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Why You May Be Exhausted


girl lying down in grass

"We will never find our purpose in exhaustion.” – Maria Goff, Love Lives Here

My friend sent me this quote tonight.

It’s perfection.

If I’ve learned anything about myself in my mere 32 years, it’s that whatever I do has to have a sense of purpose. And, well, trying to live a purpose-filled life can be exhausting if we aren't careful.

Exhaustion strips my sense of purpose and skews my priorities quicker than my three-year-old can meltdown in Toys ‘R Us. When I become exhausted, these top priorities of mine suffer the most:

  • My relationship with God

  • My relationship with Scott

  • My relationship with my kids

  • My call to write

When I begin to feel exhausted, I can usually trace it back to my people-pleasing, perfection, or control issues. Maybe one, or all, of these is the reason for your exhaustion too.

3 Ways to Become Exhausted

1. People-Pleasing

I’ve been guilty of doing things because another human being thinks that I should. Then, I monitor whether I was successful by that person's satisfaction. Before I know it, it warps my mind into pleasing that person rather than God.

Happiness is a feeling that is ever changing. Chasing it in others will leave us weary, and striving to never let others down is humanly impossible.

It’s hard to say "no" and possibly let others down, but I'm learning that I don't always see the bigger picture.

Resisting people-pleasing frees me to rest for what God does have for me.

2. Perfection

I was driving the other day and those exhausting thoughts starting swirling in my mind that I’ve worked so hard to rid myself of. I started listing reasons why I shouldn’t have agreed to write a blog post for another website if it wasn’t going to be done perfectly. I thought, “I need to find a way to take this over now.”

Then, I had another thought, "What if through imperfections I am able to show others Jesus?"