HOW MANY PRIORITIES?
Another misconception that leads to burnout is a misunderstanding of the word priority.
In our modern culture, we take priority and we divide it into multiple priorities and we come up with a list. Our list might be ordered as: God, family, church and work. So those are my number one, number two, number three, number four priorities in life. And so God comes first in priority, and I understand that, there’s some sense in that.
The problem is, the word priority is not a plural word. It’s a singular word. The ancient concept of priority means a single thing. It’s one thing.
So life isn’t about having your 10 or 12 priorities in life ordered correctly. It’s about living for one priority.
In other words, what is my purpose? And out of my one purpose, everything else flows. Everything else fits.
For me, as Christian, I derive my big priority from Matthew 6:33 where Jesus said, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and when you do that, everything else will fall into place.” (my paraphrase)
So if I spend my life living for God’s kingdom purposes—if that’s my priority—then I’m going to have a healthier family, a healthier personal life, a healthier relationship with my coworkers, and so on.
ARE WE AS BUSY AS WE SAY WE ARE?
I also think another problem that leads to burnout is an overemphasis on busyness and overwhelm.
We might be addicted to busyness, but I think we’re also addicted to talking about busyness.
How was your week? And most of us go, oh, it was busy. It was crazy.
How’s life lately? It’s busy. It’s crazy.
The funny thing is, when I listen to high influence, high impact leaders—maybe CEO’s of corporations that do really well and they have great family life, or people that have written lots of books and have a big ministry to millions—I don’t often hear them talk about how busy they are. There’s not a lot of talk among really successful people about being stressed out and maxed out all the time.
Instead, there’s more of a confidence about life.
I’m not saying that we should ignore busyness. You don’t need to be too busy. But I do think it’s possible to do multiple things in life, to have multiple projects and multiple things going on and still not be overly busy and overwhelmed.
We tend to take moments when we’re overloaded with things and we start telling ourselves, I’m just overwhelmed, I’ve just got too much going on.
And the story that we’re telling and repeating and rehearsing is, I can’t handle life right now. And I think we begin to allow the busyness to override the strength we have in us to handle it.
THREE REAL CAUSES OF BURNOUT
1. We Lose Touch With People
I was speaking just a couple of days ago with a dear friend of mine. He’s a mentor, a coach, a friend from a distance that I’ve looked up to for a long time now. And we were talking candidly about discouragement. And he was saying that when he’s discouraged, he has a tendency to retreat and to go be alone and just try to process it all, or try to work through it all, try to fix it all, or just avoid it all.
I start to think that if I can get away from people and have more time to fix all this stuff, then the burnout will go away. And it really just makes it worse because relationships are life-giving. So when you’re hurting, you need to go be with people. And when you know someone who’s hurting, you got to be a people for them.
When I isolate, it becomes a downward spiral of isolation. And I get lonelier and lonelier until I’m all alone trying to deal with burnout. So what really leads to burnout is we lose touch with people.
2. We Lose Touch With Ourselves
In other words, we lose our sense of identity. I forget who I am. I forget what I’ve defined myself to be and I start trying to find that identity and the affirmation of others. And there are always people to give us affirmation.
3. We Lose Touch With Our Creator
I can tell you that getting in touch with God, having a daily time with the One who created me, who wants me in a relationship with himself, is absolutely vital to me staying fresh, spiritually, personally, and emotionally in my life. I need to be in touch with the one who is bigger and smarter and more powerful than I am, who manages my life better than I ever could.
HOW TO RECOVER FROM BURNOUT
And I want to talk about how to get out of that because, again, I believe the world needs you.
1. Take Some Time Alone
First off, take some time alone. It may be that you take time away from your projects and away from your work and even away from people to take time alone.
I personally get up early in the morning. It’s part of my alone time. I try to get up before everybody else while it’s still dark outside, drink a bottle of water real quick and get a cup of coffee, sit down, and I’m awake and I’m alert and I pray. I might journal, or write, or whatever, but it’s time alone to think and to process.
Jesus exemplified this. The Bible always says multiple times that he drew himself apart for prayer. He spent time with God to recharge and to refocus.
So you need time alone, but be careful that you don’t miss out on the second big step.