Remember JOY

When a person sprains his ankle or breaks her leg, it’s obvious an injury occurred due to a large amount of stress. However, when a person suffers internally, the injury is not as obvious. Sometimes small doses of stress over a period of time may become overwhelming to the point a person may begin to feel mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally exhausted. We call this “burnout,” and for coaches it can be our strongest personal opponent. Identifying the triggers of burnout is important so we can strategize how to fight against it. 

Coming to Jesus and following His pace might not come naturally, especially when the frustration of burnout brings unhappiness. How do we follow His pace? What does that even look like?

Let’s look a little closer at what we can do to fill our physical, emotional and spiritual buckets:

Remember JOY: Jesus, Others, You

If you have lost your joy of coaching, remember your “why.” One of my favorite football coaches often reminded his team that JOY stands for “Jesus, Others and You.” First, spend time with Jesus, finding time each day to spend in God’s Word. Your relationship with Him is priority. Even the best coaches need to spend time with the Greatest Coach, and the more we time spent together, the more our growth in God can spill into all areas of life.

Recovery Time

If you are exhausted, give yourself recovery time. Rest comes from getting adequate sleep, nutrition and hydration. But there’s a deeper recovery time we need to schedule into our routine to make sure we are spiritually rested. True rest comes from spending time in God’s Word, going to church, praying and spending time with believers who will love, pray for and support you and your family through the hard seasons.

Boundaries

Setting boundaries and establishing expectations for your players from the beginning of the season helps them to know where the lines are for them to work hard to reach and for them to stay within. Setting boundaries for yourself helps you to get home at a decent time and not take on extra responsibilities you can’t handle during the season. Boundaries set ahead of time in love bring respect not rebellion. 

God comes to strengthen us and calls us to follow His pace so we may avoid all kinds of burnout and instead coach from His overflow.