Overcoming Burnout to Find Balance and Hope

We want to have purpose and passion. But unbridled passion, which is what happened to me, unbridled led me on a journey that ended up in significant burnout. Physically, I really wasn't well. Emotionally, I wasn't well. This is my confession. And so I have all the warning signs now, because I know what I'm not ever going to go back to. If you're stressed and worn down and lacking motivation in the midst of a busy, hectic life, this conversation is for you.

Dr. Gregory Janz is here to help you as we address the subject of burnout. Welcome to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller. John, man, you're kind of describing where I'm living right now.

That's what I was. Yeah, I just got back from an overseas trip. I'm here five days off to another overseas trip. So I'm feeling a little guilty. Yeah, a little burnout about what's going on. But what a great topic that we have for you today.

And we're going to cover some wonderful material by our good friend, Dr. Gregory Janz, who has been with us numerous times. And I'm telling you, I feel it too. Burnout is right there for all of us. And you might be a work at home mom, and you're feeling a burnout because you wear so many hats and we get that.

You might be working outside the home and you're going to be facing some burnout from time to time. So today, we want to allow the scripture to come alive for you where the Lord says, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Well, let's talk about how the Lord will give you that rest. And Dr. Gregory Janz is the founder of the Center of Place of Hope in Edmonds, Washington. He's a pioneer in something called whole person care. And he's a real innovator in the treatment of mental health, including spiritual counseling. His book on this topic is short and easy to get to, but it's so deep and rich. It's called Beyond Burnout, Regain Your Passion and Energy. And you can find details about the book at our website.

The link is in the show notes. Dr. Janz, welcome back to Focus on the Family. It's so good to have you again.

It is always good to have time with you. Now, I kind of self-disclosed my little busy schedule. But, you know, after I said that, I thought, you know, busyness is not always burnout. It's just busyness. But how would the distinction between being busy and then hitting burnout?

What's the difference? Sure. And burnout is an interesting term because what's burnout to you might not be to me. And we all have our stage of burnout.

And here's how to know if you're there. By the way, I want you to be busy and active and full of passion. And that does not mean you'll be burned out. Right.

That's my point. Yes, because part of that can be renewing to you and you have purpose in doing it. But there reaches a point where we're no longer doing our basic self-care. Our nutrition is poor.

Our sleep is poor. Our relationships are suffering a bit. And maybe we're in a period of chronic stress.

There's just a lot going on. And you just keep going because it's chronic stress. But hey, I can handle this and I keep going, keep going. But one day and this is what happened to me.

So this I'm telling you about what happened to me one day and I had good intention. I loved what I was doing, but I was living with a lot of chronic stress. I woke up and it just I hit the wall and I remember feeling the feeling it takes energy just to breathe.

I remember like, ah, man, I am so and the word was depleted. I am so depleted physically. I'm definitely depleted emotionally and physically. I'm not well.

And it hit me. Yeah, I was in official burnout. So burnout, I mean, is it usually either physical or maybe mental or both? If it's burnout, you're usually experiencing both a mental fatigue as well as a physical. There's going to be the mental fatigue. But it's beyond fatigue.

It's that total depletion. I'm in emotional exhaustion. I'm depleted. And I enter a zone of apathy when I'm burned out. It's like, oh, I don't even I don't have the energy to care. I am so fried.

I don't even care anymore. That's that's burnout. Now, when we look at the impact of burnout in the culture, I mean, the statistics, the way you're describing that is astounding because it's like 70 percent of people in the course of a year will experience some form of burnout. Yeah. And that's like super high. And it and it is.

And what we do know is that that black hole of burnout can be quite destructive to physical well-being and what it does to you physically. In my case, I love the vision that God gave us. And I was being faithful to it, but I had no boundaries. I didn't have time boundaries.

So if somebody needed to be seen. Oh, sure. And so I was working into every evening and then we extended my schedule to Saturdays and then I'm doing Saturdays and and I'm loving what I'm doing. But I ended up not practicing what I was preaching. Interesting.

This is this has been years ago. Yeah. But I had a big crash. You know, it's interesting with that.

And I want to hear the how you tidied that up. But any people in the care field? Yeah. Because I'm thinking of pastors. Pastors have a high degree of burnout as well. But people that care for other people tend to have a high rate of burnout because when do you say no?

And there is like a moral conviction that you're saying no. I mean, Jesus faces, too. He could have healed everybody. Think of it. There's a lot of disease going on, but he would heal some and then he would retreat. There was a rest break. Right. But but think of that. Even the Son of God needed to stop and replenish. Yes. Yet it feels like, you know, again, if you're in the health industry, like if mental health or church or Christian work or you name it, this place will take everything you give it.

And it will. You can give a lot. Yeah, absolutely. And you need to learn to say no. But how hard was that for you? For me, again, most of us have really good intention. I really wanted to. And OK, I'm doing what God called me to do.

But after a while. Well, I'm embarrassed to say, but, you know, I wouldn't be past working on a Sunday afternoon. So I was not practicing the things that I was preaching and I really did. I'd had that day I woke up, I go, I'm not functioning and I'm not doing well. And I had to give my schedule, my life. I had, in a word, burnout can create your out of control. I was out of control with good intention. And it wasn't that long ago because I have a before picture and an after picture.

I'm in my after picture now. But LaFawn, my wife said we were looking. I go, it was telling the story.

And she goes, you know, you look a lot better now than you did then. This is years ago. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Because I was not taking care of myself.

Yeah, I felt horrible. So burnout can lead you to depression, can lead you to anxiety. And here's what we really need to also look at. It's a spiritual apathy. It's like God doesn't care. People don't really understand. So you really do begin to feel like you're isolated, you're alone and nobody can understand. And so burnout is telling us we've got to make some changes. And I've actually never been happier in the work and the calling that we're doing than I am now. But I wouldn't have made it if I hadn't made changes. Yeah.

What are some other physical and then what are some of those mental signs that we need to be aware of that we're approaching burnout or we're in burnout? My relationships are suffering and I was not plugged in well in my Christian community. I had slowly isolated. I used to do so many fun runs and I'm doing them again. Did you say fun and run? Fun and run. In the same line?

That's crazy. There is nothing fun about a run. So just last weekend I sign up for this run.

OK. And I do it and it's freezing cold and so forth. And so I decide I'll stay for the awards presentation. I stayed for the awards presentation and they called my name. I got a second place ribbon for my age category.

There you go. I go, OK, I'm going to keep running. That's a part of the self-care. Yeah, that's just a part of the self-care. So for me, I had to decide, OK, how am I going to really take care of myself?

You know, and my oldest son said, hey, dad, it looks like all those vitamins you take are working. Well, and they're probably helping, but it's not the whole story. It's not the whole story. In the book, you mentioned a story about Keisha, I think her name was. And she came to you for counseling.

I'm sure you've changed the names. But she'd been through a divorce and financial issues, parenting issues. And I think she was a single parent. She was a single. So it was all coming down.

What was it? And I think one of the things that happened was the ex-husband stopped paying child support. Finances was huge. She was really trying to keep life together. So all the normal stress of all the normal. And then she had a teenage son that discovered alcohol. OK. And then that, as you can imagine, picture of stress and burnout. And she really reached that point where it was beyond burnout.

It was I can't manage anything. And so here she is, single parent, really trying and knowing her. She was trying to do a great job. And she had things that were working against her. And so she entered a zone of burnout. And for her, it was a decision to come and get some help.

My life's out of control. And a lot of it was not, it wasn't self-induced. It was what was the situation she was in. In fact, I think you put it under that category, streamline your stress. And so it's not getting rid of everything, but having the presence of mind to say, what can I manage here and what do I have to stop worrying about? Absolutely. It's like taking an inventory, right?

It is taking inventory. Functionally for her, just as an example for the rest of us, with all of those issues you stated that she was dealing with, how did she sort out what to concentrate on and what to let go? What are things I have control or power over that I can influence?

And what is totally out of my control? Those are the right questions. Yeah. And she actually made a list. And then we developed an action plan for how are we going to get her son the help that he needs? That's a major stress point. Having a teenage son, as you know, and alcohol or drugs, and you feel like they're just slipping away from you.

And so how do we do an appropriate intervention into that situation? So she came to the realization she couldn't do this alone. No, that's really good. The other key that you mentioned in this little read, I mean, it's not a big book.

It's more like a booklet, but it covers so much good stuff. I mean, so that third key was how to find sanity through simplicity. And everybody said, yes. Yes.

So how do you do that? Please quickly, Dr. Jants, tell me. Okay, well, one of it is to declutter. Oh, no.

I know, I know. You just got to start with that one? One is to declutter. So every year, towards the beginning of the year, our family gets together. We don't really call it family. Well, it's goals, but we have a family meeting at the beginning of each year. And what are we going to focus on this year?

I had one, the Lord gave me one word for the new year. My one word was thrive. Okay.

What do I need to do in my life to keep thriving for him? Okay. And then my wife, her word was declutter. Very practical. But she had declutter times two.

What is it? Declutter times two. And she goes, so she had a formula.

And it's the funniest thing because things are changing around our house. Yeah, here we go. I thought that formula meant I'll declutter. That's one. You declutter. That's two. Declutter times two.

Me and you. Yeah. And her goal was every day I'm just going to do two things that represent. But decluttering is not just physical space. Decluttering might be even unhealthy relationship. Decluttering how I'm spending my time. So how do I declutter?

Yes, physical and space is important. But part of dealing with burnout is, okay, where do I need to declutter emotionally, physically in my space? And the other piece is, am I procrastinating? When you're burned out, you tend to procrastinate a lot.

And that just hangs there. This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller, and our guest today is Dr. Gregory Jantz. And as Jim has mentioned, there's a short little book, but it's so rich in so many ways.

It's called Beyond Burnout, Regain Your Passion and Energy. Dr. Jantz has written this. Get a copy from us here at the ministry. We've got details for you at the website.

The link is in the show notes, or call 800, the letter A, and the word family. All right, the fourth concept that you mentioned is bolster your body. Now, I can do that through a gallon of ice cream, but that's not what you're talking about.

Well, what are the small things that I could do that will add up and make a difference? And I know we've joked a bit about water and the role of water. But when we're burned out, we tend to drink more stimulants.

You know, we go for the energy drink, or we drink the 10 cups of coffee a day. But look, water improves concentration. Water improves mood. So, you know, if you get a little irritable, just say, hey, have you had your water? Water helps with metabolism. Water helps blood pressure, et cetera. So part of the burnout plan is start drinking your water. Now, here's the key, and everybody, there's different formulas.

How much water should a person drink per day? Well, and there are different formulas, aren't there? Yes. Here's what I do. I have six bottles, and I have them on my desk. And you want to be done with those through the day?

My goal is, if it's by 2 o'clock, I should be getting towards the end, because otherwise it's not going to happen. Okay. Or refill?

My midday checkpoint. Six times. Yeah. So how many ounces is that? 80, 90 ounces?

Probably at least, yeah. Okay. So, but I do a lot better if I'm drinking the water. And one of the things that I want to look at, too, is your sleep. And when we're burned out, we probably are exhausted, but we're probably staying up late. We're probably into social media, or we're online.

How can I begin to put a boundary around that? Yes, that's good. Oh, do you stay up late? Me? I'm in bed by 9. It's kind of funny.

My boys are now going, Dad, come on. But 9, 9.30, boop, I'm out. Okay, that's good. Yeah. That's good. But I wake up early, though, too. Yeah.

So 4.35, I'm starting to stir. Yeah. Okay. But I'm out early. Yeah. All right.

Well, you're doing good. And so sleep and mental health is a huge issue. The other big issue, and there's several, is what we put in our mouth. Okay, when you're burned out, oh, it's so easy. Do the bag of chips, you know, do the ice cream.

You want it quick and easy. Is that stress-related, though, that we go that direction? Yeah. You'll probably notice when you're irritable and you're frustrated, you love the hard and crunchy.

You're going through the chips, right? If you're depressed, you like smooth and sweet. Wow, there's a formula to this.

I didn't realize. If I'm depressed, you know, the ice cream's pretty good. I might be Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Salty, sweet, all in the same hour. There you go. But here's the thing. Usually, when we're burned out, we're not getting adequate, a general statement, adequate protein in the morning.

So, have a protein, even if it's a protein drink, a yogurt, I want you to get protein in the morning, generally within one hour of waking up. I want you to fuel your brain, okay? Yeah. We're just talking about taking some baby steps. Yeah, that's good.

And that's all on bolstering the body. So, again, this little booklet will have all of that. Greg, let's move to get through these, fortifying your filters. Man, we take so much, we are information deluged today. Yes. So much stuff is coming at us that can create a sense of burnout or anxiety, depression, whatever it might be.

Yes. How do we manage those filters? One thing my wife's doing now, which is terrific, she's just unplugged from news on purpose because she just doesn't want to carry the burden of what's happening around the world and in this nation every moment of the day. And we don't want to carry it every moment of the day. And for some, we get into the doom scrolling and we get overwhelmed. And then there's always, well, what's true?

Is this true? And it gets really confusing. So, as I think about the filter, what are you allowing in? What are you allowing in? And in your social media feeds, do you have some positive ones? Do you have some people speaking a good word, right? Yeah. Or are you all the doom and gloom? Yeah, start with devotions. So, yeah.

How about that? Start with renewing your mind. And I can tell you personally it makes a huge difference. Now, I'm one, I like to know what's going on, so I can easily fall into that.

Me too. And I can look at politics in our state and then get all upset about it. But we've tried to be more a part of the solution versus dwelling on the negative. So, your filters, just what are you allowing in?

Is it primarily negative? And by that, that's also people. Do you have some people in your life that are real drainers? They are just kind of sucking the life out of you every time you see them, okay?

That's a filter to be aware of. Well, and again, we want to emphasize, we kind of hit that lightly, but getting into the word and letting the word soak into you so that your prioritization, your foundation is the right foundation so you can weather these other things. And sometimes, I know you know me with my 3x5 cards, but it's pulling out and having one verse that's going to be my mental reset. Yeah.

Okay, and I'm going to say it out loud. And maybe you need to take both of your body as well and go outside and go for that 20-minute walk and pull out that verse and say that verse out loud. Yeah.

But do a mental reset as well. You know, we mentioned Jesus retreating. Yes. And I think more specifically to that, the fact that Jesus being a great example, the best example for us, demonstrating that balanced lifestyle, you know, that you got to certainly have time to feast, have time to do the work, in his case, healing the sick, the maim, the deaf, you know, and then confronting the religious zealots of the day that didn't have the right message. Right. But he demonstrated how to be active in all these fronts and still be healthy. And I believe that's called self-care and that's called, part of it is the time for rest. We don't live in a culture that promotes rest. And with rest comes renewal, comes renewal in my spirit, renewal in my body. So there's huge benefits to rest. Yeah. And I know for me, because I'm easily wound up. Okay, it's like, oh, okay, oh, we're just resting, right?

Where I feel like I should be doing something. How culturally do we undervalue rest? So we don't have a lot of models of it. Right. Right. And, you know, we employ, you know, 770 people here at Focus and I don't walk through the halls going, be restful, go take a nap, it's noon. I mean, it's just not what we do in the workplace either. Right. You know. But I have to have points of personal renewal in order to be really effective in the workplace as well.

So how do you get that rest? Again, this is a simple concept, but applying it can be difficult. So we always talk about, you know, give it a good eight to five. Sure. You know, work hard during the day.

You get eight hours of work, eight hours of family time, and eight hours of sleep. Is that a good formula? Yes. With some asterisks. Yes.

But there's some grace points. There's seasons where, like, I may have a deadline or I may have to do something in the evening. Okay. Yeah. But you won't find me doing that every evening. Okay. There's certain periods.

There's certain seasons. What if your spouse is saying to you, you say that, but that's not what I see. Well, I think I better listen. Yeah.

That'd be a good first step. But, I mean, I think some couples would say that. I mean, Jean has said that to me from time to time.

You know, you don't think you're working as hard as I think you actually are. Okay. Yeah. And it just arrests your attention. So part of being receptive to feedback is a sign of emotional health. So sometimes it's hard to hear. Sometimes I may not necessarily agree, but I do need to listen. And spouses are typically more knowledgeable about that than we are. I mean, really. Well, I've learned it goes a lot better if I listen to the feedback. Yeah.

And more times it is correct. Yeah. This is a self-look here. That's good. Right toward the end here.

Yes. Let's make sure people hear us. How do we get these margins in our life?

How do we concentrate? Do you use like a journal? Do you write on a three-by-five card how I'm going to find margin today? I do write. I'm old-fashioned. I actually write it down. I guess we could put it in our phones.

Whatever works for you. Yeah. I'm the guy that writes it down. I literally draw a line through things as I do them.

And it's hilarious. My wife, years and years ago, she called it an iceline pad. She gave me a pad.

It's sitting nearby. I put it in my – and it's a pad. And I have a pen. And I'm writing as things come to mind as a part of mental declutter. Yeah. I don't do that very well.

No, seriously, I'm jealous. Metaphorically. Because I've never been really a big pad-carrying person.

I try to hold it all in my head and then get to the desk at 4 o'clock and try to remember everything. It'd be far easier to do it that way. Well, but we all have our different ways of managing ideas. Right.

Because I'm noticing that I may get – and I want a place to put them down. Yeah. Yes.

And so there's – Dictating is probably another – my boys would do that on the phone. Sure. Just note to self. So we've got to remember that. This can be a part of the mental declutter.

Yeah. Remember with burnout, we procrastinate. We probably have a lot of clutter in our life.

It's not always papers. So look for different areas of potential clutter in your life. But burnout causes you to stop doing the good things. So what were the things that you stopped doing?

I stopped exercising when I was burned out. Mm-hmm. And it showed. Mm-hmm.

I stopped reading my Bible. Think of that. And it showed. Yeah.

And it showed. Yeah. So – but just look at the things that have slowly dropped by the wayside. Yeah. When you – at the end here, you know, we're right at the last minute. How the Lord sees us in that way. I mean, we're vessels that he created for his purpose. Yes. And when we're not mindful of these things, we are diminishing actually his capacity to work through us when we become incapacitated, right?

Right. Because we can't physically do things. We can't mentally be in touch with people around us. And I want you to have purpose and passion.

We want to have purpose and passion. But unbridled passion, which is what happened to me, unbridled led me on a journey that ended up in significant burnout. Physically, I really wasn't well.

Emotionally, I wasn't well. This is my confession. And so I have all the warning signs now because I know what I'm not ever going to go back to. Huh. That's good.

And I see the warning signs, or my wife does, and she'll say so. But I don't ever want to go back. I don't want to relearn that. Yeah. I think that's wise.

It was the dark days. Yeah. Totally. But get in touch with us.

Get a copy of Greg Jantz's great book, Beyond Burnout, Regain Your Passion and Energy. Yes. I think when you read the title, you're going, yeah, I need that. And it'd be a great starting point.

It's a quick read, but it's powerful. And it goes through several keys that you can begin to turn that burnout around and make the corrections you need to make. And that probably, from a human perspective, is always so difficult to change things. But to your point, that's a lesson you don't want to go back to. And I think for those that are living in it, you want to get to where Dr. Jantz is today.

And that is saying, I never want to go back there. And we won't do it perfectly, but we're going to keep growing and we're going to keep going forward. And we're going to live with that passion and purpose that God has given us. And we can do that without being burned out. Amen. So get ahold of us.

Get a copy. Send a gift of any amount, and we'll send it as our way of saying thank you for being part of the ministry and helping others. Yeah. You can donate today when you call 800, the letter A, and the word family.

Or you can donate and get the details when you click on the links in the show notes. And coming up next time, understanding how your childhood experiences will impact your marriage. Reactivity, you know, we think of our nervous system going into fight or flight. I had to realize, hey, like when I'm angry, like what's underneath there?

And usually there's an unmet need that you can link back to childhood. On behalf of the entire team, thanks for joining us for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. Your marriage can be redeemed, even if the fights seem constant, even if there's been an affair, even if you haven't felt close in years. No matter how deep the wounds are, you can take a step toward healing them with a hope restored marriage intensive. Our biblically based counseling will help you find the root of your problems and face challenges together. We'll talk with you, pray with you, and help you find out which program will work best. Call us at 1-866-875-2915.