A New Year - Exuberance or Exhaustion

For some, January means a clean page on the calendar, a new beginning, a fresh start. It’s exciting! For others, having gotten through the holiday season may feel more like being the last runner collapsing across the finish line utterly spent and exhausted. For those, January feels more like time for the vow, “Never again!” Welcome to burnout.

By definition, burnout is a wearing down and wearing out of energy whether from internal or external demands. It is overwhelming exhaustion, a depletion of energy, our coping mechanisms, and our internal resources.

How do we get it?
Do we awake one morning to suddenly find ourselves burned out? On the contrary, we work toward it! It begins slowly, so slowly in fact, we usually don’t notice. As we continue on, our brains begin to tell us to stop. If we ignore it, our brain will stop us. It will affect our physical body.

As Christians, shouldn’t we be above burnout?
How many times have you heard Galatians 6:9: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Don’t become weary! Don’t give up!

What about Isaiah 40:30: “Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall.” Did these youths miss the harvest because they gave up? If we read on to the next verse, however, Scripture tells us that if we wait on the Lord, then He will renew our strength. It was never God’s plan for us to burnout for Him!

Is there a cure?
Happily, no matter how far along you are in the process, burnout is reversible! That is true, however, provided our goal isn’t just to get better to simply go back to our old ways.

God, in His infinite wisdom, has given us each a specific energy capacity. Some of us are gallon people while others are only pint people. No matter how much rest we get, we will never exceed the unique design with which He created us.

If you feel you are working yourself along the path to burnout, STOP! Find time to re-evaluate your priorities, your commitments, your choices. If you need help with this process, consider talking with a pastor or a professional counselor.

Much of this information is based on a workshop presented at the AACC Conference in 2005 by Debra Taylor, MA, entitled “Women & Burnout: How Over-giving Impacts Life, Love, and Sex.”