Four Questions to Help Rebuild Your Life After a Meltdown, Part 1

Posted by chriswilliamsde on

Soon after my meltdown occurred, and I realized how serious my situation was, I launched a project to “rebuild my life.” I determined to take four steps to walk me through the process of recovery. And like taking four steps, they each had to happen one at a time; you can’t take four steps at once. In this series of posts, I want to share with you four questions that framed the steps I took and am taking to rebuild my life.

Step One: What Am I Giving My Energy To?

Make a List

The first step I took was to take inventory of my commitments and re-evaluate what my energy was being investing in. This process took about 6 to 8 weeks. I literally sat down at my computer and listed out every commitment I had made, big or small, important or insignificant. That process gave me a list of over 70 projects I was working on in my job, 9 coaching projects, and over a dozen personal projects. After I had the list together, I reversed engineered the list into categories or groupings. I discovered that the nearly 100 projects I was working on covered nearly 25 different areas of focus.

Overcommitment=Overwhelm

It may seem like I became an out-of-control list maker. In fact, I had one person say, “I couldn’t write all my stuff down like that; I would go crazy knowing everything I was supposed to do.” They encouraged me to stop writing these things down and trash my lists. However, what I found is that writing it down and making it tangible in one list where I could see it all gave me the wonderful gift of self-awareness. I was overwhelmed because I was overcommitted. My system was perfectly designed for the results I was getting. If I wanted different results (i.e. – less overwhelm in my life), I needed to change my system. I needed to eliminate, delegate, and renegotiate my commitments. I needed to ruthlessly make adjustments until my commitments were clear, focused, and manageable.

Eliminate

Some of my commitments were dead. Some of them were not good ideas or were simply not practical. Others were good ideas at the time they were initiated, but over time they became irrelevant because the world changed. When I came to a dead project on my list I let it go…with the delete button.

Some of my commitments were good things, but they did not represent the best things I could and should be doing with my time. As Jim Collins says, “Good is the enemy of the great.” I had to eliminate some good things to clear the decks for the best things.  Again, the delete button.

Delegate

Some of my commitments needed to be done, but could be or needed to be handled by someone else. I delegated those to the appropriate person.

Renegotiate

Some of my commitments were bigger projects that were due within a year, but did not require me to start working on them now. I put them on my calendar for the appropriate time when they needed to be started.

Still other commitments were good ideas, but I did not have the bandwidth to complete them. I put them on my someday/maybe list.

Commitments to Complete

After eliminating, delegating, and renegotiating, I was left with the commitments that I needed to follow through on until they were completed. My work list dropped to 40-50 active projects, the range where it currently hovers. My coaching list was trimmed to 6 projects, four of which will conclude this month. And my personal project list hovers around 6 to 8 items. Nearly 100 commitments were reduced down to 50-60 commitments I truly need to be focused on. My 25 areas of focus have been narrowed down to 7 professional areas of focus and 7 personal areas of focus.

The Point

Here’s the point. I experienced a meltdown because I was stretched too thin and burning the candle at both ends. The road to recovery for me and for many of those who are facing burnout begins with figuring out where your energy is going. Then you have to make the hard decisions about what you will and will NOT do. You are burnt out because you are doing too much. You have to step back and eliminate some of your commitments. This is the only way that you can begin to win the battle against overwhelm, stress, and burnout.

Ask Yourself

What are you giving your energy to? Are there things you are committed to that need to be eliminated? Delegated? Renegotiated?

Warning: Meltdown Approaching

Posted by chriswilliamsde on

Six months ago I had a meltdown. An entire year of busy running coupled with the neglect of my spiritual life and physical health led to ministry burnout. Once I hit the wall, I began the process of pursuing recovery. Since that time, I have reflected on the specifics of what led to the depletion of my emotional, spiritual, and physical resources. I identified five key factors that contributed to my downward spiral. I share them here as warning signs for all of us to pay attention to.

The Warning Signs

1. Extra Stress

What set the stage for my burnout was the transition from leading a church to the role of leading at the district level. This transition with its steep learning curve and new city, house, school district, church affiliation, and friendships led to a stressful season of life. Everything was new and different, and that was difficult to experience.

Extra stress is not to be avoided at all costs. Sometimes we need to go through those stressful seasons to reach our potential or land in the place we need to be. However, we need to pay attention to the reality of that extra stress so that we can compensate for it with extra rest and times with God that are restorative. I had extra stress and did not pay attention to it, nor did I take the steps to offset that stress so I could remain healthy.

2. Busy Pace of Life

Connected with the extra stress of transition, I was busy…too busy. Full-time job, full-time in seminary, coaching leaders 2 to 4 hours per week, and serving on the leadership team for the coaching network in my denomination. Oh yeah, and I was trying to be a good husband and father at the same time. I had a lot to do and was working hard to stay on top of it all. This busy pace of life led to early mornings, late nights, and long hours at the office. I was busy and eventually that pace caused my engines to sputter, miss, and eventually shut down.

Again, it is not wrong to be busy with important things to complete. However, we must be careful that busy is not our only speed. Busy must be balanced with Sabbath, relaxation, and fun…three terms I was completely disconnected from during the year that led to my meltdown.

3. Ignoring Physical Health

Prior to the transition of roles I had a good discipline for diet and physical exercise. When we transitioned and the stress dial got turned up and the busyness took over my schedule I looked for things to cut. The first thing to go was sleep. I decided to get up earlier and stay up later…and drink more coffee to fuel the insanity. The second thing to go was my diet. I starting eating foods for the taste and comfort they provided instead of eating them for the way they fueled my energy. The third thing to go was my workout routine. To be clear there were days and weeks over the course of that year where I worked out, but it was not consistent. Eventually working out came to be a foreign concept.

So here’s the bottom line lesson in this area: If you sleep four to five hours a night, eat junk, and never workout, you will lack the energy to keep going. You are also eliminating the very resources that help you deal with the extra stress that you may be experiencing in life.

4. Overcommitment and No Focus

The role I stepped into was a new position, and while there were some parameters for what this job would cover, a lot of it was to be created along the way. I knew this up front and agreed to walk through that process. Over the course of the first year, I was given 12 major areas of responsibility. While I don’t recommend that you allow your job to have 12 major areas of responsibility (5 to 7 is better), this is not what took me under. What impacted me was the fact that I overestimated my capacity to keep up with other commitments outside of my work responsibilities. I came into the role as a full-time seminary student, self-leadership coach with Keep Growing, Inc., church planting coach and leadership team member for the Wesleyan Coaching Network. I assumed that I could keep all those going at the same level I had before while learning a new job and keeping up with those new responsibilities. I could not. All totaled, I was trying to focus on 18 to 20 areas of focus. That many areas of focus means that you really have no focus. I was busy, and I was running from here to there and there to here. These two realities – overcommitment and no focus – sapped my passion and made me feel overwhelmed. This added to my stress, busyness, and overall sense of being tired.

The lesson I have learned here is that I need to keep a complete inventory of all my areas of responsibility and commitments in those areas. I need to review that inventory on a weekly basis. And I need to consider what impact new opportunities or projects will have on my life and leadership.

By the way, I have re-defined my role to have six major areas of responsibility. I am getting ready to begin an undetermined hiatus from my coaching of church planters and work with the Wesleyan Coaching Network. And I have developed a plan to stay on top of my seminary work without it consuming my schedule.  It is not enough to identify the problems; you have to make the necessary changes.

5. Disconnection from People

I am an introvert, but I am relational. I get my energy from being alone to re-charge, but I need close relationships to stay healthy. When we moved into this new role, it was the first time in our lives where we were not integrally involved in one single local church. For the previous twelve years I had served as pastor of a local church. Prior to that, since the day I was born, I had always been highly involved and connected with whatever church I was attending. Now my wife and I found ourselves driving an hour to church, which allowed us to attend worship, but did not provide any kind of meaningful connection with people. Small groups happened during the week and extra activities were other days and times. It was not feasible for us to be fully engaged or connected. We were lonely. On top of that, the close friends I had were now a distance from where I was. I was lonely.

When you are going through major transition or any difficult time, you need the strength of others to help carry you through. If you find yourself disconnected from people, beware. You might be in a compromising situation. If a major storm or challenge bombards your life, will you have the support network to rely on for strength, prayer, comfort, and help? I did not have that network and it contributed to my meltdown.

6. Neglecting My Relationship with God

During the year that led to my meltdown, I did not lose my faith, nor did I stop believing in God. I did not walk away from Christ or stop being a Christian. However, I did neglect the cultivation of my relationship with God. I stopped journaling, praying, and reading Scripture. I traded in my quiet time so I could get more things done. I swapped praying for reading and reviewing documents and books for school and work. I put the journal away and wrote papers, proposals, and newsletters instead. I ended up being spiritually dry. My devotional system (or lack thereof) was perfectly designed for the results I was getting. No time with God = no spiritual life.

How About You?

What are the warning signs you’ve learned to look for in your life?  How do you prevent yourself from melting down?  Share your thoughts.  Enrich the discussion.