The "Not Enough" Epidemic Sweeping Our Schools

I’ll never forget my first lesson observation as a trainee teacher…

I’d spent countless hours meticulously planning the input. I pored over PowerPoint slides until I knew them inside out and back to front. I’d thought through every second, down to the last detail.

And it went well…

My behaviour management was strong, my subject knowledge was noted down and children’s engagement and enjoyment was high!

Then it came…

And once it was said, it's all I could hear:

“Buuut…”

Shortcomings, failures and an overwhelming sense of not being good enough flooded my mind.

“I put so much into that lesson. So much time, effort and energy... And it still wasn’t good enough? Well, maybe I’m just not ‘good enough’, then!”

This was an identity that followed me through much of my teaching career.

Subconsciously, I scanned every event, every interaction, every email for evidence that I was not enough - a psychological defense mechanism primed to protect me.

I’m sure you can at least somewhat resonate with that feeling:

Finally getting through a long list of emails, only to have them pile up again the next day. Deliberating over differentiation, only to have a group of children still not quite grasp the skill. Receiving praise for a job well done followed by the pang of another expectation placed upon you!

And you’re not alone.

In a recent poll I took, 71% of school staff said that they didn’t feel they were good enough within their role, and I’d hazard a guess that many of them had internalised this as part of their identity, just as I did.

Garcia-Carmona et al. also found in 2019 that as educators our sense of achievement tended to be much lower than among similar professions. What’s more, 62% of UK teachers experience feelings of self-doubt or inadequacy as part of “imposter syndrome” (Turner, 2025).

These beliefs can cause us to overwork, overcommit and overanalyse; leading us evermore quickly towards burnout.

So, what’s The Impact?

Alongside the external demands of the job, we can end up placing huge amounts of internal pressure on ourselves as individuals in that pursuit of “good enough”.

Expecting ourselves to suddenly be almost superhuman, we write to-do lists longer than the time there is to complete them. We don’t delegate as a way of avoiding the discomfort of things not being done to our extremely high standard. We start to neglect our own needs in favour of putting the needs of others, or the needs of work, first - as it feels that this is what’s needed to do a “good enough” job!

It’s not long until we see a domino effect on our mental health: we may have more ruminating thoughts, struggle to sleep or feel disillusioned with our roles. Socially, we might begin to withdraw due to low energy, fear of judgement or even worries around emotional intimacy as others start to ask us if we’re okay.

Interestingly, research from Stoeber & Rennert (2008) found that negative reactions to imperfection increased emotional exhaustion by 81% - the single greatest predictor of teacher burnout identified in their research. There are also strong links between worries around imperfection and mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety (Sadraei et al., 2024).

Physically, this rapid road toward burnout also leads to knock-on impacts and is linked with: increases in unhealthy behaviours, blunted stress responses and inhibited immune function (Madigan et al., 2023).

It’s common that our classrooms can inadvertently become pressure chambers for our students as we pass on this “not enough-ness” through emotional contagion and mirroring, worsening their stress and anxiety in turn (Sadraei et al., 2024).

Of course, it’s not a giant leap between the consequences for individuals and the wider impact on our schools and the children we teach. In 2022-23, 2.6 million school days were lost to teacher absence - this is equivalent to 13,700 teachers being absent for the entire school year (Allot, 2024).

From my calculations, teacher illness and absence costs £175,000 for the average UK school each year; between funding supply, staff pulled for cover, lost salaries, and admin time. Whilst 59% have considered leaving the sector in the past year due to pressures on their mental health (Education Support, 2022).

Where Is It Coming From?

It’s no secret that ever-increasing expectations, reduced funding and increased levels of pupil need have been piling the pressure onto our schools and staff over the past decade. But there are some other interesting factors at play here, too…

More widely, we have seen our work cultures morph into what philosopher Byung-Chul Han coined as “achievement society”, where we experience this internalised pressure to constantly achievement more and more. For many of us, our sense of self has been transformed from a subject to a project, as we seek to optimise, maximise and become evermore productive!

In education, staffs’ roles have expanded dramatically in recent years. Research from YouGov in 2020 tells us that 62% of staff report offering increased emotional support to pupils, 62% report student behavior takes up more time, and 48% report increased pastoral duties.

Unsurprisingly, at least half of us also report being more likely to support colleagues' emotional wellbeing now too (Education Support, 2023).

Alongside the workload and resourcing pressures, however, there’s also the burden of “being strong”.

Many of us not only struggle with the emotional labour of the role, but also the feeling that we must stay strong, self-reliant, and emotionally “contained”, so to speak. This shows up as emotional suppression and what psychologists call “hyper-independence", an extreme form of self-reliance where we feel we must accomplish everything alone, even when support is needed!

What’s more, the culture of education sometimes reinforces this behaviour; we’re praised and complimented for doing it alone, unrealistically quickly or going “above and beyond”!

We then also have what I call The Vocation Trap; the culture we have around teaching that it is a vocation, a calling, a way of life.

As school staff, we can too often fall into the trap of allowing teaching to become our entire life: our career, our identity, how we spend our free time - even what we think about when we’re not thinking about anything!

Don’t get me wrong, teaching is an incredible profession where we have an almost unrivaled impact on the lives we teach! This can give us feelings of meaning and purpose. But it can also contribute to the “teacher martyrdom myth”. The expectation that we should sacrifice everything for the students we teach, always putting the needs of others above our own (Duggan, 2025).

Finally, there’s also the matter of the personalities and traits of those who go into education.

Though this is definitely a generalisation, research shows that there are some common characteristics among many of us: we care deeply about what we do, we have high expectations of ourselves and we often attach our self-worth to the outcomes of our effort (Stoeber & Rennert, 2008).

In truth, there are a whole host of interlinked reasons why we as school staff are struggling so much with our self of “enoughness” right now.

Can We Do Anything About It?

In short, yes! On both an individual level and a school level - and it is important that we think about both.

First, for individuals, I have 3 top tips you can use yourself or suggest with staff:

1. Controlling the controllables

It’s a very human thing to seek control of what is around us: objects, people, events.

It’s a way for our brains to create safety through certainty, filling in the blanks so we can look ahead and ensure we’re not in harm’s way.

But, not only is it impossible to control everything (and exhausting trying to do so), we have absolutely no control over other people’s judgements or opinions. Tying our worth to them is a gambling game and we end up trying to rig it by people-pleasing, not setting boundaries and setting our expectations of ourselves extremely high.

If you ever find yourself worrying about what others think, nervous about what’s coming up or comparing yourself to others, come back to your circle of control:

Entirely outside your control is your Circle of Concern, these are the things that might worry you, but you have absolutely no control over: the weather, the time of day, the traffic.

Closer to you, you have your Circle of Influence. It’s important to note that again you have no direct control here, but you might be able to behave in a way that influences these things: other people’s behaviours, the outcome of an interview, a child’s attainment.

And finally, you have your Circle of Control, with you at the centre.

The only things that are within your control are your thoughts, and therefore your actions. Everything else is external, and trying to control them is almost guaranteed to bring frustration, disappointment and a feeling of discontent.

Every day, come back to your controllables (thoughts & actions). These are what really matter.

2. Creating your Confidence Collection

Our brains build our beliefs on evidence - real or perceived.

Whether it’s from our experiences, our conditioning, or our values, we hold memories and truths in our minds that colour how we see the world each day! Think of it like a library: each time you experience something, your brain flicks back through the archives to find out what this means.

It finds the book on that specific experience, and you respond accordingly.

This is great, creating shortcuts for our behaviours and saving us time and energy, but it can also work against us!

For example, if you had a parent who would always praise your grades or your teachers’ reports, rather than the effort, your library will likely tell you that others validating outcomes feels really good - and it’s how your worth is judged. As an adult, this can make it really difficult to stop seeking external validation.

Interestingly, this can also work with the other extreme…

If we didn’t receive any praise at all, we can find we’re constantly striving to prove ourselves. But we can use this library analogy to build our own Confidence Collection: a stack of undeniable proof that you are awesome!

Here’s how to give it a go: take a quiet moment by yourself, write down examples of times you were the person you want to be, come back to it when your self-worth wobbles.

3. Set and stand by your own expectations

The final idea I want to share with you comes back to the core of improving your self-worth: self-compassion. Life isn’t linear, especially for us as school staff…

Every day is different, things don’t go to plan and we are always adapting - literally hundreds, if not thousands, of times a day. But we can still have a tendency to expect only the very best from ourselves, every day.

There’s plenty of external pressure like this in education at the moment as it is, but we can sometimes fall into the trap of putting even more of it on our own shoulders. Think of it like this: if you set your sights on being a 10/10 every single day, anything up to a 9 is going to feel like failure.

What we can do instead is moderate our expectations slightly…

That doesn’t mean having low standards or doing half a job, it’s simply about tuning in to what resources you have right now (energy, headspace, emotional bandwidth, time, etc.) and being really frank about what feels reasonable right now.

A useful lens here is “What would I advise a friend to do in this situation?”

I know that others will inevitably have expectations for you: deadlines (these are often more flexible than they’re made out to be!), and accountability and scrutiny at times! Just make sure you’re not further compounding this pressure internally too. It’s helpful to check in with this from time to time!

What Can Leaders Do To Support Staff?

For this I’m going to refer back to some of my Rewriting Wellbeing framework: the 6Cs.

1. Be Purposeful In What You Praise

Too often we positively reinforce behaviour that comes from a place of “not-enough-ness”: always staying late, taking on extra cover or going above and beyond at the detriment of their own wellbeing.

It’s worth us asking: what message is that sending?

Thankfully, this small shift doesn’t require us to have a huge budget or buckets of time - it just takes a few seconds to think through what we’re about to say. It starts with us purposefully and publicly celebrating sustainable contributions.

Inside Rewriting Wellbeing we talk an awful lot about Contribution - our sixth C. Purpose, meaning and playing a part in the tribe is fundamental to our mental health and wellbeing. But having behaviours that’ll quickly burn us out persistently praised isn’t going to help anyone in the long-term!

2. Be Open & Honest

And encourage others to be too!

A little vulnerability goes a long way. You don’t need to share your deepest, darkest secrets, but too often we act as if we’re infallible as leaders; we think we have to be this strong, steady, self-assured Stoic, or staff won’t get behind us.

It’s known as Performative Infallibility. Research shows that employees are 530% more likely to trust leaders who regularly display vulnerability and 750% more likely to maintain trust when leaders genuinely acknowledge their own failures and shortcomings - 750%!

Vulnerability is one of the few things we universally have in common.

It helps us Connect (another one of our 6Cs) with each other and feel as if we’re among people “like us”, as if we’re part of the right tribe. If we can share our shortcomings, our mistakes - maybe even a few of our fears - we become more genuine in others’ eyes. This inspires! To paraphrase Simon Sinek: lead from within the pack, not in front of it.

Vulnerability shows staff that they’re not alone, something we could all do with a little more nowadays.

3. Get Explicit With Expectations

It’s really hard for staff to get that warm, fuzzy glowy sort of satisfaction of a job well done, if it’s never clear when the job is, well… Done!

In Rewriting Wellbeing we talk a lot about our third C: clarity. It’s in our communication, our expectations, our boundaries. And, for better or for worse, this does start with leadership.

Also, appreciating that no two days look the same and sometimes expectations may need to be flexible is also important. Setting unachievable standards doesn’t do anyone any favours.

If our goalposts keep changing, it creates a sense of unease, a sense of uncertainty; this threatens our psychological safety and is a main driver of that feeling of “not-enough-ness”. Change is inevitable in school: wet breaktimes, cancelled meetings, staff absence, heck - look at what happened during the COVID pandemic!

But if we can look to do what we can, with what we have when it comes to providing as much clarity as possible for staff, it really will go a long way to help ease this surge of self-doubt we’re seeing right now.

As that 19-year-old trainee teacher receiving feedback for the very first time, I didn’t know the importance of any of this…

I didn’t appreciate the influence of emotional exhaustion, or the “achievement society” or even that I was already starting to tie my self-worth to my work.

I didn’t have access to these, or any other, tools to help, and I certainly wasn’t aware why I was thinking and feeling this way.

I wish I had, and I wish I was.

The “Not Enough” Epidemic is firmly here in our schools.

But it’s up to us whether it’s passing through, or it’s here to stay.

References

DDI (Development Dimensions International), Global Leadership Forecast 2023, DDI, Pittsburgh, 2023, https://www.ddiworld.com/global-leadership-forecast [1st April 2026].

Education Support, Teacher Wellbeing Index 2022, Education Support, London, 2022, https://www.educationsupport.org.uk [1st April 2026].

Education Support, Teacher Wellbeing Index 2023, Education Support, London, 2023, https://www.educationsupport.org.uk [1st April 2026].

Garcia-Carmona, M., Marín, M.D. and Aguayo, R., 'Burnout syndrome in secondary school teachers: A systematic review and meta-analysis', Social Psychology of Education, vol. 22, no. 1, 2019, pp. 189–208.

Madigan, D.J., Kim, L.E. and Vittorio, C., 'Is teacher burnout associated with poor physical health? A systematic review', International Journal of Educational Research, vol. 118, 2023.

Stoeber, J. and Rennert, D., 'Perfectionism in school teachers: Relations with stress appraisals, coping styles, and burnout', Anxiety, Stress & Coping, vol. 21, no. 1, 2008, pp. 37–53.

YouGov, The Big Question: The State of Education, survey conducted for Education Support, YouGov, London, 2020, https://www.educationsupport.org.uk [1st April 2026].