by Dave Miller

Being overwhelmed with a pile of work can be daunting. It is especially troublesome early in a career of ministry. Potentially someone on your team is in their first “real” job. This could be a resident or the youngest and greenest among you.

“I can’t do it. I can’t keep up. Will this ever slow down? Maybe ministry isn’t for me,” began a coaching conversation I recently had. I’ve had a version of this conversation many times as a coach. And I admit I’ve had it many times in my head with myself, too!

I responded to this young leader, “The emotions of being overwhelmed are real, but the steps to getting above it may be simpler than you think.” I know what I’m talking about. I’m an expert with being overwhelmed and taking the wrong steps to correct it.

The big problem with being overwhelmed when you are young is that it tends to lead to spiraling downward. “I can’t keep up” (leads to) “I can’t do this” (leads to) “maybe ministry isn’t for me.” See how one thing leads to the next?

I recently had one of these episodes just a couple of weekends ago.

I caught myself fretting over the messy desk, the unanswered communications, and the prioritized duties I had allow to slide from one week to the next due to some extra travel and meetings. “I just can’t keep up, I’ll never get this done…” was the voice in my head.

As a workaholic in recovery, I know that I can’t work past 6p. If I do, I don’t sleep, and I tend to not stop working until much too late. I’m naturally a morning person, so the next morning I got up an hour early and did the following three steps that helped me considerably.

None of these will be new to you, but they could be new to that young team member of yours:

1. I made a detailed list and once again prioritized them with letters and numbers based on Covey’s Four Quadrants. There were important matters which had become urgent, and the letters reflected that.

2. While step one above is a normal for me (and I hope for you too!) I took it one step further to help me with the anxious thoughts I was having the evening before. I placed a time value on each to-do item, giving me an estimate of how much time I thought each would take.

3. I added them up.

Guess what? It totaled about 4.5 hours! Ha! It gave me great hope that morning that I actually only had 4.5 hours of “have to get done work” that day. I kept the email and phone to a minimum, blocked my calendar and got all the overwhelming work done.

So, here’s my point: I consider myself a fairly highly productive individual who knows what they’re doing. If I have anxious thoughts like this, then how much more are the youngest ones among us going to spiral when under new stresses and pressures they’ve never felt before in their new role or new job?

Are we taking time to show them what we believe could be an elementary step in work? Are we modeling it? Are we assuming they’ve got this when in essence they do not?

A boss did this for me when I was 25 and I have been grateful ever since.

Have you had a coaching conversation with a young leader at this level in the past week? Month? Year? This is critical as we continue to try to answer the question “who’s the next you?” The next you might need something that you think is pretty simple and it could make all the different in the world.