I don’t know about you, but I often experience discouragement when I am tired.  Like you, I make thousands of decisions each week.  Those decision accumulate and slowly take energy away from me.   If I am not careful, I get fearful and lose confidence.

When I am tired, I am cranky.  I lose the ‘want to’ to make more decisions.  When I am tired, I lose sight of truth. I experience apathy, and every perceived piece of bad news grinds me down.  I experience anxiety, and my emotions play tricks on me.  I begin to believe that things are worse off than they really are.  Do you ever feel that way?

What circumstances tend to cause you anxiety or fear as a leader? Perhaps in your personal life you have experienced broken and strained relationships recently.  Sometimes it is family relationships that can cause us anxiety and layers of stress.

Decision fatigue can set in when you are faced with hundreds of decisions each week. The fatigue causes stress, apathy, and often times fear. If we are not careful, the fear and anxiety can paralyze us, and we become just a little blinded to our reality.

Whatever your circumstances might be right now, it is possible to demonstrate faith in our fatigue.  When we are tired, exhausted, and run down we get disoriented.  We get tired of making decisions.  We sometimes lose our inner compass. How can we regain perspective and recoup energy for future decisions?  Here are some thoughts that help me.  Hopefully they help you.

Trust that God is in the details of our life. 

Oftentimes, we go through life thinking that God is only involved with the “big” things or events in our life, like moving for a new job or the birth of a child or the first date. The reality is, God knows everything about you and he is in each detail of your life. He knows what you are dealing with right now. More importantly, each detail has great purpose.

Matthew 6:25-27

25 Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

It is in this passage that Jesus reminds us that He cares about even the littlest details that concern us. Trust that God has you right where He wants you today.

Choose to stand firm when you are overwhelmed and facing fear.

No matter what you and I face and no matter what we go through either now or in the future, the perspective is still the same.

1 Corinthians 15:58

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you.

Don’t let fear move your faith, but rather allow your faith to be stronger than your fears.  You have to believe that He has led you up to this point. As you grow in your relationship with him, so will your faith. Take the step of faith to stand firm where He has you right now.  You are human.

It is normal to get overwhelmed.  Take time to understand your emotions and the thoughts that they are anchored to.   Don’t run, stand firm.

Focus on God’s power and not your lack of power.

This is a hard one, especially if you struggle with control. It’s even harder when we are so tired of making so many decisions. When we are afraid, we are sober to the reality that we are in need. We are out of power. We can’t change things. This is a great place for us to pause and take a reality check.

Whatever our circumstances may be, we have the “opportunity” to see what God may be doing and also to act in faith.

Do you believe that God is trustworthy? Or do you have more faith in yourself? When we place our focus on God’s power, we don’t have to fear.

James 1:2-8


2 Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. 3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing

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God has placed you in the leadership role that you are in today. You may be a leader of an organization or of your home. Regardless, I want to encourage you to rest in Him and believe that He is at work in the details of your life.

May God give us the grace to endure the pressures of life and submit our heart to Him.  Faith in the right place brings tremendous hope and clarity.   You may be tired, but He is not.  Stand Firm.

It’s my heart and passion to help leaders live out their calling and thrive.  I want to be one of those leaders, too. I believe that your best days are before you.  We all need a little coaching, encouragement, wisdom, and help.  We can’t accomplish our goals in isolation or always on our own.  We need each other.  It’s time to thrive.  Let’s do it together.  You are not alone.  Click here to set up a Discovery Coaching call.       

-Rick