In this episode, I explore why so many tutors feel guilty about resting and why that mindset can hold them back. She explains how embracing rest can lead to better decisions, greater wellbeing and a more sustainable tutoring business.
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👋🏽 Hello! I'm Sumantha McMahon, and I've supported over 100 tutors and education business owners.
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I want to talk about rest and the guilt that so often turns up the moment we finally stop. You know the feeling — you've been going for weeks, maybe months, the summer arrives or a gap opens up in your schedule and you finally have the chance to switch off. And instead of relief, what arrives is a kind of low level unease, a sense that you should be doing something, that stopping is a bit indulgent, that you'll pay for this later somehow.
Sumantha (:
And I want to talk about where this comes from because once you see it, it kind of loosens its grip on you. Most of us were raised on a particular idea that the reward has to be earned through hard work, that you must put your head down, suffer a bit, do the hours, it's hard. And then eventually, maybe you're allowed to enjoy yourself. Work now, rest later, earn the break before you take it.
Sumantha (:
It's a deeply ingrained idea, and for those of us who came through teaching, it runs even deeper. Teaching rewards the person who stays late, who takes it all home, who puts themselves last. You're praised for running on empty, and you learn that the good and conscientious thing to do is to keep going long after you should have stopped.
Sumantha (:
And then we leave and we build our own businesses and we carry that whole inheritance straight with us. We bring that teacher's hangover into the one place. It makes no sense at all because we didn't leave the classroom and build something of our own in order to feel guilty each time we sit down and rest.
Sumantha (:
I call this suffering tax, the belief that you have to pay for everything good with a corresponding amount of exhaustion, that ease is suspicious, that if something feels too comfortable, you must be getting away with something. And I want to say clearly that that tax is not real. You didn't invent it. It was handed to you and you're allowed to hand it back.
Sumantha (:
Rest is a part of how a good business is built. I've learned this the hard way over the years. And I still have to be really disciplined with myself about it because I know that everything performs better when I'm well rested. The thinking that moves you forward, it doesn't happen when you're frazzled and depleted. It happens when you've had a break, when your head is rested, when you've remembered that you're a person and not just a service.
Sumantha (:
All of our lives have different demands and taking a proper rest might be difficult at times, but even if you can snatch a few moments to yourself of mindfulness, whatever you need to recharge and reset, it's really worth trying to take. So if you have a chance to stop this summer, because I'm sort of recording this just as we're about to hit the summer holidays, I would love for you to take it without the kind of running commentary of that guilt in the background. You don't have to earn your rest by suffering first. You are allowed to work less. You are allowed to find this easy. And you're allowed to enjoy the business that you've worked so hard to build now, not in some distant someday when you've finally done enough. Because let's face it, when is enough? There's no amount of exhaustion that makes you more deserving. There never was. So let's close the laptop and let's just allow ourselves to have a break.
