Leading on Empty: Showing Up on Low-Energy Days
Episode Summary
On the days when your mind is foggy, your body is tired, and your energy runs thin, leadership feels heavier than usual. In this honest, unpolished, and deeply human episode, Jim speaks from a place of real exhaustion to answer a question every faith-driven creator and leader faces: What do you do when your capacity is low, but responsibilities remain?
If you're navigating chronic illness, mental fatigue, autoimmune flare days, or simply the weight of life, this conversation will steady your spirit. Jim unpacks the cultural pressure to be “always on,” the internal guilt that rises when your body shuts down, and the spiritual discipline of learning to rest from God rather than working for rest.
Through Scripture, lived experience, and pastoral insight, this episode helps you see low-energy days not as failures, but as sacred opportunities to practice presence, stewardship, and honest dependence on the Holy Spirit.
This is a grounding conversation for leaders who don’t need inspiration—they need permission to be human while remaining faithful.
Key Takeaways
Your Body Is Not the Enemy
Learning to steward your body—especially on flare days or low mental health days—is part of your leadership, not a distraction from it.
Rest Is Not a Reward
Scripture teaches us to work from rest, not toward it. Rest is a gift, not something you earn through productivity.
Trauma Shapes Our Relationship With Rest
Many leaders resist rest because early experiences linked stillness to judgment, punishment, or shame. Healing begins with naming that truth.
Leadership Happens in the Middle, Not the Mountaintop
True growth is formed in ordinary days, not peak inspiration. Steady obedience builds strength long before visibility arrives.
Faithfulness > Visibility
Your quiet, imperfect obedience means more than public impact. Influence is shaped in unseen places.
God Meets You in Your Limitations
Your weakness does not disqualify you from God’s presence or calling. It often becomes the very place where dependence deepens.
Small Acts of Faith Carry Real Weight
On low-capacity days, the most powerful thing you can offer is the simple, honest “yes” you have right now.
Favorite Quotes
- “You don’t have to be inspirational to be faithful.”
- “We keep trying to earn rest, when rest was God’s gift in the first place.”
- “Leadership is shaped in ordinary moments, not just inspired ones.”
- “Your tired ‘yes’ may carry more weight than your strongest declaration.”
- “Faith doesn’t require fanfare. It requires presence.”
- “Your body is a temple. Stewardship begins with honesty about your limits.”
- “God’s power is made perfect in the places you feel least capable.”
Scripture References
- Genesis 2:2–3 — God’s rest as a gift for His people
- Matthew 11:28 — “Come to Me, all who are weary…”
- 2 Corinthians 12:9 — “My power is made perfect in weakness.”
- 1 Kings 19 — Elijah’s exhaustion and God’s gentle care
- Luke 16:10 — Faithful in little, faithful in much
- Psalm 23 — “He makes me lie down in green pastures”
Action Steps & Reflection Questions
1. What is one thing I can do at 30% today?
Choose an achievable, realistic action that honors your body and your calling.
2. What does obedience look like right now, not ideally?
Ask the Holy Spirit: What is mine to carry today… and what is not?
3. What small act of faith can I offer in the next five minutes?
A breath prayer, a simple note of encouragement, a moment of honesty before God.
4. Where have I confused productivity with worth?
Reflect on where cultural pressure has shaped your inner critic.
5. How can I invite rest into my day as a spiritual practice?
Rest is part of discipleship, not an escape from responsibility.
Resources
Download Jim’s 100 Breath Prayers Guide: www.leadwithjim.com/prayer
Join the Newsletter: www.leadwithjim.com/nl
Full Episode Transcript & Notes: 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
Support & Engage with the Show
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✅ For more faith-driven leadership content, visit leadwithjim.com.
Thanks for listening!
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Transcript
What do you do when you are running out of energy, but yet you still have so much more to do?
Speaker B:This is the Unshakable Life mindset.
Speaker B:Resilience, action.
Speaker B:No strife.
Speaker B:Break free from the burnout.
Speaker B:Find your true north with your God.
Speaker B:Jim Burgoon stepping forward.
Speaker A:Hey, friends.
Speaker A:Welcome to the Unshakable Life podcast.
Speaker A:Today, we're gonna unlock an intimate conversation, some real talk about what do we do when we feel drained, what do we do when we know we have more left to do, but our bodies are just not willing or wanting to do those things.
Speaker A:And I think this is going to be a conversation that you and I need to really talk about.
Speaker A:Because if you're anything like me, I deal with some autoimmune challenges with some chronic pain issues.
Speaker A:And because of that, I have low days.
Speaker A:I have days where I feel in pain, but then I have days where I feel okay, but then I end up doing way too much, and it push.
Speaker A:Pushes me into a flare.
Speaker A:And so one of those days was today.
Speaker A:And I'm recording this on today for.
Speaker A:For a purpose Today.
Speaker A:I ended up doing three interviews, which you'll hear later after they're edited and put up on the show.
Speaker A:And then I went in and worked in some.
Speaker A:Some personal stuff on chat, GPT and just different things.
Speaker A:And then I went on a virtual summit.
Speaker A:And throughout the day, my energy levels were waning.
Speaker A:It was a higher day.
Speaker A:It was an okay day.
Speaker A:I wasn't as fatigued as I normally am, and I was like, doing all this stuff.
Speaker A:And then I got to the point where my body and energy was just done.
Speaker A:It's done for the day.
Speaker A:So even sitting here, it's a challenge with the energy.
Speaker A:But I feel like this is a conversation that needs to happen at this point to just have some real talk, because I want to encourage you and I want to help you through some of the shame and guilt that you keep throwing on yourself.
Speaker A:That I keep throwing on myself at times, wanting to show up when there are days where your capacity is just low, where we should learn to rest.
Speaker A:But we start to press.
Speaker A:And I think that's the biggest challenge you and I face is this constant need to go, go, go, finish, do.
Speaker A:Because we're going to disappoint people and then we shame ourselves.
Speaker A:But then it really begs the question, who are we trying to impress?
Speaker A:And why do we keep getting in these cycles of hustle and these cycles of just idolizing work when if you're a Christian, then.
Speaker A:And the Bible talks about us working and fighting From a place of rest, not for rest.
Speaker A:You know, we get scriptures like on the seventh day, Jesus rested.
Speaker A:It's Jesus, you know, or not Jesus, but God rested.
Speaker A:And then in the New Testament we get Jesus saying, come all ye who are heavy burden, I shall give you rest.
Speaker A:And there's a point in our lives where we have to realize that rest is not something we work for.
Speaker A:Rest is not a reward.
Speaker A:Rest is not something that we're given because we've done enough.
Speaker A:And I'll get into it a little bit because we can't even define enough.
Speaker A:But rest is something God has given us and it's our privilege, it's our right.
Speaker A:It's the thing that God says, I've invited you into the rest of God.
Speaker A:And it's from that place you will do everything.
Speaker A:And in order to receive that rest, you've got to, number one, learn to receive.
Speaker A:And I think that's where you and I have a challenge, is because we want to receive, but we don't receive because we feel like a burden.
Speaker A:We feel like we haven't earned it.
Speaker A:We feel like we're, it's too much shame because at some point in our life the trauma became so much that when we learn we tried to rest, we would be punished for it.
Speaker A:Well, Jim, how do you know?
Speaker A:I'm glad you asked that question.
Speaker A:It's on days and I'm just want to get real personal with you.
Speaker A:It's on days where my body's like, Jim, you need to rest.
Speaker A:But then I'm like, oh, but I need to work.
Speaker A:Or if somebody's in the house walking around and I have to wake up my body and do something so it doesn't look like I'm resting because my nervous system had equated to rest with punishment because that's what I grew up with.
Speaker A:And I think that's the big challenge we have to do.
Speaker A:That's, that's just the first thing.
Speaker A:The second thing is I don't think that we have ever been taught how to rest.
Speaker A:I don't think we've ever been taught how to slow down.
Speaker A:Like we live in a culture that says give me more, give me more.
Speaker A:It's, it's never full, it's never satiated.
Speaker A:It's just give me, give me, give me, give me.
Speaker A:And we give, give, give.
Speaker A:We end up doom scrolling.
Speaker A:We end up in these conversations or we end up in these entrepreneurial journeys where we're just giving more and more and then we wonder why we're burning out.
Speaker A:But Then realizations come in.
Speaker A:You know, leadership isn't the mountaintop that we think it is.
Speaker A:Leadership, the best leadership and the most pivotal and powerful leadership happens in the middle ground spaces, not on the mountaintop and not in your lowest of lows.
Speaker A:The, the, the leadership happens in the middle.
Speaker A:And most of us don't realize that that's where a lot of growth happens.
Speaker A:On order, ordinary days like we think that if we're inspired, then we grow.
Speaker A:That is so far from the truth.
Speaker A:And, and these productivity gurus and these people out there are trying to say if you up at 5 o' clock every day and doing all these things and if you do 16 different habits, you will grow.
Speaker A:And that's not the essence of what growth is.
Speaker A:It's in the ordinary days where I learn to rest maybe 10 minutes more than I did before.
Speaker A:It's learning how to navigate my body and understanding on what days should I push and what day should I rest.
Speaker A:It's understanding my emotional challenges and the trauma that I face that, you know, I don't know if I think on a previous episode I've mentioned this, but I'm diagnosed with two things, complex PTSD and something called pervasive depression disorder, which really means high functioning depression.
Speaker A:And there's a lot of times where I'm going to try to just mentally push myself through when God is always like, hold on, Jim.
Speaker A:You don't have to mentally push yourself through, but in order to grow in this space with what you're challenged with, you have to take very intentional steps which include rest, it includes work, it includes prayer, it includes worship, it includes relationships and all of these things combined.
Speaker A:But it has to be intentional and every step has to have intentionality to it.
Speaker A:You're not going to just continue to do more and think you're going to grow.
Speaker A:Scripture shows leaders are shaped in everyday obedience long before visibility.
Speaker A:I mean, David spent like years as a shepherd before he was anointed as a king.
Speaker A:And even after he was anointed as a King, he spent 20 years running for his life before he became the king.
Speaker A:Like these are ordinary, like everyday, like challenges and problems and things before ever, before the visibility ever came.
Speaker A:You know, we look at people like a Barnabas who.
Speaker A:Or even a Paul, like Paul, although he was popular within the church because he was a Pharisee of Pharisees, when he got saved, he went back to his hometown for 13 years.
Speaker A:Like he disappeared.
Speaker A:Barnabas.
Speaker A:Now tradition says, now this is, you know, tradition from the Jewish tradition says that Barnabas was Actually the rich young ruler that God said, hey, give me all, give all your money away and then come follow me.
Speaker A:And he couldn't.
Speaker A:And that's where the whole scripture of, you know, you can't fit the, you know, camel through the eye of a needle comes in.
Speaker A:But you think about this is this man, if this be true, you, you know, if history says, and tradition says this be true, and that was really Barnabas, the rich young ruler, then you understand that for a long time that guy disappeared and then suddenly showed up to be a pivotal apostle and prophet inside the New Testament because he's the one that bridged the gap of relationships between Paul and the apostles.
Speaker A:But he disappeared for years as far as we know, because he's not mentioned again for a while.
Speaker A:So we have to really look into these places of the everyday, ordinary obedience that comes out of everyday, ordinary moments.
Speaker A:Because faithfulness in the unseen places builds strength for the seen ones.
Speaker A:Learning to be faithful and to be a good steward of your body.
Speaker A:In low days, if you have autoimmune like, like I do, then it's flared, you know, in those days where you're flaring and you're, and you're low.
Speaker A:Learning to steward your body properly in those places takes great leadership and great understanding and great intentionality.
Speaker A:So that way you recover faster so that you can be on in your scene days, show up in stronger, more present ways.
Speaker A:And so we have to get through this whole lusting after visibility.
Speaker A:We've got to get through this whole lusting after attention.
Speaker A:We're in a very attention driven culture that if somehow we don't have attention, then we don't have worth.
Speaker A:And that's not the case.
Speaker A:You are a leader.
Speaker A:But we have to start looking at the everyday leadership moments and move with intentionality on the high days, on the low days, in all understanding, we have to really get to a place where we see our comings and our goings, we see our strengths and our weaknesses, we see how we use our energy and how we are depleted.
Speaker A:And we work in stewardship and in tandem with the Holy Spirit to navigate all of that.
Speaker A:Because remember, this is something I think that I want to encourage you and release you.
Speaker A:You don't need to be inspirational, you don't need to be impactful, you need to, you don't even need to be a great orator or somebody who shows up as this amazing person who always has something good to say.
Speaker A:But what we need to do, what we're called to do, is to be faithful.
Speaker A:Because your faithfulness is greater than your visibility.
Speaker A:Your obedience is greater than anything that you will ever create.
Speaker A:Because it's in the quiet, in the, in the, in the silent places where that faithfulness and that obedience is developed so that when God decides it's time for you to step in the public, you've already got the foundation to not fall into dangerous places with them.
Speaker A:And you don't need to really feel this obligation that you have to be on all the time.
Speaker A:Some days when you're flaring, or some days when you work yourself into a flare, into a mental health challenge, into a physical challenge, you have to step back and say, okay, God, I did not steward my energy correctly, and I did not steward my mental health correctly.
Speaker A:So today I'm going to do the right thing and I'm going to steward it because you told me to be faithful to the temple, you know, to you.
Speaker A:And you told me my body is a temple, so I have to take care of the temple.
Speaker A:And then it's in those places where we can be honest.
Speaker A:Like, God, I done did, as they say in the South, I done did this to myself.
Speaker A:But, Lord, I'm going to be honest and, and transparent with you and that.
Speaker A:Let that be my prayer that this sucks, this hurts.
Speaker A:I have no energy, my mind is going faster than my body's able to keep up.
Speaker A:Or some of you guys who are dealing with mental health, you.
Speaker A:You deal with this constant reality shifting and your.
Speaker A:And your mind feels like it's attacking you.
Speaker A:But the.
Speaker A:But we can pull back and say, God, I just want to be super honest with you.
Speaker A:I mean, God knows it already, and I don't know why we think he doesn't.
Speaker A:But sometimes in the small, tired places, your yeses carry more weight than any bold declaration.
Speaker A:And, and people around you, especially on social media, may never see that.
Speaker A:Like when you say yes to show up to a virtual summit.
Speaker A:They don't know the cost it did to you in order to show up.
Speaker A:They don't know the price you paid with your health, with your mental health, because everything that you were doing comes with a cost.
Speaker A:And Jesus said, count the cost.
Speaker A:That even comes with the stewardship of who we are, our body and our energy.
Speaker A:Count the cost.
Speaker A:And then the weight of your yes and the weight of your no is greater than any bold declaration you'll ever scream from the mountaintops.
Speaker A:Because the Bible tells us that let your yes be yes and your no be no.
Speaker A:But even more so because you're intentional, because you're obedient, because you're faithful.
Speaker A:That yes is tied to the Holy Spirit.
Speaker A:It's tied to stewardship.
Speaker A:And in.
Speaker A:And when you're tired and you feel God say just go anyway and you go and you find the blessing in that.
Speaker A:Or if you're wanting to go and God's like, nah, just rest and you rest and you find the, just the overflowing of, of grace in that moment.
Speaker A:So here are.
Speaker A:Let me give you a couple anchor point questions for your low capacity days, right?
Speaker A:This will kind of help you guide.
Speaker A:You can sit there and say, instead of doing everything at 100%, say, ask yourself this, what is one thing I can do at 30%?
Speaker A:So we got this takes us to remove the perfectionism.
Speaker A:We're going to identify small realistic actions that honor your calling, honor your body and honor the stewardship that we're asked to do.
Speaker A:What can I do effectively at 30% because I can't do 100%.
Speaker A:What, what little step can I do today?
Speaker A:The second question is what does obedience look like today?
Speaker A:Not ideally, but reality wise.
Speaker A:And I think this is going to be huge for a lot of people because we think obedience has to be everything, all the thing every day, every.
Speaker A:No, it's hey, listen.
Speaker A:And this is what me and my wife talk about a lot.
Speaker A:In my limitations that I am currently facing in this moment, not in tomorrow, not in yesterday, but in this present moment, my limitations, what can I be obedient to that God is asking me to do?
Speaker A:Is it showing up and doing an episode maybe like I did today with this episode is audio only.
Speaker A:I didn't even do a video because I felt the drawing to not do a video.
Speaker A:And, and my flesh was really wanting to fight that.
Speaker A:Like, no, I've got to show up at both.
Speaker A:I got to be this, this always on.
Speaker A:And the Lord said, no, you just have to show up in obedience to what I'm saying, not what you think I'm saying.
Speaker A:And today's faithfulness might look simple, but that's okay because here's the deal.
Speaker A:When as God trains you to be faithful in the small, you'll get the opportunity to be faithful in the big because it's the, it's the little big principle.
Speaker A:Like if you can't be faithful in these small moments of stewardship, then you're not going to have the opportunity to be the, to be faithful in the big moments of impact.
Speaker A:And so we've got to come back and understand the value of a small, small and simple action.
Speaker A:And then the last question is what small act of faith we were just talking about this.
Speaker A:What small act of faith can I offer in the next five minutes?
Speaker A:Not in the next 30 minutes, not in the next hour.
Speaker A:Some days I don't have enough energy to get out of bed some days.
Speaker A:But I can sit there and say, God, what act of faith can I offer?
Speaker A:And, you know, sometimes it's a prayer, sometimes it's.
Speaker A:I do this thing where I have breath prayers.
Speaker A:And I did create a whole breath prayer thing of a hundred breath prayers that if you get on my email list at www.leadwithjim.com forward/nl, I will send you that.
Speaker A:This is where I got you.
Speaker A:Do a breath prayer.
Speaker A:Maybe it's a small note.
Speaker A:So, you know, we're always on social, even when we're tired.
Speaker A:So ask the Lord, who can I encourage with something small?
Speaker A:And that could be simply like, hey, I'm praying for you today, to whoever that is.
Speaker A:You know, maybe it's a short recording because your fingers hurt and you go, you.
Speaker A:You put the.
Speaker A:Hit the record and you go, hey, I'm praying for you today.
Speaker A:Is there anything I can pray for you specifically?
Speaker A:And just breathe in that honesty, you know, just.
Speaker A:Just breathe in that.
Speaker A:That lack of.
Speaker A:Or that, that need to always be this.
Speaker A:Always on at 500 when your body is just saying, all you have is 30 for the next five minutes.
Speaker A:Because faith doesn't require a fanfare.
Speaker A:Faith.
Speaker A:Faith doesn't require an audience.
Speaker A:Faith doesn't require any of that.
Speaker A:It requires you showing up.
Speaker A:That's it.
Speaker A:You showing up and partnering with the Holy Spirit is where your faith is.
Speaker A:So let's just take a moment and, you know, reframe some of this.
Speaker A:You know, refrain the fact that humans get exhausted, especially if you're dealing with mental or physical health issues.
Speaker A:These are realities in life right now.
Speaker A:Can God heal them?
Speaker A:Yes, he can.
Speaker A:Where he is in the process with you and I, I don't know.
Speaker A:And I'm not God.
Speaker A:And we just need to continue to pray for healing.
Speaker A:But we understand that, like the men in the fire, even if God doesn't heal this, I still have to be faithful in the moments in the life that he's given me.
Speaker A:In the face of the challenges that I'm facing and at the points, that means I have to also accept the realities of I am going to be exhausted.
Speaker A:But that doesn't disqualify me from his will.
Speaker A:It doesn't disqualify me from his presence.
Speaker A:It doesn't disqualify me from anything.
Speaker A:It gives me permission to Be a human who is completely dependent upon the Holy Spirit for everything.
Speaker A:Because the worn down moments are the moments we can be the most honest and say, God, I'm struggling and I don't know what to do with this.
Speaker A:But you do show me how to partner with you.
Speaker A:What can I do?
Speaker A:How can I be faithful when I just want to give up?
Speaker A:Like when I just want to lay in bed all day.
Speaker A:What can I do, Holy Spirit?
Speaker A:Because I'm going to tell you that it's in those places where your relationship with the Holy Spirit becomes the deepest.
Speaker A:It's in, it's in the relationship with the people that God put in your life that becomes stronger.
Speaker A:Because now you've got to learn to ask for help and you got to learn to lean on a team.
Speaker A:And that's going to hurt because we are in a place oftentimes where we don't like that.
Speaker A:We don't need to be the superhero.
Speaker A:We just need to be available and ready and just understand the ebbs and flows of our life.
Speaker A:But as I said, it's permission to be human.
Speaker A:Leadership doesn't, doesn't demand constant strength.
Speaker A:God uses our limits to keep us grounded and accessible and available.
Speaker A:And here's the other thing is, even in, in the scriptures, Paul goes, hey, take this weakness.
Speaker A:And God says, nope, it's in your weakness where my power is shown perfectly.
Speaker A:So just remember that, that you're the conduit.
Speaker A:But also as we reframe this, let's take it as an opportunity to open ourselves to honest dialogue with the Holy Spirit about how we feel, what we're going through, how it impacts our everyday life and how we can partner with him, to not only just walk through it with him, but to show up in an incredible way that shows the world that we are imperfect beings trying to do the perf will of God.
Speaker A:And even though we may do it imperfectly, the Holy Spirit is walking with us every step of the way, empowering us to do things that you and I are not capable of doing without Him.
Speaker A:So I'm going to just encourage you in this.
Speaker A:Show up, even if it's quietly.
Speaker A:Don't worry about the pomp and circumstances, don't worry about all the going viral.
Speaker A:Just show up and encourage.
Speaker A:Show up and pray.
Speaker A:Show up in any way that God is leading you.
Speaker A:Offer what you have in the capacity you have, not in wish what you wish you had.
Speaker A:Not in your ideal version, but actually in the reality of the current version.
Speaker A:Show up in the best way you can be and be fully present in any method or manner that you're able.
Speaker A:And then the other thing is that realize is that small faithful acts build unshakable life piece by piece by piece.
Speaker A:Rome wasn't built in the day, it was built brick by brick.
Speaker A:And so let's just say this.
Speaker A:Your presence and what you gave today was what you could and that's okay.
Speaker A:And everything you do, you get to be 1% better tomorrow.
Speaker A:You get to grow, you get to love and you get to encourage and just show up in the in the best way you can.
Speaker A:And then tomorrow 1% better, 1% better stewardship, 1% better, you know, at maybe that breath prayer, 1% better at encouraging someone you wouldn't normally encourage and just follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.
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 God.
Speaker B:Jim Burgoon Stepping forward.
Speaker B:This is the Unshakable life.
