What Are You Doing Here? Educators

"Why are you still here?

After the long days, the disappointments, the changes, and the moments when you wondered whether your work even mattered, what keeps you showing up? Exploring what keeps you in education, how transformative moments shape your purpose, and whether your next season calls you to stay, grow, or move, is vital to continued growth and change.

Before you move on with your day, take a few minutes to finish these three sentences:

1. I am still here because…

2. To continue in a healthy way, I need…

3. My next intentional step is…

Ways to Connect: 🫶🏽

• IG: @drjacynthjoyce
• LinkedIn: Dr. Jacynth Joyce

More from Dr. Jacynth Joyce: ✨

• Learn more about me here
• Read more from my blog
• Free Classroom Teacher Resource
• I AM THE ANSWER Collection (teachers, students, teen girls)

Sometimes the room you almost didn't enter becomes the room that changes everything.

Reflecting on the rooms, relationships, conversations, and experiences that have shaped my identity, strengthened my faith, and transformed my understanding of purpose.

What rooms have changed who you are, how you see yourself, and what you believe is possible?

The Three Room Challenge

1. Remember a room. Identify one room that changed your life. Write down what happened, who was there, and what you learned about yourself.

2. Thank someone from that room. Reach out to a mentor, colleague, teacher, or friend who helped shape your journey. Tell them how their presence impacted you.

3. Create room for someone else. Invite someone into a conversation, opportunity, or professional space that could help them grow.

Ways to Connect: 🫶🏽

• IG: @drjacynthjoyce
• LinkedIn: Dr. Jacynth Joyce

More from Dr. Jacynth Joyce: ✨

• Learn more about me here
• Read more from my blog
• Free Classroom Teacher Resource
• I AM THE ANSWER Collection (teachers, students, teen girls)

Can you imagine a life where you are so distracted with living and giving generously that you are undistracted with the cares of life? What if you gave yourself to giving abundantly in love, peace, patience, joy and kindness that hate had no place to live? What if we shifted our focus on what the government, state and politicians are not doing for us or giving to us to living from an abundant mindset and way of life?

In this episode, I take you on a journey of what it looked like for me to impefectly give generously and how preparing for this conference revealed the generous harvest given to me because I wasn't stingy in my giving as a teacher, coach, supervisor, consultant or friend.

Are you tempted to stop doing, giving and loving? I urge you not to because the law of reciprocity is irrefutable and a harvest is due to come.

Ways to Connect: 🫶🏽

• IG: @drjacynthjoyce
• LinkedIn: Dr. Jacynth Joyce

More from Dr. Jacynth Joyce: ✨

• Learn more about me here
• Read more from my blog
• Free Classroom Teacher Resource
• I AM THE ANSWER Collection (teachers, students, teen girls)

What If This Isn't Failure?

The position you did not get. The interview that went nowhere. The lesson that fell apart. The opportunity you thought was yours, but the answer was no.

We are often quick to call something a failure simply because it did not end the way we hoped. But what if you are deciding what the experience means while you are still living through it?

In this episode of What Are You Doing Here? Educators, Dr. Jacynth Joyce explores setbacks, closed doors, disappointment, and the possibility of redirection. Together, we examine the difference between something failing and believing you are a failure, while making room for the lessons we may not recognize until later.

Before you decide that the closed door, rejection, or unexpected turn means you failed, consider a different question:

What if this isn't failure? What if you just don't know what it means yet?

Ways to Connect: 🫶🏽

• IG: @drjacynthjoyce
• LinkedIn: Dr. Jacynth Joyce

More from Dr. Jacynth Joyce: ✨

• Learn more about me here
• Read more from my blog
• Free Classroom Teacher Resource
• I AM THE ANSWER Collection (teachers, students, teen girls)

What happens when you finally achieve what you prayed for, worked for, studied for, and sacrificed for, but it does not feel the way you imagined?

You earned the degree. Got the promotion. Stepped into the position. Everyone around you sees success, but privately, you are exhausted and wondering, "Why doesn't this feel different?"

In this episode of What Are You Doing Here? Educators, Dr. Jacynth Joyce explores the difference between achievement and fulfillment, the hidden cost of constantly producing, and the burnout that can hide behind an impressive résumé.

Together, we wrestle with a deeper question: What if you are successful by every external measurement, but you are no longer fulfilled?

Maybe it is time to stop asking, "What do I need to accomplish next?" and start asking, "What has my success been costing me?"

Ways to Connect: 🫶🏽

• IG: @drjacynthjoyce
• LinkedIn: Dr. Jacynth Joyce

More from Dr. Jacynth Joyce: ✨

• Learn more about me here
• Read more from my blog
• Free Classroom Teacher Resource
• I AM THE ANSWER Collection (teachers, students, teen girls)

What happens when the title changes, the promotion never comes, or the door you expected to open remains closed? Do you lose your purpose?

In this episode of What Are You Doing Here? Educators, Dr. Jacynth Joyce explores the difference between purpose and position. Titles may provide authority, access, and a platform, but they do not create your purpose. Your purpose existed before anyone placed a title beside your name, and it will remain long after that title is gone.

Listen in and reflect on one important question: Who are you when no one introduces you by your position?

Ways to Connect: 🫶🏽

• IG: @drjacynthjoyce
• LinkedIn: Dr. Jacynth Joyce

More from Dr. Jacynth Joyce: ✨

• Learn more about me here
• Read more from my blog
• Free Classroom Teacher Resource
• I AM THE ANSWER Collection (teachers, students, teen girls)

Who told you that you were not a leader, not qualified, too much, or not enough? Who told you that one failure defined your future, that you were "just a teacher," or that the person you are today is the only person you are allowed to become?

In this episode of What Are You Doing Here? Educators, Dr. Jacynth Joyce invites us to examine the limiting beliefs we have accepted about ourselves. Together, we trace the voices behind those beliefs, from family narratives and school experiences to workplace cultures and painful moments. We can honor where these stories began without allowing them to determine where we are going.

Before you carry an old belief into a new season, pause and ask: Who told you that? And when did you start believing them?

Ways to Connect: 🫶🏽

• IG: @drjacynthjoyce
• LinkedIn: Dr. Jacynth Joyce

More from Dr. Jacynth Joyce: ✨

• Learn more about me here
• Read more from my blog
• Free Classroom Teacher Resource
• I AM THE ANSWER Collection (teachers, students, teen girls)

What do you do when where you are does not look anything like where you thought you would be?

In this episode of What Are You Doing Here? Educators, Dr. Jacynth Joyce explores the seasons between what was and what is next. Through reflections on failing her teacher certification exam, unemployment, waiting, and watching others move forward, she shares how some of life's greatest growth happens when it feels like nothing is happening at all.

Together, we explore transitions, unexpected detours, faith, comparison, and learning to trust your own timeline.

Because growth does not always look like a new title or opportunity. Sometimes, it looks like who you are becoming along the way.

The season you're in isn't your forever.

Keep growing. Keep trusting. Keep becoming.

And keep asking: What are you doing here?

Reflection Prompts: 💫

What is changing in my life right now?

What am I being asked to release?

What am I waiting for?

What is this season teaching me?

Who am I becoming because of it?

And finally:

What would it look like to stop fighting this season and start learning from it?

Ways to Connect: 🫶🏽

• IG: @drjacynthjoyce
• LinkedIn: Dr. Jacynth Joyce

More from Dr. Jacynth Joyce: ✨

• Learn more about me here
• Read more from my blog
• Free Classroom Teacher Resource
• I AM THE ANSWER Collection (teachers, students, teen girls)

In Episode 2 of What Are You Doing Here? Educators, Dr. Jacynth Joyce explores the quiet struggle of imposter syndrome, self doubt, comparison, and the question many educators wrestle with: Do I really belong here?

In a profession where we are constantly evaluated, it can be easy for Am I doing enough? to become Am I enough? But perhaps belonging is not always about feeling confident. Sometimes, belonging is having the courage to stay in the room, trust what you carry, and remember the lives you have already impacted.

This episode is a reminder to stop minimizing your experience by comparing it to someone else's. You did not arrive in the room empty handed. Your lessons, mistakes, victories, students, experiences, faith, and growth came with you.

You belong in the rooms you once prayed to enter. Stay.

Ways to Connect: 🫶🏽

• IG: @drjacynthjoyce
• LinkedIn: Dr. Jacynth Joyce

More from Dr. Jacynth Joyce: ✨

• Learn more about me here
• Read more from my blog
• Free Classroom Teacher Resource
• I AM THE ANSWER Collection (teachers, students, teen girls)

Welcome to another episode of What Are You Doing Here? Educators Podcast with Dr. Jacynth Joyce.

NEA data reveals a troubling reality: K to 12 educators are among the most burned out professionals in the United States. And I would add that many educators also feel deeply invisible.

Perhaps it is because we live in a society that often celebrates athletes and entertainers more visibly than the educators who shape lives every day. Perhaps it is the weight of being overworked, underpaid, and still expected to perform at a high level, even when it comes at the expense of our own identity and well being.

Over time, that feeling of invisibility can follow us. We can begin to feel unseen at work, unseen in our relationships, and sometimes even unseen by ourselves.

So, why would I leave the classroom only to return as a substitute teacher, a role where I could feel even more unseen?

In this episode, I share what returning to the classroom taught me about purpose, identity, and finding meaning in seasons when no one seems to notice the work you are doing.

Because being unseen does not mean you are insignificant. Some of the most meaningful work we do happens in moments when there is no applause, no recognition, and no spotlight.

Listen in as we explore how to find meaning in moments of invisibility and reconnect with the deeper question: What are you doing here?

Please subscribe and share this episode with an educator or friend who needs a reminder that they are seen, their presence matters, and their work has meaning.

Ways to Connect: 🫶🏽

• IG: @drjacynthjoyce
• LinkedIn: Dr. Jacynth Joyce

More from Dr. Jacynth Joyce: ✨

• Learn more about me here
• Read more from my blog
• Free Classroom Teacher Resource
• I AM THE ANSWER Collection (teachers, students, teen girls)