Its a JOB not a ruddy VOCATION.
You don't have to love being a flying instructor to be reasonable at it. You don't have to be a career instructor before you can give a cracking Medium Level Turns briefing.
Personally I celebrated every new 100hrs, every new logbook entry that would move me a little closer each day to an airline. Every other PPL instructor I ever worked with had the same attitude.
I'm sorry but £8,500 a year is not enough to maintain the enthusiasm for the job after a while. The risk, the effort and the repetition are out of all proportion to the reward.
Things are different just a little further up the food chain I found. I really enjoyed working in Jerez with decent pay, decent lifestyle and decent students. It got me all fired up about instructing again. But that too fades.
Even now, flying a nice jet from a nice airport for a nice airline on a nice wage - I sometimes dread going to work tomorrow. Thats life and its not shameful to admit you are an instructor to:
a) Take money off students and spend it, and
b) Become an airline pilot.
Driving instructors charge £17.50 an hour. They work social hours, in comfort, with little risk, are their own bosses and can work just about anywhere. It cost them no more than £2,000 to become qualified and they are unhindered by the CAA and their army of doctors. FI's earning £8 an hour "if its nice and if anyone turns up" is frankly insulting in contrast.
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And now back to the thread topic:
Yes there is a risk after a while that you begin to look like a career instructor. Your CV begs the question "Why hasn't this guy been picked up by an airline yet?" The risk being that each interviewer doesn't want to be the one to hire someone who has been passed over by all the other airlines.
Its rubbish and I am not even going to try to justify it.
You should be safe enough as long as you have an interview line that acknowledges your high instructing time and offers a plausible reason why NOW you feel you want to move on and actually this is the first airline interview you have attended (honest).
If you are not happy working at the moment then perhaps you should call one of the bigger FTO's and go work for them. Sometimes a change is as good as a rest and it did the trick for me.
Otherwise grit your teeth, do a workmanlike job and focus clearly on the endgame - that Boeing tech log waiting for your signature someday. If you are anything like me then you will eventually look back on your instructing years with the rose tinted spectacules firmly in place.
Good luck,
WWW