space both for developing practical skills and for talking honestly about what is really happening in your work.
The course is currently co-funded by our Foundation, and sessions take place online every two weeks.
Before joining, we also invite you to a free initial online consultation, where we can learn more about your situation and needs and explore together whether this group is the right form of support for you.
👉 You can find more information about the course here: From Chaos to Calm – A Course for Early-Career Teachers
You can also contact us directly at: kontakt@kiedycichniedzwonek.pl
Starting out in teaching does not have to mean learning everything alone through trial and error.
Sometimes the most important resource is simply a supportive community, thoughtful guidance and the knowledge that you do not need to know everything from day one.
About the author
Dr Dagmara Chmielarz is a trainer, teacher mentor and Coordinator for Teacher Mentoring and Professional Wellbeing at the Quiet After Ringing Foundation.
She has a particular focus on supporting teachers at the beginning of their careers, helping them navigate the realities of school life, develop their own teaching style and build confidence in their professional role.
At the Foundation, she also co-facilitates teacher support groups, creating spaces where educators can share experiences, look for solutions together and build a sense of professional community.
Her work focuses on practical solutions, mutual support and professional development that does not come at the expense of wellbeing.