At this time of year, I hear from coaches about all the activities that are going on with their program. I talked with one coach yesterday who just took over a program that has been down for awhile. He listed for me all of the projects that he needs to complete before the summer begins. Whew! He made me tired just thinking about it. It’s tough trying to resurrect a program that’s been down a while.
All of the stress can lead to fatigue. Fatigue leads to making poor decisions… and that’s when you get in trouble. When you are on “overload”, there are some things that you can do to unburden yourself.
Think about this: before a violin can produce music, stress must be put on the strings. But pull them too tight and they’ll snap. The same’s true of you. Enough stress gets the juices flowing and helps you do what needs to be done, but beyond that you snap. Someone quipped, “You know you’re on overload when you’ve no time to cook a TV dinner, the cat’s on tranquilizers and family reunions have to be mediated by law enforcement!” Seriously… before it gets to that point, do 2 things:
1- Ask for help: During Hurricane Katrina 8 dolphins were swept out of their aquarium into the sea. But, because they stayed together they were rescued. If one had tried to go it alone he’d have perished. When you’re alone too much you lose perspective. When you get isolated, you can be more easily influenced. It is my belief that God designed His family to stay connected. There’s even a verse in 1st Corinthians that says: “So that all the members care for each other” (1 Cor. 12:25).
2- Get real with God. Under stress, the surge of negative emotions can be overwhelming and unless you unburden your soul before God you’ll explode at the wrong people. The Book of Psalms addresses this in Psalm 55 where it says: “Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you.”
It’s no mere coincidence that many of the Psalms start out with the writer crying out to God for help and end up with him rejoicing because he vented his pent-up frustrations.
You can’t escape stress, but you can learn to cope with it by taking control of your life in small yet important ways.
