4 Ways to Balance Life & Career Goals as a Teacher
Teachers invest their time, energy, creativity, and heart into teaching. Between lesson planning, family responsibilities, and the endless stream of to-dos, finding balance can feel impossible. Add in the desire to explore a new career path in education, and suddenly it’s hard to know where to begin.
But here’s the truth: you can balance work, life, and career goals as a teacher – not by doing more, but by approaching your goals differently. You don’t need to have everything figured out. You just need clarity, confidence, commitment, and a sense of community.
At Educator Forever, we believe your teaching experience is the foundation for whatever comes next. Whether you want to stay in the classroom while pursuing your passions, coach and mentor educators, build your own business, or find more flexible work in curriculum development, the path forward starts with small, intentional steps.
4 Ways to Balance Career Goals as a Teacher
Ready to pursue your aspirations without burning out? After helping thousands of teachers find alternative careers outside the classroom, we’ve identified these four strategies to make pursuing your career goals as a teacher more manageable.
Start with Clarity: Know Your “Why”
Before polishing your résumé or browsing job listings, pause and reflect. Sustainable change begins with clarity — understanding what you truly want and why you want it.
Ask yourself:
What parts of teaching bring me joy and fulfillment?
What parts feel draining or misaligned?
What do I want more of in my next chapter — flexibility, stability, creativity, joy, peace, and/or community?
These questions help you name what matters most. When you understand your “why,” it’s easier to make choices that align with your values rather than reacting to exhaustion, frustration, or urgency. While we all have different realities (including critical financial needs), reflecting on what drives your desire to make a change and the challenges you’re currently facing, you can step into your next chapter with more intentionality.
If you love building connections, you might explore virtual education coaching or mentoring student teachers. If you’re obsessed with creating learning experiences that inspire kids and reduce barriers to learning, you may look into curriculum development. If you have an innovative idea to drive change in education, starting your own education business might be a good fit. There’s no one-size-fits-all path, and that’s a good thing.
Remember: clarity doesn’t have to come all at once. It grows over time. Be patient with yourself!
Create Structure
Teachers are pros at showing up for others. Unfortunately, when we constantly pour from an empty cup, we are not able to exert the energy we need to fuel our dreams for the future. To balance life, work, and career goals as a teacher, you’ll need to protect your energy with clear boundaries and intentional structure. Here are some tips to get started:
Start small. Carve out one or two consistent time blocks each week to focus solely on your future, maybe an hour on Sunday mornings or a quiet moment after school. Treat that time as sacred so you can finish what you started.
Structure creates freedom. Use tools like calendar reminders, weekly to-do lists, or digital planners to keep your priorities visible. Batching similar tasks (like updating your portfolio, reaching out to connections, or taking an online course) can also help you stay focused and reduce decision fatigue.
Honor your rest. A balanced life includes time for play, movement, and quiet. Protect your personal time with the same dedication you give to your students and colleagues.
Burnout doesn’t just disappear with a new career… It fades when we learn to respect our own limits. Boundaries aren’t selfish; they’re a sign of sustainability. And if you’re serious about pursuing alternative careers for teachers, then learning how to set boundaries and create structure will serve you well.
Connect with Community
Transitioning into something new doesn’t have to be a solo journey. In fact, the best transformations happen within a community of like-minded educators who GET you.
One of the best ways to find better work-life balance as a teacher is to surround yourself with people who understand where you are and where you want to go. Connect with educators exploring flexible or nontraditional roles. Ask questions. Share your wins and frustrations. Celebrate progress, no matter how small!
Without fellow educators cheering us on and reminding us to persevere through challenging times, it’s easier to throw in the towel or feel like landing flexible jobs in education is far from our reach.
Start Small
You don’t have to have your entire next career step mapped out before you begin. In fact, the best way to build confidence and clarity is to start small. Try out a side project, freelance role, or career-related opportunity that connects with the kind of work you want to explore. This might look like tutoring part-time, creating educational resources, supporting a nonprofit with curriculum design, or even consulting with another school or organization.
Each small step acts as an experiment, giving you real-world insight into what you enjoy, what drains you, and where your skills shine. These experiences are low-pressure ways to develop new competencies and build a network outside of traditional classroom settings.
You don’t need to wait until you feel perfectly “ready.” Readiness doesn’t come before action... It grows through action. Every project, conversation, or experience helps you better understand what fulfills you and what direction to take next. The key is to stay curious and open. Each small move forward is a building block toward a bigger transformation.
Join Educator Forever and Build the Career and Life You Deserve
With the right support, these four steps can help make balancing work, life and career goals as a teacher feel easier and more achievable.
At Educator Forever, we’ve helped thousands of teachers identify their own skills and learn how to apply them to flexible new careers while staying in education. These teachers have gone on to become curriculum developers, education consultants, instructional coaches, online teachers, education writers, education business owners, and more.
Join the Educator Forever Network, a community of educators creating sustainable, flexible, and fulfilling careers beyond the classroom. Through the Network, you’ll gain access to workshops, coaching, and courses designed to help you find a new career path and balance teaching, life, and your evolving goals.
You’ll learn all about your possibilities for education work beyond the classroom, gain clarity on the right path for you, discover exactly where to find flexible jobs in education, and you’ll get the support you need to help you land those jobs. You’ll also enjoy weekly live group calls to get the accountability, motivation, network/community, and support you need.
Sign up for the Educator Forever Network so you can thrive and create the career (and life) you deserve.
Have questions? Contact Educator Forever any time!
About The Author
April Brown (M.Ed.) is Educator Forever’s Director of Learning and Development. In 2015, April began designing curriculum and writing articles for an EdTech company as a side gig while she was teaching in Placencia, Belize. After having her eldest daughter in 2016, April was eager to use her unique experience teaching and leading in mainstream and alternative settings in the United States and internationally to work remotely while still making a difference in education.
The Educator Forever Network empowered April to leverage her skills as a compassionate disruptor and out-of-the-box thinker to excel as an instructional/well-being coach, adjunct instructor of Trauma Supportive Schools and Mindfulness courses, curriculum developer, and writer for publications such as PBS SoCal, Education.com, and Britannica for Parents. April resides in Southern Vermont with her daughters and husband and is the Director of Learning Support at a small progressive independent school serving preschool through eighth grade. She is an advocate for teachers and students – inside and outside of the classroom.