You show up for work and don’t have your usual “zing.”
Your sleeping habits are noticeably different. Whether resting or awake, you feel drained.
You snap at others, whether it’s justified or not.
You’re cynical and critical.
After dragging yourself to work, you can’t manage to get started.
The unexplainable headache is back, and the lower back pain is starting to get to you.
What gives?
You’re burnt out.
Whether you use the cliche term or not, burnout is a thing, and as a leader, it comes for you. While not everyone experiences the same combination of symptoms, there are some useful ways to deal with it.
Hear this: There’s nothing wrong with you.
Being a leader is a journey. Burnout is not something you simply deal with or push through. You’re not the victim.
Skills, choices, and habits are the key to healing and recovery during such seasons. But before you can begin the recovery process, you have to identify why you are choosing burnout?
It could be that you are buying into one of the following myths…
1. Performance-based mentality.
Leaders fall into the trap of evaluating and being evaluated on performance.
2. You find your value in numbers.
Money raised. People served. Division and use of time.
While none of these are inherently evil, measuring your worth with this data is never helpful. Nor is it biblical.
We are only human, and therefore, we’re limited. We will not always perform at our best.
3. You think you are selfish unless serving.
I believe the best leaders have a servant’s heart.
Leaders believe a false reality: you’re selfish if you focus on recovery and recharging even if the purpose is to take time to think, and to pray.
4. You always expect more for less.
Once you identify the traps and triggers, take hold of the solution offered by our faith.
Slip away. Pray. Repeat.
The Gospels tout Christ’s miracles with a tone at times of full speed ahead, yet that was only a piece of our miraculous puzzle. Jesus would often slip away into the wilderness and pray.
With waves crashing and thrashing over their boat’s stern, the disciples were understandably in a state of panic. Jesus? He was fast asleep.
Leaving the chaos and sneaking away, He was able to welcome in the calm that surpasses understanding because of God.
“Be still.”
Two words were all it took to calm the waters. Being apart from the panic allowed Jesus time to reconnect with His Father and to push away the noise – literally and figuratively.
Often we forget the constant pressing on Him in every way as He ultimately moved closer and closer to His calling. We see behaviors that may not make or have made sense because He operated outside of what the world expected of him.
This week, I encourage you to slip away, pray, repeat and be still. Let us know how adding these habits into your routine serves you as a leader. I’m always a text away, and I’d love for you to check-in with myself and our coaches.
Keep moving forward!