Finding Your Rhythm: The Biblical Alternative to Work-Life Balance
💡 Episode Summary
Are you tired of chasing the myth of "work-life balance"? In this game-changing episode, Jim Burgoon reveals why this popular concept is a perfectionist trap that leads to exhaustion, and offers a powerful, biblical alternative: living in your divine rhythm. Blending psychology and scripture, Jim explains how to shift from a life of anxious control to one of surrendered peace. This episode is a lifeline for any leader, entrepreneur, or creator who is ready to stop juggling and start living with purpose, presence, and a sustainable pace.
🧭 Key Takeaways
- Balance is a myth; rhythm is reality. Life happens in seasons, and trying to give equal weight to everything at all times leads to failure.
- Balance is about control; rhythm is about surrender. True peace comes from walking in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:25), not from managing every detail perfectly.
- A need for control is often a sign of an unhealed nervous system. Chasing balance can be a trauma response, an attempt to feel safe and worthy through productivity.
- Priorities drive productivity, not the other way around. When you focus on your God-given priorities for the season, the most important things get done.
- Jesus didn't live a balanced life; He lived a prioritized life. He modeled a divine rhythm, showing us how to sleep in the storm and move with purpose.
📖 Faith Connections
- Galatians 5:25: The call to "keep in step with the Spirit" is the foundation of a life in rhythm.
- Luke 10:40–42: The story of Martha and Mary illustrates the critical difference between anxious "doing" and peaceful "being."
- Genesis 1-2: The creation story reveals God's own pattern of purposeful work followed by intentional rest.
- Isaiah 26:3: "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you." Peace comes from focus on God, not from perfectly juggling life's demands.
💬 Favorite Quotes
- "Balance is a nice word for perfectionism, dressed up in productivity language."
- "You can sleep in chaos when you live under the divine rhythm."
- "The myth of balance is more about you, your ego, and your control, and not about what God wants to do in you and through you."
- "If we think everything is a non-negotiable, then nothing is a priority."
💭 Reflection Questions
- What are your 3–5 non-negotiables in this season of life and leadership?
- What can you pause without guilt for the next 30 days?
- What distractions are keeping you from your mission—and how can you remove them?
✝️ Leadership Insight
The modern leadership mantra is to "hustle" and "optimize." But the Kingdom model is counter-cultural: presence over productivity. As a leader, your greatest asset isn't your ability to manage a schedule, but your ability to maintain your connection to the heartbeat of God. A leader in rhythm can discern the right "yes" and the right "no," and can lead their team from a place of overflow, not from the dregs of their own energy. This is the only path to sustainable, impactful leadership.
⚙️ Episode Connections
- Next Episode: Recognizing and Recovering from Burnout — Finding Rest in God’s Presence.
- www.leadwithjim.com/podcast
Resources
- Join the Newsletter: www.leadwithjim.com/nl
- Full Episode Show Notes & Transcript: www.leadwithjim.com/podcast
Connect with Jim
- 🌐 Website: www.leadwithjim.com
- 🎙️ Ask a Question: leadwithjim.com/ask
- 📱 Instagram: @leadwithjim
- ▶️ YouTube: Lead with Jim
- Facebook: @leadwithjim
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Transcript
People love talking about balance, but I'm here to tell you balance is a myth.
Speaker B:Break free from the burnout.
Speaker B:Find your true north.
Speaker B:With your guy Jim Burgoon stepping forward, this is the unshakable life.
Speaker A:Hey, friend, welcome back to the show.
Speaker A:You know, we all go after this coveted balance, this work life balance, this ministry life balance, because we want to feel like our life is meaningful and that we have this perfect balance between what we do and what God's called us to and the life we want to enjoy.
Speaker A:But here's the truth.
Speaker A:It's a myth.
Speaker A:Balance is a nice word for dressed up in productivity, language.
Speaker A:And what it's doing, it's keeping you exhausted.
Speaker A:Today, I want to shift from the holy grail of balance and move it into the word rhythm.
Speaker A:So let's break down the myth of balance.
Speaker A:Just for funds, let's say that everything gets equal weight.
Speaker A:Physical, 25%, spiritual, 25%.
Speaker A:Family, 25%.
Speaker A:Work, 25%.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:But everyone who's ever lived knows that this doesn't actually work out, because if you have small kids, there's a lot of time your kids are going to need more of you than you can give to your job, or your kids are going to need more of you than you can give to your church.
Speaker A:So, right.
Speaker A:There is already a hole in this idea that we need to balance everything.
Speaker A:And when we lean into this idea of balance, what we're saying or what we're ignoring is the ebbs and flows of life.
Speaker A:Like seasons change.
Speaker A:There are seasons where your.
Speaker A:Your church or your ministry or your job or your entrepreneurial journey will demand more of you.
Speaker A:And then there's season where your marriage is going to need more of you.
Speaker A:And then there's seasons where your kids are going to need more of you, like when they're really small versus when they're young adults.
Speaker A:And the truth about balance.
Speaker A:Balance is about control.
Speaker A:It's rhythm is about surrender.
Speaker A:And that's a key because in psychology, they call it adaptive regulation.
Speaker A:And it's the ability to adjust and shift priorities based on your internal or external environment.
Speaker A:And spiritually, that's what it means.
Speaker A:To walk in step with the Spirit is to learn to be in rhythm with the Spirit.
Speaker A:It's what Galatians 5.
Speaker A:25 says.
Speaker A:It says, since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit, where we have to move from control and move into rhythm.
Speaker A:We have to move from needing to always make sure everything is according to the perfectionist that we deal with, and then move into we have our being, our breath in Christ, and because of that, we just live season, the season, and whatever the season demands, we give it, we show up, we show out, but we're living in the rhythm of it.
Speaker A:But we can lose the idea of that we need control and rest in the idea that God is already in the situation and we just have to give 100% to whatever we're called to be in that situation.
Speaker A:So what does it mean, like finding your rhythm?
Speaker A:What does that really look like?
Speaker A:It comes down to saying yes and no and reflecting what God's heart is in that and not always saying yes to everything and not always saying no to everything, but letting your yes be yes and your no be no.
Speaker A:And it really boils back to stop fighting for approval, stop fighting for performance, and move into purpose.
Speaker A:And so if we have our schedules and our yeses and all these things that we're doing, we're living intentional lives on purpose, for purpose in the season that that purpose needs us for.
Speaker A:And we've got to understand that, like, if we think about this biblically, sometimes rhythm, the divine rhythm, the rhythm that Christ gives us is the undercurrent of our day.
Speaker A:Some days we're in the mornings, we're fighting like David down in the Battle of Goliath.
Speaker A:And maybe in the afternoon, we're like Elijah who's sitting by the brook.
Speaker A:What's really about a rhythm of.
Speaker A:Because if you think about it, even your heartbeat has a specific rhythm.
Speaker A:And if the rhythm is thrown off, then they call that a problem, right?
Speaker A:So if we understand that even in the rhythm of a heartbeat, our life could exist, shouldn't the external life exist similarly?
Speaker A:Like, there should be a heartbeat that we live by, that is, that is dominated by our values, that's dominated by the priorities God has placed in our life and not dominated by the trauma that we're still trying to overcome.
Speaker A:And I find that the more that we have a need for control, the more that we are anxious or, you know, we get anxiety over the need that we have to have balance.
Speaker A:We have to do all right, we have to do this, we have to do that.
Speaker A:It's just an indicator or data that says our nervous system isn't healed, that it's.
Speaker A:It's us trying to control a situation to make us feel safe, to make us feel productive, to make us feel like we have work instead of pulling back and understanding that the rhythm of God is not about you being productive, but about you being.
Speaker A:It's not about you showing up and doing all the things, but about you showing up and being enough.
Speaker A:And that when you team up with the other ones that God puts in your life, that's great and beautiful things happen.
Speaker A:It's about those things and not about what culture teaches us.
Speaker A:In that you have to be the good mom, you have to be the good husband, you have to be the great minister, you have to be a great orator, you have to be a great podcaster.
Speaker A:All of that is secondary, consequential to being human first, but also being a human under the direct God's divine direction and his identity.
Speaker A:And out of that flows everything else.
Speaker A:And if we're going to get into the heartbeat of life, we got to connect to the heartbeat of God.
Speaker A:And when we're connected to that heartbeat, we walk and we breathe and we live in rhythm.
Speaker A:What does it look like to be out of rhythm?
Speaker A:And I think the first and the best biblical example is Martha.
Speaker A:Now, Martha didn't do anything truly wrong.
Speaker A:It was the culture to make sure that she had to have dinner.
Speaker A:She had to make sure she was a good host.
Speaker A:That was the Jewish culture of the time.
Speaker A:But we see Martha and Mary there.
Speaker A:Mary rested and just was like there, like she was being.
Speaker A:She was at the foot of Jesus while Martha was doing all the responsibilities.
Speaker A:She was what psychology calls over functioning because you have a very important person in the room and you want to make everything perfect.
Speaker A:You want to make sure everything's clean and everything's up to snuff and all those things.
Speaker A:And she was over functioning to the point where she asked Jesus could she correct Mary for sitting at his feet?
Speaker A:And he didn't chide her, he didn't shame her.
Speaker A:He didn't talk down to her.
Speaker A:He just said, this is the more preferred thing, is to be first before you do.
Speaker A:Like he didn't tell her to.
Speaker A:That's not right.
Speaker A:No, he knew the culture.
Speaker A:He.
Speaker A:He was basically pointing out, hey, let's focus on being at my feet first before we do stuff in the kitchen.
Speaker A:Let's focus at being and finding the rhythm that is in my be before you find the rhythm in your daily life.
Speaker A:That's what that story really shows us.
Speaker A:And we have to understand that many of us are more Martha's than we're ever Mary's.
Speaker A:And I think that's why a lot of times we struggle with the need for control, the need for balance, is because we're out of rhythm.
Speaker A:We would rather do and people please and over function because of our trauma and our frayed nerves and Our nervous system, instead of saying, hold on, wait a second, let me sit at the feet of Jesus, find the marching orders, find the rhythm, and then go out and do the thing.
Speaker A:And this is where the trauma becomes a challenge, because we have to heal it with Jesus.
Speaker A:We have to heal it and retrain the nervous system to say it's safe to sit at the feet of Jesus and understand that everything else will get done because we live at a divine rhythm, not a divine hustle.
Speaker A:We even see the divine rhythm in the creation story in Genesis, like, he worked six days, he rested one.
Speaker A:Like there's a rhythm to that.
Speaker A:And each day had a specific task, a specific purpose.
Speaker A:And the first one was built so that the second one could be built and the second one couldn't be built unless the first one was built.
Speaker A:And there was this structure and there was this rhythm to it.
Speaker A:And he shows us this and tells us, even in your work, to rest.
Speaker A:And so we have to make sure that we balance it.
Speaker A:Like even sa.
Speaker A:You know, saba or Sabbath means to cease to.
Speaker A:To celebrate.
Speaker A:Because there has to be times where we celebrate what we're doing and not just constantly being pulled down into and sucked into the reality of it.
Speaker A:Like, we overdo and we over function until we're burnt out.
Speaker A:And I do have an episode on Burnout coming out next week, so you may want to tune in for that one to dive deeper into the burnout story.
Speaker A:But here's what is really powerful with this.
Speaker A:Even your rest.
Speaker A:God is still at work.
Speaker A:Mary rested at Jesus's feet.
Speaker A:God was still working in our heart.
Speaker A:And we see this later in scripture with them.
Speaker A:You know, Martha worked, and even later in scripture with a conversation, she had a little bit different understanding because she didn't have the revelation Mary got because Martha did and was distracted.
Speaker A: Luke: Speaker A:And sometimes we get so distracted trying to find balance.
Speaker A:And you know, how, again, we go back to the original thing.
Speaker A:How do I focus on Jesus while still doing the thing?
Speaker A:And then I want to sit at his feet, but I have to do dinner and I have to do this.
Speaker A:The first thing, the focused thing, the intentional thing, is sit at the feet of Jesus, find your rhythm for the day, and then go and live the rhythm.
Speaker A:Lose the sense of control, live in the surrender of it, and you find that your life will.
Speaker A:Will just start to increase and you'll find more joy.
Speaker A:So what's the.
Speaker A:What's the.
Speaker A:What's the skinny on it?
Speaker A:You know, we used to say, what's the skinny?
Speaker A:What's on the down low?
Speaker A:So when we get back to it, we understand that rhythm is about priorities.
Speaker A:Balance is about productivity.
Speaker A:Productivity and accomplishment.
Speaker A:Rhythm is about priorities because when you put your priorities first, productivity comes after.
Speaker A:When you put your priorities first, everything gets done.
Speaker A:That's a priority.
Speaker A:Everything that doesn't get done wasn't the priority, which means it wasn't that important to begin with.
Speaker A:And I think that we get into this everything has to be done mentality because we have this high expectation on ourselves because if we don't, then our worth is somehow less.
Speaker A:But when we realize that our worth is never less than and that if we live out our priorities, our values before the Lord Jesus Christ in this world world, then here's the deal.
Speaker A:You will always have infinite worth and your priorities will get done.
Speaker A:Everything else can be delegated.
Speaker A:I mean, think about it.
Speaker A:Jesus didn't have a balanced life.
Speaker A:I mean he had a prioritized life.
Speaker A:He had what he had a life that said, that literally lived on purpose.
Speaker A:Like when he said I have to go through Samaria when the average cultural Jewish thing was to go around Samaria, he's like, no, I gotta go through.
Speaker A:And you know, he lived at this place of utmost priority that he heard and he listened to what the Father said and he went and did it.
Speaker A:He lived in a rhythm.
Speaker A:And there were times where in the midst of some chaos like the storm, Jesus was sleeping in the boat.
Speaker A:They had to wake the dude up to stop the storm.
Speaker A:Like that's rhythm, guys.
Speaker A:You can sleep in chaos when you live under the divine rhythm because you're trusting in God and you're trusting in what God does in your life.
Speaker A:And you realize that the myth of balance is more about you, your ego and your control and not about what God wants to do in you and through you.
Speaker A:So let me just leave it with this.
Speaker A:I'm going to ask you three questions.
Speaker A:The first question is what are your non negotiables for this season?
Speaker A:Now every season changes.
Speaker A:These are not to be written in pen.
Speaker A:These are be written in pencil.
Speaker A:So I want you to journal these and you can even shoot me at jim@leadwithjim.com.
Speaker A:let me hear some of your answers.
Speaker A:So what is your non negotiables?
Speaker A:What are your top priorities?
Speaker A:Give like three to five.
Speaker A:Don't give like 15.
Speaker A:Give three to five.
Speaker A:Okay, then you're going to ask yourself of all the things you do, what can wait?
Speaker A:What can take a pause.
Speaker A:Pausing for us feels unsafe.
Speaker A:Pausing feels icky.
Speaker A:But what can take a pause?
Speaker A:Like what can you say?
Speaker A:This can take a pause.
Speaker A:Don't give any justifications, don't give any excuses, just give first instinct.
Speaker A:This can be paused.
Speaker A:There are some things that can't, but what can be?
Speaker A:And the last question is, what's distracting you from your mission?
Speaker A:If it's distracting you from your mission and your purpose, then that's got to go first.
Speaker A:That's not for you.
Speaker A:That's a distraction.
Speaker A:Distractions go away.
Speaker A:But we have to evaluate these things.
Speaker A:So make sure you ask these three questions, journal them down.
Speaker A:You can shoot me an email if you want to hear some feedback on some of them.
Speaker A:But we're looking for rhythm.
Speaker A:Distractions break rhythm.
Speaker A:What if we do everything?
Speaker A:Then we accomplish nothing and the reality comes back to if we think everything is a non negotiable, then nothing is a priority.
Speaker A:So psychologically, clarity reduces anxiety.
Speaker A:Spiritually, clarity brings peace.
Speaker A:So these are what these questions are for.
Speaker A:This is why we're going to move from the myth of balance into the rhythm of God.
Speaker A:And Isaiah 6:3 says this, you keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed in you.
Speaker A:Peace comes from focus, not from juggling everything perfectly.
Speaker A:So, my friend, it may be time for you to stop striving to balance everything.
Speaker A:It's time for you to figure out your priorities and do those first.
Speaker A:So this is your call out and your encouragement to find the rhythm that God has for you.
Speaker A:Your rhythm is not my rhythm.
Speaker A:My rhythm is not yours.
Speaker A:So let's find the rhythm God has for us and, and then let's make sure and when we find that rhythm, that we live it out on purpose, intentionally for purpose.
Speaker A:And with that being said, take some time this week to pray and ask God to give you some, some clarity and some revelation on those questions.
Speaker A:Ask him to help you feel the heartbeat of God.
Speaker A:Lord, let me feel your heartbeat so that I can see where I'm going.
Speaker A:And with all of that, just remember that there are going to be changes in your life.
Speaker A:Embrace the change.
Speaker A:Be grateful for the change.
Speaker A:Because when you move from control to surrender, you have to change things.
Speaker A:And part of that change is changing how much you trust.
Speaker A:And if we put out more of our trust in God, then we're putting it in the right place so that the rhythm of God will come through us and that we will do what we were called to do.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And with that being said, I'll see you on the next episode.
Speaker A:And remember, next week we're going to hit on burnout.
Speaker A:Thank you for spending this time with me on the Unshakable Life podcast.
Speaker A:My prayer is that today's conversation helps you to build resilience, reclaim peace and step with courage into your God given calling.
Speaker A:If this episode has encouraged you, challenged you or impacted you in any way, could you do me a favor?
Speaker A:Share it with a friend, leave a review and hit the follow so you don't miss what's next.
Speaker A:And if you want more tools and encouragement for your journey, head over to leadwithjim.com you'll find resources to help you grow as a healthy, authentic Christian leader, entrepreneur and creator.
Speaker A:And until next time, remember your foundation is Christ, your calling is unshakable and your life can make eternal impact.
Speaker B:This is the Unshakable Life Mindset.
Speaker B:Resilience Action no Strive.
Speaker B:Break free from the burnout.
Speaker B:Find your true north with your guy Jim Burgoon stepping forward.
Speaker B:This is the Unshakable Life.
