A Case for Rest.

I’ve been tired.

I went from high school, to college, to dating my future spouse, to working 3 part time jobs, to working a full time job, to getting married, to building a home, and facing over $300,000 in debt by the time I was 21 years old.

We had a baby, lost our jobs, went through an epic financial meltdown, fought off bankruptcy and foreclosure, dug our way out of a huge hole financially, had another baby, built a business doing work we love, sold a house and bought a new one, and this week it’s our 10 year anniversary. It’s been a busy decade.

Your life maybe hasn’t been quite as extreme, but we’ve all definitely been busy.

And busy leads to tired, tired leads to stress, and stress leads to burnout…. and y’all I love the work that I get to do. I don’t want to burnout.

So about 6 months ago I realized that I could press pause, take care of me and my family, and come back to press play when the time felt right. I could come back to writing and creating new content. I could come back to the big business plans and scaling a company and hiring employees and creating products and changing my little corner of the world.

But I can’t do that stuff if I’m burnt out. I can’t do that stuff if my family isn’t with me. I can’t do that stuff and not have friends.

There are definitely seasons of life that require extra hustle and working multiple jobs and sacrifice and those seasons are important. Those seasons allow you greater seasons of rest and opportunity in the near future. So if you’re in one of those hustle seasons, then hustle. Go kill it. I promise it’s worth it.

But if you’re on the edge of burnout… if you’ve missed your kids recital or play or baseball game on multiple occasions… if you haven’t had a date with your spouse recently… if you haven’t had a guys night in months…. if you’re just tired of working so darn hard…

…pressing pause doesn’t make you a failure. It positions you for greater adventure.