I just finished a huge project. One that I do every year, and except for a few weeks in December and early January, I work on it all year long. It’s all-encompassing and exhausting, but totally worth the effort, because it uses every one of my gifts and talents, it fulfills the mission for which I believe I was born, and I absolutely love doing it. However, when it’s over each year, I’m always glad to see it finish. It’s during this brief period in which I get a chance to breath, reconnect with my wife, and start dreaming about the next year’s project. Dreaming – one of my favorite activities.
In Steve Donahue’s great book Shifting Sands, he talks about the need to do the very thing I’m doing right now. He refers to it as “stopping at every oasis.” Using the desert as his example of life filled with uncertainty, hard work, change, and forced introspection, Donahue states, “It takes four times as long to recover from burnout as it does to prevent it.” This is so very true. I have found how important it has become for me to make sure that at the end of major projects like the one I just completed, I must slow my pace, even ever so slightly, so that I can catch my breath and remain valuable to the people I serve long term. If I don’t, I will suffer burn-out and lose the leadership momentum which I strive to build.
Donahue speaks of how an oasis can come in many forms. For me, sometimes I need a day of silence and solitude, sometimes I need a day with my wife and children, sometimes I need to make a hundred pies, or plant some flowers. Your oasis could be a variety of things as are mine. Donahue helps when he states, “One way to decide what type of oasis you require is to water what’s dry.” That is so simple, but so helpful. On those days where I feel a touch of burn-out coming on, I look around and identify what it is in my life that needs watering. You can too.
So, from one leader to another, and from one person who has the tendency to work in an always-over-the-top fashion, I recommend that you find your oasis from time to time, and make sure you spend a night there.
Lead well.