If You Are Burnt Out Take a Time Out

Up until last week I was a day old fire, with cold gray ash and smoldering embers. The only evidence of a past flame was the occasional smoke that drifted into the air caused by a soft east wind. I was burnt out. In the process of working a full time job, working out five days per week, maintaining a relationship, spending time with God, and working an additional 30 hours per week pursuing my passion I had lost myself. I am wired with the belief that if you are going to get anything in life you have got to work hard. Therefore, I put in the constant hours and strived to make the connections that I needed in order to drive more traffic to my website and pursue my passion of helping others through motivation speaking however I was making zero progress.

I did not notice the mounting stress at first. What I did notice was that I began to make more and more excuses as to why I could not write or when I sat down to blog I had a mental block that forbid the flow of creativity. I was beginning to hate my passion and despise my purpose. My passion felt like a taskmaster forcing me to continue while I secretly yearned for freedom. Yet, I continued working because I felt like I always had to be working and when I was not working I was thinking about how I could do more work. The result was constant tension in my body and a guilty feeling whenever I wanted to take time out for myself to get a cup of coffee, eat breakfast or watch a movie. I know this sounds extreme but I did not realize my feelings of imprisonment because I was too busy working to introspect my situation.

Then during a church service on Tuesday I received a word from God through my pastor and part of that word was that God was enlarging my territory (through the Internet) and giving me financial increase. My reaction? I decided help God by working harder. But the harder I worked, the worse I felt. A couple of days past and out of sheer exhaustion I gave up and decided (through God’s leading) that I would take a week off. In the beginning, relaxing was difficult because I felt both lazy and like I was giving up on my dreams. The nagging thought of if I do not write a blog you will not want to come back to stevenroddy.com because it was not updated. But after several days of consciously deciding to play Madden, watch movies, read a book and relax, I began to do just that.

To my surprise my thoughts began to clear and I was able to see my situation for what it was, not what I thought it was. (Not only that but I made more money during that week and my site’s ranking dropped more than 20,000 spots!) I was able to see that what I was doing was not working. I was like the driver who was lost but did not want to take the time to ask for directions. The lost driver thinks to himself, “I may be late but at least I am making good time.” As the week came to an end I began to ask God how I could keep this type of peace and feeling of relaxation in my life. These are the 4 tips that I received:

1. Have a Plan – Before you go to bed write out a plan for the next day. A simple to do list organized in the general time frames will work.
2. Create Good Habits – It has been said that, “Man makes the habit and then the habit makes the man.” Put yourself on a schedule that you can follow daily. Monday through Friday at 7:00 a.m. go to the gym, every evening at 6:00 p.m. read a positive book, or every morning at 9:00 a.m. have your time with God. By creating successful habits you will begin to autopilot your journey towards success.
3. Allow for Margin – So much of the time individuals run from this task to that appointment and rarely allow for a time buffer so they can relax. When you are getting ready in the morning give yourself an extra 10 minutes. When you leave for work in the morning leave 15 minutes early and bring a book. Leaving early will calm your road rage and cause you not to arrive to your appointment or job stressed. And if you arrive early you can read book (preferable one based on your industry) that you brought.
4. Compartmentalize your Life – When you are working, work. When you are with your family, be with your family. By staying focused on what you are doing you will be able to get more done in less time. But, if you start a task at 8:00 a.m. and then take a break to care for something else only to come back to your original task at 11:00 a.m. you will distract your focus and cause more stress in your life. Complete the task at hand before moving on to the next task.

The people who physically work the hardest often make the least amount of money. Those who work smarter are usually in charge of managing, hiring, and creating the opportunity for those who work the hardest. Hard work alone will not achieve dreams. But, if you follow God’s leading and concentrate on keeping Him first then He will keep you both mentally and physically balanced while causing the dreams that He gave you to manifest.