Living an Integrated Life: The Key to Avoiding Burnout for Bivocational Leaders
Can you maintain a thriving professional career while pursuing your spiritual calling without burning out? The answer is yes, and it starts with understanding a fundamental truth: burnout is not just a reality—it's also a perception.
As bivocational leaders, we often face a unique challenge: how to live an integrated life while managing high levels of responsibility in two seemingly separate domains. The key lies not in better time management or productivity hacks, but in transforming how we view our dual roles.
The Perception of Burnout
Burnout is not just a reality, it’s also a perception. Two people can face identical circumstances—same hours, same demands, same challenges—yet one burns out while the other thrives. The difference isn't in what they're doing; it's in how they're seeing their situation and, more importantly, who they're being in that situation.
Burnout isn't simply the result of doing too much. Instead, it often stems from being out of alignment with who you're meant to be. Rather than asking, "What should I do to fix this?" the more powerful question becomes, "Who am I being that's leading to this experience?"
The Integration of Calling and Career
As a bivocational leader, you're not just managing a career—you're stewarding a calling. Your professional work and spiritual mission aren't competing forces; they are meant to complement each other. Too often, we fall into the trap of seeing them as opposing forces, thinking that focusing on one means neglecting the other.
This mindset creates an exhausting tug-of-war, like driving with one foot on the gas and the other on the brake. Eventually, this internal conflict leads to burnout. However, when your calling and career work in harmony, your work becomes more than just a job. It transforms into an extension of your faith. Your faith then drives your commitment to excellence which fuels your work.
The Being-Doing-Having Framework
To shift from competition to alignment, we need to understand the relationship between being, doing, and having:
Being: This encompasses your identity, core values, and sense of purpose. As a bivocational leader, it means embracing that you are both a spiritual leader and a professional—not as separate roles, but as integral parts of your whole identity.
Doing: When you're clear on who you're being, your actions naturally follow. Seeing yourself as someone living out their calling in every area of life leads to authentic expression through your actions.
Having: When your being and doing align, the results you desire naturally follow.
Practical Strategies for Avoiding Burnout
The Being-Doing-Having framework helps you to understand alignment conceptually. Here are five practical strategies to help you avoid burnout.
1. Identify and Remove Your CCP (Competing Calling Philosophy)
Your professional work and spiritual calling may be in two different areas. Sometimes, you may subconsciously think they are in competition. This can promote burnout. Examine whether you subconsciously view your work life and spiritual calling as competitors. Remember, as a bivocational leader, you're called to operate at high levels in both aspects. They can and should complement each other. If you identify a CCP, work to remove it.
2. Create Integrated Disciplines
For bivocational leaders, integrated disciplines are intentional practices that bridge the gap between professional work and spiritual calling. Rather than treating these areas as separate domains requiring different parts of ourselves, these disciplines help us identify and strengthen the natural connections between them. Think of how leadership skills developed in your professional role can enhance your effectiveness in spiritual service, or how the emotional intelligence cultivated through your spiritual practice improves your workplace relationships.
When we find ways to nurture both our career and our calling at the same time, we create a natural flow between our roles. When we are in the flow, we feel less stressed and less emotionally drained.
Reflect on how your career and calling intersect. Ask yourself:
How does my work serve my spiritual mission?
How does my mission inform my approach to work? Develop daily practices that reinforce the integration of both roles.
3. Define Your Impact
Your Bivocational Impact statement helps you define whether or not you are making progress towards your spiritual calling. This is a crucial component to address burnout. If you can't judge your progress, you invite frustration and burnout. Define your impact based on who it is you want to reach, the purpose of your impact, and what it will mean to you when you achieve it:
Who you want to reach
The purpose of your impact
What achievement looks like
4. Embrace Natural Rhythms
This tip is really targeted toward your professional life. To avoid burnout, lean into breaks that come to you so you can focus your perception. There are natural rhythms in your work. If you work in Agile, the user stories in your sprints create a natural rhythm to focus your mind. If your work is more project-based then the months represent time periods where you can direct your life. And if you are sales, then obviously, the quarter is driving your focus. Lean into these times to make decisions about when to focus and when to rest.
5. Connect with Like-minded Leaders
Build relationships with others who understand the unique challenges of bivocational leadership. Share experiences, celebrate victories, and support each other through challenges.
Living in Alignment
Burnout isn’t inevitable for bivocational leaders. By integrating your roles rather than compartmentalizing them, you naturally protect yourself from feeling overwhelmed. Balance is a daily practice of making aligned choices.
As a bivocational leader, your work and calling complement each other. Embrace the truth that your roles can work together in harmony. When you adopt this perspective, you'll do more than avoid burnout. You will thrive in both your career and calling.
To get coached on this topic, book a session with me.
For more on this, watch my video on burnout.
