How I recharge in the midst of demanding responsibilities

Wayne Cordeiro Aug. 28, 2019

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Each of us has an internal emotional reservoir. On the topside, there’s an input, and on the bottom, a drain. Certain activities will drain you more than fill you, and others will fill you more than drain you. Some tasks will contribute to you and others will take from you.

When I speak and teach, it fills my tank. When I counsel, it drains my tank. For others, it may be just the opposite. When I play certain sports, I am renewed. When I have to organize them, I am depleted. 

What fills you? What drains you? Or thinking back to a decades-old Exxon ad, what puts a tiger in your tank?

You need to know the difference.

Here is a short list I made of those things that tend to refresh me and fill me:

• Sports
• Traveling
• Reading
• Devotional time
• Golfing
• Dinners with my wife, Anna
• Music
• Creatively utilizing the arts for the gospel
• Some speaking
• Training leaders

Equally important, I also duly recorded those activities that drain and deplete me, including . . .

• Excessive counseling
• Unresolved home problems
• Unnecessary paper work
• Working with people who disdain change
• Managing instead of leading
• Constant deadlines placed on me by others
• Working with staff that leave unfinished assignments

Here are the hard facts: The busier I became, the less time I had for activities that replenished me. I couldn’t play sports because there were deadlines I had to meet. I couldn’t find time to read because I had sermons to prepare. 

I couldn’t get out on the golf course because other “more critical” demands made golfing seem like “time wasting” leisure. When I did brush the cobwebs off my clubs and carve out a round of golf, I noticed what should have been obvious: My scores accurately reflected my intermittent play. Imagine that! And it’s a problem that still lingers to this day!

You can get along for a while with “more drain than fill,” but it will eventually catch up with you. It’s like a car that someone drives for years without an oil change. You might squeeze 20,000 to 30,000 miles out of it, but the neglect will come at the price of an engine that grinds to a stop.

That’s the course I was on, and even though the red lights kept flashing on my instrument panel, I couldn’t stop. Or wouldn’t. 

I was leading on empty. And I couldn’t keep it up much longer.

Write down what fills your tank and what drains it. List at least six things in each category.

Excerpted fromLeading on Empty, by Wayne Cordeiro (Bethany House, 2009).

Photo source: istock 

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Wayne Cordeiro is the founding pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Honolulu, Hawaii.  New Hope is also listed as one of the top ten most innovative churches in America with Outreach Magazine listing them as one of the “top five churches to learn from.” New Hope is known for redeeming the arts and technology.  New Hope has seen over 73,000 first time decisions in Hawaii since its inception over 32 years ago.

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