I spent years as a piano teacher thinking I had to say yes to every potential student. Drive 20 minutes out of town to teach at your house? Yes! Teach on my only evening off? Yes! Take on two more students on my fullest day ensuring that I don't get a meal break? Yes!
These are all things I have slowly learned to say no to. Yes, I love teaching. Yes, I want to teach as many students as possible. Yes, I wanted to make/want to keep teaching as my main source of income. But I have learned that I have to make decisions based on what works for me as well. I had to set some boundaries. No. I will not come to you, but I will teach online if you don't want to/can't come to me. No, I will not teach on my evening off (or I will consider it if it is worth my while/involves multiple students). No, I will not chose teaching over eating. When I said yes to everything, it destroyed my health. I was always sick. I had migraines all the time, etc. Now, when I have a fast increase of students, I struggle physically, but am learning to pace myself. I will only take on a set number of new students at a time, give myself time to adjust, and then decide if/when I can handle more. One of the main ways I am doing this currently is saying "My schedule is currently full, but I may be able to open up more time slots in X month. I will let you know if/when I do." And people have been good about that. No one has called me a bad teacher or gotten upset when I couldn't accommodate them. I haven't gotten nasty reviews online. Nothing that I was afraid would happen has happened. I'm at every private music teacher's dream right now: My schedule is full and I have a wait list. The people pleaser side of me wants to schedule everyone right now. The worrier part of me wants to make sure that everyone has a time slot so I don't lose potential students. The business and boundaries parts of me recognize that I need time to do other things and that the students I am supposed to have will be there when I'm ready to take them.
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