The Weight of Showing Up
Some days consistency feels like a badge of honour. Other days it feels like a slow drowning where the world keeps moving but my mind sinks a little deeper each hour. Today was that kind of day. A day where my body felt tired, my spirit dim, and my mind struggled to remember why I push so hard in the first place.
I know the logic. I know the theory. I know the leadership truths. Yet today reminded me again that leadership is not theory. Leadership is the tension of being human while carrying responsibility, and the tension hurts because consistency has built my strength, but at the same time it becomes the very thing that exhausts me when the weight grows too heavy.
My Day on the Bike, My Mind Fighting to Stay Afloat
Today I cycled 28 kilometres. Not as a fitness achievement. More like a survival instinct. I needed to breathe again. I needed to feel my head rise above water, even if only slightly. And somewhere between the pedals and the sweat, something inside me shifted from drowning to almost recovering.
As I continued cycling, I remembered a coach’s wisdom about the three voices:
- Caring voice
- Charting voice
- Challenge voice.
I realised today that these voices are not just for mentoring others. They are mirrors for my own soul, because I experienced all three in the last twenty-four hours.
Yesterday’s breakfast conversation added another layer. We talked about the five types of people Scripture warns us not to help blindly. At first, it sounded harsh. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised how deeply it applies to leadership and relationships.
- The chronic rescue: Proverbs 19:19 warns that people who keep repeating the same mistakes without learning will pull you into their chaos. Every rescue invites the next crisis.
- The gossip: Proverbs 20:19 makes it clear that someone who leaks information cannot be trusted. Helping them often leads to becoming the next leak.
- The lazy: 2 Thessalonians 3:10 reminds us that effort cannot be outsourced. I cannot work harder for someone than they are willing to work for themselves.
- The scoffer: Proverbs 9:8 says that if I rebuke a scoffer, they will hate me for it. Their ego rejects wisdom even before wisdom speaks.
- The constant complainer: Numbers 11 and Philippians 2:14 reveal that complaining blocks clarity. It keeps a person emotionally stuck even when solutions stand right in front of them.
The more I reflected, the clearer I saw it. These categories are not meant for me to judge others. They are warnings for me. Today, I could have easily slipped into one of the five. A chronic rescue for my own despair. A complainer. Even a scoffer when someone tried to offer help I did not want to hear.
That is why cycling was more than exercise. It was clarity. It was correction. It was a reminder that love is action. If I say I love my people, my wife, my mentees, then I must show it by fighting my way out of the mental fog, even when it hurts.
Yet when someone told me, “You still need to put in effort if you care,” something inside me pushed back. A tired protest surfaced quietly. A voice inside asking, “Do you really know how hard I have been working for the past seven years?”
This is what happens when the giver becomes the receiver. The same advice I used to give others suddenly felt sharper when aimed at me. Changing positions changes perspective. And that shift deepened my empathy. Ministering and being ministered to both teach different truths.
My wife also plays a role in this tension. She brings clarity, and she brings it well. Her charting voice is strong and direct. But sometimes the caring voice is missing, and clarity without care can feel like correction. This is not about fault. This is about timing, tone, and the emotional weight of delivery.
As I cycled, I reflected on why I love cycling and walking. Driving moves too fast. Life moves too fast. Walking slows the world down. Cycling helps me see details I never notice from a car. And on a day like this, I needed to slow down enough to notice my own emotional landscape again.
But then came the deeper dilemma. I was supposed to be at the pre-wedding dinner tonight. Someone meaningful. Someone I have known for years. Someone who deserved my presence. Yet my mental capacity was empty. The guilt rose. The confusion grew. I questioned myself. Should I honour my body or honour the person?
This is the eternal dilemma of leaders. Rest versus responsibility. Capacity versus commitment. Consistency versus compassion for myself.
And there is no easy answer.
The Voice I Give Others Is the Voice I Struggle to Give Myself
Here lies my paradox.
Consistency has shaped me.
Consistency has built my identity.
Consistency is the reason I can lead.
But consistency also drains me. It pushes me to the point where others think I am extreme. They say I torture myself. They cannot see the internal discipline behind my decisions. They only see the external intensity.
Fun facts from research remind me this is not just emotional.
Cycling activates both sides of the brain. It calms the amygdala. It restores emotional regulation. That is why my head started rising above water again. It was biology doing its work.
Reflection has a similar effect.
Harvard research shows that people who reflect deliberately recover faster from stress. They make clearer decisions. They regain internal stability faster. What I did today was not weakness. It was neuroscience in motion.
Self-talk rewires the brain.
My spoken reflection, even the messy parts, were my brain reorganising itself. The brain listens to my words more than my emotions. And today, I needed to hear myself process truth.
And there is perspective switching.
Giving advice and receiving advice activate different pathways. That is why the same words I use to help others felt sharper when they were aimed at me. That is why empathy grew. That is why humility deepened. That is why wisdom expanded.
Consistency is my superpower.
But it also becomes my struggle when it crosses into self-punishment.
The line between discipline and self-destruction is thin.
And today, I was walking that line.
One Gentle Boundary, One Deliberate Step
This is where consistency must meet compassion.
First, I need to name what is happening.
Today is not a wasted day.
Today is a day where my capacity reached its limit. That is not failure. That is honesty.
Second, I must choose how long I will stay here.
Drowning becomes dwelling when I refuse to draw a line.
A timeline protects my mind from sinking deeper than necessary.
Third, I take one action forward.
Not because of guilt.
Not because I need to appear strong.
But because I want to offer the best version of myself when tomorrow comes.
One gentle boundary.
One deliberate step.
That is enough for today.
The Reverse That Redefines It All
I thought the battle was between consistency and rest.
But the real battle is remembering that even my strongest days begin with permission to be human.
