5 Strategies to Prevent Burnout and Empower Yourself for Recovery – Part 3
#3 Get Out Ahead of Your Crash
I’m dealing with the beginnings of compassion fatigue right now, I can tell.
It’s been a very exciting and rewarding past three years in pastoral ministry and in my family. The church is growing and expanding and so is my family.
And that’s the problem.
New people are walking through the doors each week. Lives are being transformed and exciting new initiatives are taking off. The feeling of anticipation is palpable.
And on the home front things are amazing also. All four of my children are now in school. They are growing, expanding, changing. What a joy that is to behold.
I’m a blessed man.
Really.
But these things come at a cost.
Blessings Can Be Costly
Yes, blessings can be costly.
In the ministry, it’s been one crisis after another. Pandemics, hurricanes, and untimely deaths to name a few. Although God has used these trials to bring about beautiful growth in our church, it has taken a lot out of me as a leader.
Furthermore, while it’s been great to see my children take on new challenges, such new ventures involve us parents as well. More dates on the calendar, more disappointments, more conflicts to resolve. On top of all that, the doctor recently told us that Scotty’s only hope for improvement of his epilepsy is brain surgery.
That’s kinda frightening.
Through all of this I’ve laughed more, danced more, and gone to bed good-tired more.
The problem is that too much good-tired inevitably leads to bad-tired.
And I’m dealing with some of that too.
I’ve reached a point where I’m not bouncing back quite as quickly as I have in the past. It’s as if I can’t quite reach a proper threshold of recovery before having to run back out into the energy-demanding fray.
Left unchecked, this is how the cumulative nature of stress leads to an ugly crash.
When I burned out in the past, I ran through these checkpoints with reckless abandon. I smirked at the “check engine” light, pressing the accelerator harder.
But not this time around.
I’m pumping the brakes, pulling into a mechanic shop, and doing what I can to preserve the life of my engine.
I’m determined to get out ahead of my crash.
I’ll be discussing how to do that in future posts, for now, it’s enough to take inventory of your recover-abilty by asking yourself a few of the following questions:
- How effectively am I bouncing back from fatigue these days? Does a little rest and recovery fix me right up, or do I borrow energy from tomorrow for today’s tasks?
- Am I continually carrying fatigue into the next task, initiative, and battle?
- Do my past recovery strategies fail to move the needle these days?
- What are my recovery strategies?
I would love to hear from you in the comments section below. In the meantime, be on the lookout for Part #4 Listen To Your Body next week.
And in case you missed it here is Part 1 – Mind Your Feels.