What Does It Take to Keep Doing the Work You Love?

Reflections on educator wellbeing, resilience and building a working life you can sustain.

“You’re so resilient.”

I’ve heard that a lot. Usually after something difficult has happened, when I’ve picked up the pieces and kept going. And for a long time, that was what resilience meant to me. You put one foot in front of the other. You work out what needs doing, and you do it. You have a child, responsibilities and bills. What else are you going to do?

But I’ve started asking a different question. Yes, someone might be resilient, but why do they need to be? What is keeping going costing them? And when we praise their ability to cope, do we also look at what support they need?

Those questions stayed with me as I prepared for a conversation on the Learn Play Thrive Early Education podcast. They sit at the heart of my work with The Educators Well, but they also come from some very personal experiences of discovering that loving something, wanting to do it and having the capacity to do it are different things.

When keeping going became impossible In the years before my workplace accident, our family had been through an emergency caesarean, my dad’s cancer diagnosis, COVID, storm damage that destroyed much of my family daycare equipment, an interstate move, our home being broken into and vandalised, a miscarriage, losing my dad and losing my family daycare. Often, something else happened before we’d had much opportunity to recover from the last thing.

We kept going. Then, in October 2024, I had my accident and developed post-concussion syndrome. Keeping going became quite literally impossible. Even now, when I have a crash day or need to crash in the afternoon, I cannot keep my eyes open. Being determined doesn’t change that.

There were things I’d always done that I suddenly couldn’t work out how to do. Cleaning my kitchen is one example. I would sit on the floor in tears because I couldn’t work out where to start or how to get through it. I was trying to understand what had happened to me while also being a mum. Parenting didn’t pause while I recovered.

I had a team helping me, and one of the tools I was given was the biggest whiteboard you can possibly imagine. My whole life went on it. I’d been someone who never missed an appointment. Then I missed one, and it felt like I’d failed. Learning to accept help with things I’d previously managed without thinking was hard.

Two years ago, I had very little understanding of my own capacity. I’ve had to learn about it to become a functioning adult some of the time. I’m still learning.

It was only a twenty-minute drive!

When we were living in South Australia, my daughter’s kindy was about twenty minutes from home, along a road where you could travel at 110 kilometres an hour. Twenty minutes. Doesn’t sound far, does it?

But think about what happens when you drive. You’re remembering where you’re going and how to get there, watching traffic, checking your speed and mirrors, braking, accelerating and changing gears. Then there’s everything else: changing light, reflections, glare, potential rain, noisy children, someone tailgating you, a car overtaking and a pothole you need to avoid. That’s before you even put the radio on.

After my accident, by the time I got to kindy to drop my daughter off, I could be so exhausted that I couldn’t drive home without stopping somewhere safe and sleeping for half an hour, sometimes an hour. In the afternoon, I’d do the reverse. Now picture an early childhood room with ten children having fun. They’re talking, giggling and laughing. Blocks are dropping and music is playing. There’s also everything happening in your head. You’re scanning, checking everyone is safe and whether anything broke when the blocks fell. You’re ready to step in because one child wants the blue block another child has, and ready to catch someone who has somehow tripped over nothing right in front of you.

At the same time, you’re thinking about who needs changing, when you’re going outside and who needs sunscreen. Did I finish that accident report? The director asked me to do something by tonight. Oops, I haven’t done that. Where am I going to find the time?

Imagine reaching that point of exhaustion I experienced after the drive. Someone asks a simple question: “Do you want to go on your lunch break now?” You know what you want to say, but out comes “gargle bargle gargle”. The words don’t form the way you intended.

I’m using my experience to explain why I pay attention to what a day takes out of someone. The children can be having a lovely time and there can still be an enormous amount for the educator to manage. Two people can work in the same room and experience that day differently.