You’re Not Lazy—You’re Just Misaligned
Description:
What if your exhaustion isn't because you're lazy… but because you're misaligned?
In this raw and eye-opening episode, Jim Burgoon challenges the productivity-obsessed mindset so many faith-driven leaders carry—and offers a better way. Through Scripture, real talk, and lived experience, Jim unpacks the 3 types of misalignment that keep Christian creators burned out, unfocused, and disconnected from God’s rhythm.
Whether you feel like you're failing your calling, falling behind, or just plain tired… this episode is your permission to pause—and recalibrate with God.
🔑 Key Insights:
- Why tying your worth to productivity is destroying your peace
- The spiritual cost of operating in the wrong season
- The silent burden of misaligned expectations
- How Jesus offers rest—not hustle—in Matthew 11
- The real definition of discipline for faith-driven creators
📖 Faith Connection:
Jim unpacks Matthew 11:28–30 (MSG) to reframe rest, work, and calling through the lens of grace—not grind. God's way isn’t hustle culture—it’s alignment culture.
🎯 For the Multipassionate:
This is a must-listen if you:
- Feel guilty for not doing more
- Can’t tell if you need to push or pause
- Struggle with clarity, energy, or focus in your business
- Want to build your business with peace, not pressure
🛠️ Practical Tools:
- 3 Misalignment Types: Values, Seasons, Expectations
- Reflection questions to reset your rhythm
- Biblical and psychological insight into why you’re exhausted
- How to choose Spirit-led discipline over cultural hustle
✍️ Reflect + Reset:
- What feels heavy now that used to feel light?
- What are you saying “yes” to that’s draining you?
- If Jesus walked in right now, what would He say needs to go?
🔗 Resources & Links:
- 💌 Join the newsletter for deeper reflections: https://www.leadwithjim.com/nl
- 🎁 Get your free guide: https://www.leadwithjim.com
📣 Connect & Engage
- Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio
- Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
- Share this episode with a friend
- Subscribe, like, and comment on YouTube
- Join our newsletter → www.leadwithjim.com
🎙️ Got a question? Leave a voice message at leadwithjim.com/ask
Thanks for listening!
Transcript
Have you ever looked at your to do list and suddenly felt the life drain from you?
Speaker A:The energy is gone, and then you're thinking, what is wrong with me?
Speaker A:Well, we're going to cover that today because you may be feeling lazy or you may be feeling like you lack purpose, but we're going to tell you it's not a lack of purpose.
Speaker A:It's not that you're lazy.
Speaker A:It's just that you're misaligned.
Speaker A:And in today's episode, we're going to unpack what that looks like, what we're feeling, and maybe some tips on how to get over it.
Speaker B:Welcome to Online Business for Christian Creatives, the show that helps you build a business that honors God, fuels your creativity, and actually pays the bills.
Speaker B:I'm your host, Jim Burgoon, leadership coach, Faith first, entrepreneur, and a guy who's made just about every mistake so you don't have to.
Speaker A:Let's get into it as we jump in, we need to name the lie now.
Speaker A:Have you ever said, I need to get more done, I need to push harder?
Speaker A:I feel so weak.
Speaker A:I feel useless, I'm slacking.
Speaker A:If you've ever said that, then you are probably a great candidate, that your value is tied to your productivity.
Speaker A:And if you tie your value to your productivity, when you're low on productivity, you're low on surfboards.
Speaker A:Self worth, you're low on value.
Speaker A:When your productivity is high, your value and your self worth is higher.
Speaker A:And the lie is, is that you actually believe, as I once believe, that we are what we do and that if we can produce things of high quality, then people will love us, people will respect us, people will see us for who we really are.
Speaker A:And my friend, that is absolutely living in a place of imposter syndrome.
Speaker A:And not in the sense of like imposter syndrome of, oh, my gosh, they're going to find me out one day.
Speaker A:No, the imposter syndrome comes back to, I'm going to act this way to get love and respect because I'm tying productivity and value together.
Speaker A:And I'm not going to actually be and show up who I'm supposed to be, who God made me to be, because I'm misaligned.
Speaker A:And I've told myself this lie over and over and over.
Speaker A:But here's what the Bible talks about.
Speaker A:Bible doesn't reward, you know, in the Bible, it doesn't reward productivity.
Speaker A:It rewards how obedient we are to God's word.
Speaker A:It rewards how aligned we are to God's purposes.
Speaker A:It doesn't Reward us for just doing more.
Speaker A:I mean we see that in Matthew 7, Matthew 7, the all these people came up and said, hey, have we not prophesied in your name and done all these signs and miracles in your name?
Speaker A:And Jesus says, hey, get away from me.
Speaker A:I never knew you.
Speaker A:Why is that?
Speaker A:Because they were being productive without building relationship, they were being productive without obedience, they were being productive without alignment.
Speaker A:And alignment in the Bible is always first and foremost coming into relationship with God and then learning how to be obedient through the Holy Spirit in the Word.
Speaker A:And you and I, if we have to at some point divorce ourselves from the lie that we are getting our value from productivity, that's not true.
Speaker A:And if you can lean in with me a little bit because, and you've heard this said, I'm sure if the devil can't disrail you or destroy you, he'll distract you.
Speaker A:And how does he distract you?
Speaker A:By getting you to be tied to your productivity.
Speaker A:So he uses your trauma, he uses what you've been through, your lack of self worth, your insecurities, these things that when you and I were growing up that said if I do this, maybe they'll love me, maybe they'll notice me.
Speaker A:And then he supersizes that and gives you a to do list with a bunch of things to do with an insecurity and a self worth tied to getting those things done.
Speaker A:So that you are not walking in obedience or alignment with God and his purposes, but you're walking in value centered or ego centered value.
Speaker A:Which means if I'm valued, I'm productive.
Speaker A:If I'm not productive, I'm not valued.
Speaker A:And my friends, that's not what God has for you or I.
Speaker A:So, so if we're identifying the lie, we have to now diagnose the misalignment, right?
Speaker A:The first thing we have to look into is are our values misaligned?
Speaker A:Now for you, in your conversations with God, what are your values?
Speaker A:What are the first things that you're supposed to be focused on?
Speaker A:Family, faith, health, purpose.
Speaker A:And then what are you now focusing on?
Speaker A:Now, is it your business?
Speaker A:But here's the deal.
Speaker A:Are you putting everything that isn't aligned with the values God has for you in life?
Speaker A:Are you putting that first?
Speaker A:Or are you putting the values that God has given you put on your heart, has made you, you know, hyper aware about the Holy Spirit has told you and said, hey, these are where your values are and are you putting things ahead of them?
Speaker A:Like for instance, my value number one value is family.
Speaker A:And If I focus more on my business, I'm not saying don't focus on your business, but if my business becomes the number one priority where that gets all of my time, then my family takes a back seat.
Speaker A:So I'm now misaligned in my values.
Speaker A:Because here's the idea that all that, all misalignment feels like failure, but it's actually a signal that we're not in proper alignment.
Speaker A:We've got to get back into alignment.
Speaker A:So do you feel like a failure to your family?
Speaker A:Do you feel like a failure, like your faith is not growing?
Speaker A:Do you feel like you're not, your health is diminishing?
Speaker A:And when you look at that, have you put the alignment correctly in the values that you hold?
Speaker A:The second thing is, is our seasons misaligned?
Speaker A:Now we.
Speaker A:And you know, if you're a Christian, you've been listening to Christianity for a long time.
Speaker A:We talk about seasons and season shifts and how God operates in seasons.
Speaker A:And it's just like the four seasons that every year the seasons change.
Speaker A:Summer, winter, spring and fall.
Speaker A:Unless you're in Florida, I'm in Florida.
Speaker A:And so we have hot and really hot and then surface of the sun.
Speaker A:So that's a little different.
Speaker A:But with that being said, is your season different than your intensity currently?
Speaker A:Let's talk about this for a second.
Speaker A:Are you working at the intensity of a previous season when God told you to rest?
Speaker A:Because if you're working at a high intensity in a rest season, you're out of alignment.
Speaker A:Or if you're trying to rest in a high intensity season, you're out of alignment.
Speaker A:This is why it has to be so important that we focus on learning how to hear and speak with God on an everyday basis to find, okay, what is the season we're in?
Speaker A:Has it shifted?
Speaker A:Is it about to shift?
Speaker A:God will reveal all of that if we ask him and talk to Him.
Speaker A:But we have to make sure that if we're feeling like failures, if we're having our energy stolen from us, we have to get.
Speaker A:Not only do we have the values thing, we have to get into the seasonal thing.
Speaker A:God works in rhythms.
Speaker A:We work best in rhythms.
Speaker A:And we call rhythms routines.
Speaker A:And, and, and we have to shift routines every season.
Speaker A:So maybe you're getting up at five o' clock in the morning and you're working out for an hour, then you're coming home and journaling and doing all these things.
Speaker A:But then you have a seasonal shift.
Speaker A:And your seasonal shift either causes you to have to work out and do your journaling.
Speaker A:Earlier or later based on different needs of the season.
Speaker A:Now what we do is say we get rigid.
Speaker A:We're like, I will not be flexible and change this.
Speaker A:This is what it is.
Speaker A:And then we wonder why we're not walking in higher levels of alignment.
Speaker A:We have to evaluate with every seasonal shift.
Speaker A:So maybe you have to shift certain priorities, certain disciplines, not that you stop them, but they may need to change or shift.
Speaker A:Because remember, if we're at an intensity that is different in the season that we're at, they're going to be misalignment and you're going to find yourself feeling like a failure.
Speaker A:So let's make sure that we're constantly evaluating with through the Holy Spirit are the season is the season we're in and the intensity of that season both matching.
Speaker A:If they don't match, where am I off?
Speaker A:Am I too intense for this season or am I not intense enough for this season?
Speaker A:And then also, what season is it?
Speaker A:Is it a season of rest?
Speaker A:Is it a season of pushing?
Speaker A:Is it a season of building?
Speaker A:Is it a season of just maintaining?
Speaker A:Figure those things out with the Holy Spirit and then get into alignment and trust that it's all going to work out.
Speaker A:The last thing we're going to come into is expectation misalignment.
Speaker A:Now this is a huge one because we're carrying burdens that God never asked us to carry.
Speaker A:And as somebody who is a recovering people pleaser, yes, I always say that I'm recovering people pleaser because God has really delivered me from a lot of that.
Speaker A:But I still have some residue.
Speaker A:I have a tendency to want to carry everybody's burdens around me while ignoring my own.
Speaker A:I have a tendency to want to lift you up and not accept anything from you to lift me up.
Speaker A:And that comes back to that residue or that recovering people pleasing thing that I went through or thing that I'm going through because my expectations of myself was a lot different and maybe even almost unsustainably high compared to what an expectation I would have on you.
Speaker A:Which means I may say, you don't owe me or do anything.
Speaker A:I, I owe you everything.
Speaker A:And then if you were to really ask and say, oh, Holy Spirit, what would you say in this matter?
Speaker A:He may be saying to you, who told you it had to look like that?
Speaker A:Who told you you needed to carry that?
Speaker A:Who told you that you were supposed to pick up that burden?
Speaker A:See, we want to get into these places where we pick up this stuff, carry this stuff, do these things.
Speaker A:And we've never checked with the author of it.
Speaker A:We've never checked with the author of our faith.
Speaker A:We never checked with the guide.
Speaker A:And so we're picking up burdens we were never meant to pick up.
Speaker A:We're chasing directions we were never meant to chase, to chase.
Speaker A:And we're pushing ourselves in places we were never meant to do.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So, for instance, if we're our expectations, like I'm a podcaster, and so one of those expectations is I have to do it this way, because the most successful people do it this way.
Speaker A:And then it comes back to, who told you that it has to look like that?
Speaker A:Who told you that you have to do your blog and your podcast the exact same way that so and so does it.
Speaker A:And this is where we get into the misalignment of expectations.
Speaker A:Because there's a point where we expect that in order to be successful, we have to look like so and so.
Speaker A:And that's not the case.
Speaker A:If it's going to be successful, we have to follow the plan of God that he has for.
Speaker A:And so we have to get our expectations and alignment with God's expectations and constantly check into them and just say, hey, God, what do you think about this?
Speaker A:What do you want about this?
Speaker A:What are we going on about this?
Speaker A:And then move in alignment with him and letting our expectations be his expectations.
Speaker A:Like, we're just grafting them on us so we can look at Matthew like 11, 28, 30.
Speaker A:And I did, and I pulled this out of the message because I thought this was really cool.
Speaker A:And it goes into the, the three things we were just talking about.
Speaker A:And it says this.
Speaker A:Are you tired?
Speaker A:Worn out, burnt out on religion?
Speaker A:Is that.
Speaker A:Some of you guys, let me know in the comments if you're watching this on YouTube or hit me up in the email jim leadwith jim.com and just let me know, is that, does that describe you?
Speaker A:Are you tired?
Speaker A:Are you worn out?
Speaker A:Are you burnt out on religion?
Speaker A:I mean, what a way to open the scripture in the message version of Matthew 11.
Speaker A:And so it goes on.
Speaker A:Come to me, get away with me and you'll recover your life.
Speaker A:I'll show you how to take a real rest.
Speaker A:Walk with me and work with me.
Speaker A:Watch how I do it.
Speaker A:Learn.
Speaker A:And the unforced rhythms of grace.
Speaker A:Now, now hear that One more.
Speaker A:Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
Speaker A:I won't lay anything heavy on or ill fitting on you.
Speaker A:We just talked about misalignment.
Speaker A:So if we.
Speaker A:And under the message version here, God's not gonna, you know, whatever yoke he's gonna put on us will not be ill fitting.
Speaker A:And he says, keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly.
Speaker A:That was powerful.
Speaker A:Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly.
Speaker A:If you're tired, if you're worn out, the alignment comes when we follow after what Christ has done for us.
Speaker A:We follow after the model, what he's saying, what he's showing us.
Speaker A:Because it's not going to be out of alignment, it's going to fit us perfectly.
Speaker A:Now will it be easy?
Speaker A:Absolutely not.
Speaker A:Life is not easy.
Speaker A:Get that out of your head.
Speaker A:If you've been told bad theology that a moment you follow Christ, life is easy.
Speaker A:Just talk to John the Baptist, he was beheaded.
Speaker A:Talk to all the disciples who were murdered and killed because of their faith.
Speaker A:They that is not what this is about.
Speaker A:This is about being in perfect alignment, doing imper.
Speaker A:Doing perfect things, you know, what God calls us to in an imperfect way and living that fulfilled and impactful life.
Speaker A:Because now we're in line with what God's doing, which brings us into this place of we have to really redefine what discipline looks like.
Speaker A:Now you have all the gurus out there and all the, all the people out there.
Speaker A:You need to wake up at 6 o' clock in the morning every day and do 6,16,000 push ups and drink 4 gallons of water by 8 o' clock so that you can start your day.
Speaker A:And then you're going to work 10 hours that may work for them, but they may not work for you.
Speaker A:And we need to stop listening to people and all these voices and ask the Lord to really, let's redefine what discipline looks like for us believers.
Speaker A:Because we're not going to do the same things the same ways that everybody else can.
Speaker A:We learn from them?
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:We're going to learn from them in a way that's healthy to us, not as we're just going to graft in what they're doing because we think that was what makes us successful.
Speaker A:No, my friend, what makes us successful is following the Holy Spirit.
Speaker A:What makes us successful is God's anointing on what's going on.
Speaker A:And we're just going to jump in and just take part with it.
Speaker A:And so discipline isn't forcing yourself to do things that drain you.
Speaker A:It's choosing what aligns with you and what's God's doing.
Speaker A:So it may be hard, but it's going to be impactful.
Speaker A:It may be like you still may be tired, but you're going to be Fulfilled, there are trade offs.
Speaker A:So we gotta make sure that we're choosing what aligns with God and what God's doing in you, while simultaneously not forcing ourselves to do all these things that just aren't meant for you and I.
Speaker A:Because discipline does not equal hustle.
Speaker A:And I think so many times we put the hustle over the discipline.
Speaker A:And if you read Proverbs, discipline is doing something over a long period of time to create massive results.
Speaker A:Hustling is do it as fast as possible to get those same results.
Speaker A:And I'm going to promise you, hustlers burn themselves out.
Speaker A:People of discipline last long, they have longevity.
Speaker A:You're going to see people in business for 10, 20, 30, 40 years because they were disciplined.
Speaker A:Not so much hustlers, because spirit led.
Speaker A:Discipline is about focus.
Speaker A:It's about boundaries, it's about obedience, and it's about being like Christ and doing everything you can to develop the fruit of the Spirit in your life so that you can get out there and be like Christ and be the letter that God has written in your life to the people of this world and allow your business to be a conduit for God's grace.
Speaker A:So if I was going to reframe this, I would say this.
Speaker A:You're not lacking hustle.
Speaker A:Obviously, the hustle you've been doing has caused you to be tired.
Speaker A:It's caused you to be burnt out.
Speaker A:So you're not lacking hustle, you're just lacking clarity.
Speaker A:You're lacking discipline.
Speaker A:Because here's one of the things you, you and I have to understand.
Speaker A:And this goes back to, you know, the devil can't destroy you.
Speaker A:He'll make you distracted.
Speaker A:The problem we're having a lot of times when we're misaligned is we have too many options and we don't have enough clarity, which means we have, we are way and I chronic overthinker here working on that.
Speaker A:So we're here trying to overthink and be like, well, what if we did this and what if we did that and what if we did this and what if we did that and how about this?
Speaker A:And how does this go into what if we did this?
Speaker A:And the reality of it is we haven't taken action on any of it.
Speaker A:And we're, we're gripped by the paralysis of the analysis.
Speaker A:And so we're gripped in indecision and we're gripped in this place of burnout because too many options are looming, too many voices and not enough action and not enough us going to the Holy Spirit to say hey, Holy Spirit, 10 options.
Speaker A:Help me get one.
Speaker A:And really, that's where we got to come back to.
Speaker A:And so if you, if you listen to this podcast long enough, you'll hear me come back to that over and over again.
Speaker A:Get in prayer and ask God for direction.
Speaker A:Stop trying to do it on your own.
Speaker A:Stop trying to be the hero in the story.
Speaker A:God is the hero in a story.
Speaker A:We're just grateful to be part of the story.
Speaker A:And we understand that being part of the story means we're going to have an incredible impact.
Speaker A:And that's what you really want, is to impact people and have their lives changed.
Speaker A:So this means we come to our final segment, which really comes into recalibrating with God and recalibrating a God.
Speaker A:We have to be encouraged to pause, not push.
Speaker A:Pause, not push.
Speaker A:Because here's what it is.
Speaker A:Pausing doesn't mean you and I stop an activity.
Speaker A:It doesn't mean that we completely stop everything we're doing that.
Speaker A:That we're not.
Speaker A:We're not going to do another thing.
Speaker A:That's not what this is saying.
Speaker A:Because obviously you're not going to stop your business.
Speaker A:You're not going to stop whatever you're doing completely to wait.
Speaker A:That's not how this works in context.
Speaker A:Because we want to pause and not push.
Speaker A:Because pushing is more akin to striving.
Speaker A:It's more akin of desperately moving forward to try to make something work, to get what we think we want.
Speaker A:And if we're constantly striving, Psalms at 46, 10, be still and know that I'm God and that scripture hole comes in, quit striving and know that I am God, right?
Speaker A:So that striving that quick, pushing that quick, wrestling that quick, trying to be so fearfully desperate that you need something to work, need something to happen, that you're going to burn yourself out because hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle, and then call it God's blessing.
Speaker A:That's not what it is.
Speaker A:We've got to pause.
Speaker A:And what pausing means is understanding that in the moments, a collection of moments, not one moment, but.
Speaker A:But a collection of moments, we're stopping, recalibrating, and asking God, hey, is this the direction I'm supposed to be in?
Speaker A:Is this the place you want me?
Speaker A:Is this where I'm.
Speaker A:I'm supposed to be focused on and just do what you feel he is saying.
Speaker A:So here's some reflection questions you and I could be asking.
Speaker A:Journaling, I highly recommend Journaling is what feels heavy right now.
Speaker A:That used to feel light that could be an indication that your season is shifting has shifted.
Speaker A:What feels heavy that use to feel light.
Speaker A:Number two, what are you saying yes to that is draining you now?
Speaker A:I just I'm gonna do a whole thing on on the power of no.
Speaker A:But if you're saying yes to everything and no to nothing, you're already losing you.
Speaker A:Your nos have to be more than your yeses because we have to be very poignant in what we're saying yes to.
Speaker A:So what are you saying yes to that's draining you?
Speaker A:And the last one, if Jesus walked into the room right now would what would he say needs to go from your life?
Speaker A:Just sit back and think about that.
Speaker A:Take your rest moment.
Speaker A:If Jesus walked right into the room right with you right now, looked at you in the eye and said this needs to go, what would be that thing?
Speaker A:So I just want to thank you guys for hanging out with me for today's episode.
Speaker A:If this hit home with you and you're feeling burnt out and you're feeling like the energy drain and all these things, I just would love to have you and I have further the conversation by jumping on the newsletter.
Speaker A:I go deeper on the newsletter and sometimes I put tools out there in order to help you through it.
Speaker A:Things you won't find in the episode.
Speaker A:And you'll find that at www.leadwithjim.comnl for newsletter I'll put all this in the show notes.
Speaker A:Would love to have you there.
Speaker A:This way we can have a continued conversation going back and forth because there's a lot of times I'll ask for replies from people who are on the newsletter because I do enjoy talking with you all and I do enjoy having banter and the questions you ask will show up on episodes and if they ever show up on an episode I will shout you out and say hey, so and so asked this a brilliant question.
Speaker A:Let's talk about it with that all being said.
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