I’ve Resigned From Teaching — And It’s About More Than Work

Last Thursday we drove to Melbourne for a funeral. We left home at 7am and didn't get back until around 9pm, so it was a very long day. Maybe funerals just have a way of making you think about life a little differently, but somewhere during that day I found myself listening to conversations differently too.

At one point I was talking with family about work and life and mentioned something I haven't actually shared publicly yet — I've resigned from my teaching role.

I'm still going to finish delivering the unit I'm currently teaching because leaving well is important to me, but after that, I'm done. It wasn't an easy decision. Teaching is something I'm good at and I've loved parts of it enormously, particularly being able to pass on what I've learned from years of working in disability and aged care. I think sometimes walking away from something you're good at feels harder because you almost feel like you need a good enough reason to justify it.

But after having time away for surgery earlier this year, I started looking at my life differently. I realised I was doing too much, and I don't mean I'd had a particularly busy month or needed a weekend off. I mean I was genuinely doing too much.

When I mentioned at the funeral that I'd resigned, the reaction surprised me. There was almost a sense of why would you give that up? Later, another conversation turned to how busy life was and someone described barely having time to breathe. I heard myself quite confidently say, “That's not okay.”

And that stayed with me.

Because I have spent a very long time being busy too. Actually, busy probably doesn't even cover it. I've run a growing business, worked as a support worker, opened a retail store, managed staff, taught, raised children, handled the administration, paid the wages, done the invoicing, ordered the stock, answered the phone, solved the problems and kept moving onto whatever needed me next.

The strange thing is, I can do it. I've proven that over and over again. Give me another responsibility and I'll usually find somewhere to put it. Give me a problem and I'll work out how to solve it. Tell me something needs doing and chances are I'll just do it myself because that's quicker.

I think for a long time I confused being capable of carrying everything with needing to carry everything, and I'm starting to realise they aren't the same thing.

My surgery earlier this year probably started changing something in me. I was forced to physically stop, although in true Bec fashion I still continued doing the administration from home. FIG kept going because even though I couldn't physically do my normal work, I could still sit at a computer. I could answer questions, organise things, do the invoicing and make sure everyone got paid.

It has only really hit me recently what would have happened if I couldn't.

Who would invoice our clients? Who would process wages? Who would pay our suppliers? Who would know all of those little things that currently live inside my head?

I've built something I'm incredibly proud of, but somewhere along the way I also made myself part of its infrastructure. That's not the business I want to build.

Years ago when I worked in retail management, I always believed you could measure a manager by how well their department ran when they weren't there. I taught my team everything I knew. I didn't want everything to fall apart because I had a day off. If I'd trained and supported my team properly, the department should continue to run whether I was standing in it or not.

Somehow, while building FIG from nothing, I haven't managed to do the same thing here.

I think part of that is because building your own business is completely different. I didn't walk into an established business with systems, processes and people already in place. I was building the machine while trying to keep the machine running, and it has been bloody hard.

But FIG isn't that tiny new business anymore, and I don't want the next stage of its success to be measured by how much more I can squeeze into my week.

I also don't want “I barely have time to breathe” to be something I wear as a badge of honour. There was a time when I probably would have joined that conversation with my own list of everything I was juggling. Now I hear it differently. Having no room left in your life isn't something I want to be proud of anymore.

The part that hurts the most is my kids. There are ordinary moments I've missed because I was working, teaching, running the business or doing whatever else I had convinced myself absolutely had to be done. I can't go backwards and get those moments back, and if I think about that for too long I could honestly cry.

But I can protect the ones that haven't happened yet.

Resigning from teaching hasn't magically fixed any of this. I'm still finishing my current commitment, FIG still needs a lot from me and, if I'm completely truthful, my brain is tired. There are days when I look at everything that needs doing and feel completely overwhelmed.

But I feel lighter.

I think it's because for perhaps the first time in a very long time I've stopped asking myself, Can I manage all of this? I already know I can. I've proven that.

I'm starting to ask a much better question instead: Do I want my life to look like this?

And the answer is no.

That doesn't mean I don't want to work hard and it certainly doesn't mean I'm stepping away from FIG. Quite the opposite. I have enormous plans for this little business. But I don't want to build those plans at the expense of everything else that matters to me.

So the next part for me is working out how to build FIG so that it doesn't need me every minute of every day. I want to be able to take Matt and the kids away for four days and say, “Don't ring me unless the building is literally on fire.”

And while we're gone, our clients are still supported. The team knows where they're going. Their notes are completed. Invoices go out, wages get paid, suppliers get paid and the shop opens the next morning.

Not because FIG doesn't need me, but because being a good business owner shouldn't mean making myself indispensable to every single part of the business.

Maybe success isn't proving how much you can carry.

Maybe sometimes it's having the confidence to put some of it down.

Last week I heard myself telling someone else that having no time to breathe wasn't okay. I've thought about that sentence a lot since.

I think I was finally saying it to myself too.