When Life Won’t Slow Down: The Biblical Practice of Self-Leadership (Ep 06)
When was the last time you felt true clarity? Not just from being caught up on your to-do list, but the kind of clarity that comes from being certain about what you’re doing and why your’re doing it. You know the certainty that comes from be super clear on what’s actually yours to carry? That kind of clarity. If it’s been a while and life doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon, this episode is for you.
This episode is an honest conversation about what happens when self-leadership gets quietly pushed to the bottom of the list of priorities. Drawing from 2 Timothy and Proverbs, we explore what it actually lookalike to guard what God has entrusted to you. It’s not a productivity principle. It’s Spirit-empowered stewardship of your calling.
In This Episode, You’ll Discover:
Why clarity fades when self-leadership gets overlooked and what it’s actually costing you.
The difference between managing chaos and guarding what God and guarding what God has entrusted to you.
What Paul’s charge to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:6 and 1:14 reveals about calling, purpose, and Spirit-empowered stewardship.
Why purpose is about how you show up more than it is about any given position or title you hold.
Five practical ways to guard what God has placed in you.
Why self-leadership and self-control belong in the same conversation and what Proverbs says about the cost of neglecting these things.
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Episode 06 | When Life Won’t Slow Down: The Biblical Practice of Self-Leadership
Welcome to The Purpose Project Podcast
Hey, friend. Welcome to The Purpose Project Podcast, where we talk about what it really looks like to live, love, and lead with purpose and authenticity in the messy middle — that space between where you are and where you want to be. I'm Valerie Jones, a Christian life and leadership coach, and around here we don't do hustle culture, perfectionism, people-pleasing, or self-help band-aids. Instead, we're all about biblical truth, brain-based tools, and emotional health — so you can walk out your calling with courage without burning out or sacrificing what matters most. Each episode we'll dive into real life stories, engaging conversations, and relatable teaching moments to help you get out of your head and into the life God's calling you to live. Whether you're navigating change, feeling overwhelmed, craving clarity, or just trying to feel like yourself again — take a breath and lean in. You're in the right place. Let's dive in.
A Gut Check Moment
Well, hey friend, welcome back. I am so glad that you're here today.
A few summers ago, I had a moment with my youngest daughter that can only be described as a gut check moment. It wasn't a big dramatic moment, and that's actually kind of the point. But every summer, we try to take at least a couple of day trips. It's become part of our family rhythm. These aren't elaborate, fancy, or expensive trips. It's just the kind of trip you can talk about on a Friday and then enjoy on a Saturday.
So we sat down one evening with our youngest, and we pulled out the calendar to make a plan because we realized that summertime was slipping away from us, and we hadn't taken any of these trips yet.
Now, here's the thing. My work at the nonprofit during this season of time was literally a seven-day-a-week job. So between the day-to-day work and the special events that were held mostly on evenings and weekends, it really did feel like I was always working. On top of that, I was on staff at a local church as a worship pastor and doing some traveling to speak and lead worship and minister.
I'm sure you know where this is going, right? There was no time, no space, none. And the further into the calendar we got, trying to find a date and time, the more discouraged and frustrated I felt. Tears welled up in my eyes, and my sweet daughter, she was eleven at the time, she looked at me and she said, "You don't have to cry, Mom. It's okay if you can't go. I understand that you might have to work again."
She wasn't upset. She was just matter-of-fact, completely unfazed, actually, and that's probably because she had come to expect that I might miss this fun thing that we were doing as a family because it was happening regularly because of work, and she knew it.
And I thought to myself in this moment, "What am I doing? This is costing me way too much." It was a wake-up call. That question had been bubbling to the surface for so many months at this point, but I kept pushing it aside and ignoring it because I didn't have time to sort through it. But God used my sweet daughter's voice in that conversation to cut through the noise and the chaos and the busyness, and I had a moment of unexpected and really uncomfortable clarity.
Maybe you know that feeling. You're moving along, you're doing all the things, your head is down. Maybe you've noticed that your heart is heavy or something feels off, even though you're not sure why. And then something lands so deeply — something happens or someone says something — and it lands so deeply that you simply can't ignore it anymore.
And that is right where I was sitting in that moment, and that's where we're going to start today.
When Clarity Fades
I want to ask you a question. When was the last time you had a moment of unmistakable clarity? When was the last time that you were truly clear on what you're doing and why you're doing it, and that you weren't just going through the motions? When did you last feel laser-focused on your calling and your purpose — clear on what was yours to carry and what isn't?
For a lot of us in leadership, especially in ministry, our plates get full really quickly. The demands of leadership are real on top of the demands of life. The responsibility is real. The people who need things from us are real people, and there will always be more on the to-do list than there are hours in the day to do it. It can feel a whole lot like chaos and a whole lot like noise and like a whole lot of weight and pressure, and somewhere in the middle of all of that, clarity can start to fade.
We get less focused, we're less intentional, and we just start to survive. We're just about getting the things done and making it to the next day — and sometimes that's okay for a season. But here's what happens if that goes on long term.
We keep showing up, we keep delivering, we keep producing, we keep saying yes. But the one thing that we start to overlook is ourselves. We stop tending to our soul, to our heart. Why does that matter? Because in order to effectively lead others, in order to show up well in your life, you have to lead yourself well. That's where it starts. It's the principle of self-leadership.
As a leader, there are a lot of things beyond your control, but at the end of the day, you are always responsible for you. It is the one area of your life where you have complete control, and far too often this concept gets overlooked and underemphasized, and it's costly.
The True Cost
I learned this the hard way. The people and the systems around us aren't necessarily thinking about what's sustainable for us. They're not necessarily set up with the idea of keeping what's best for us a priority. They aren't meant to be responsible for stewarding our calling. More often than not, those people and the systems and the processes around us are really about just the bottom line — about just getting the things done that need to get done.
And when you're leading at a high level, the expectations are high, the pressure is real, and if you're not practicing good, healthy self-leadership, someone or something else will determine your priorities for you.
And I can tell you from experience, you will wake up one day and barely recognize your own life. You'll realize that things have gotten so far out of alignment with who you are and who God's called you to be, and that is the real cost. It's not just exhaustion and pressure and stress that comes with all of this, although that is real too. It's the loss of clarity and focus that makes alignment with what really matters difficult.
And so you find yourself in a moment like the one I shared, where you're asking, "What am I even doing?" And when you start asking that question, it usually indicates that you're overlooking the importance of self-leadership. That's been true in my life.
Understanding Our Limits
Healthy self-leadership means understanding our limits just as much as it means understanding our strengths. Because here's the thing — we are limited. We don't have unlimited energy or attention or capacity or resources, and that's actually by design. That's part of being human. And when we can understand that, it changes how we think about things like self-leadership entirely. It's not often about doing more or managing things better. It's really about being faithful with what we've been given.
But far too often, we get into a season like this, and we bury the lead in our own lives — even if unintentionally.
In journalism, burying the lead means that the most important things get lost somewhere in the middle. You lead with a lot of filler or a lot of fluff or maybe even unimportant or irrelevant details instead of leading with the main story, with the thing that actually matters. And that's what happens when our calling and our purpose — the thing that God has specifically for us to do — gets crowded out because we have our heads down.
We lose sight of the lead story. And friend, the lead story is for all of us to know Jesus and to spend our lives helping others know Him too, wherever we are and whatever we're doing.
Now you might be tempted to think this sounds a lot like a time management issue, but this isn't just about the calendar. It is about our calling. And when you consider what I'm saying in light of this ultimate calling — to know Jesus and to make Him known wherever we are and whatever we're doing — this becomes a conversation about stewardship.
The Scriptural Anchor
And if we're going to talk about stewardship, we have to go to 2 Timothy, because Paul gives us the scriptural anchor for everything that I'm saying.
A little context first. Paul is writing to Timothy, who is a young leader that he loves deeply. Timothy is navigating real pressure, real fear, real demands of leadership. And this isn't necessarily a leadership manual — it's a letter. It's a personal letter from a spiritual father to a spiritual son in the faith who needs to be reminded of what he carries.
And in that context, Paul says two things that I want you to consider. First, in verse 6 of chapter 1, he says, "Fan into flames the gift of God that's in you." And then later in verse 14, he says, "Through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives within us, guard the good thing that has been entrusted to you."
Two charges, both very active, both very intentional. Fan into flames the gift and guard the good thing that's been entrusted to you.
Right away, we can see this is not passive language. It indicates activity and intentionality, investment, and active cultivation of something. You're not responsible for conjuring something up or creating something from nothing, but you are responsible for developing and cultivating what's there, what God has already put in you.
And I love that Paul is using this language of a fire or a flame. We all have a basic understanding of how fire behaves, and we know that when a fire isn't actively tended to or stoked, it doesn't provide the light or the warmth that it's meant to provide. The same thing is true for our calling. When we neglect our calling, it doesn't provide what it's meant to provide. It means that we're not bringing to the world what God intended for us to bring.
Timothy was a gifted leader, but along the way, he allowed those gifts to grow dim and dull. In the midst of all the pressure and the fear and this hostile environment that he was navigating, his gifts were diminished. All the pressure and the fear undermined his ministry and his influence. What should have been like a roaring fire fully ablaze had been reduced to barely smoldering embers because he wasn't actively tending to what God put in him. And Paul responds to this with this appeal, this charge that we find in 2 Timothy.
Spirit-Empowered Stewardship
And I want you to notice also that Paul doesn't tell Timothy, "Figure this out on your own. You have to do it in your own strength." Verse 14 is very clear — it's through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives in us, just like everything else. This is Spirit-empowered stewardship. This is not about willpower. This is not about self-improvement. The same Spirit who placed the gift in you is the one who empowers you to use it, to cultivate it, to develop it, to tend to it, to guard it.
And Paul reminds Timothy of something else in verse 7. We all know and love this verse well if we've been around the church for any length of time. God doesn't give us a spirit of timidity or a spirit of fear. He gives us a spirit of power, love, and of self-discipline — or some versions say of a sound mind. Paul is saying, "Timothy, you have everything you need to lead yourself well in order to fulfill the calling and the purpose God has placed on your life."
And so do we. To actively cultivate and protect what God has already placed in us — that gift, that calling — that is the good thing that's been entrusted to us, to carry the truth of the gospel with us wherever we go. It carries with it a responsibility to steward these things well, to cooperate with the Holy Spirit so that we can operate in the fullness of God's power in our lives.
Purpose Is About How You Show Up
That changes how we think about calling and purpose. Purpose isn't just about what you do. It isn't necessarily only about the position that you hold. It's about how you show up. When we attach our purpose to a specific role or a title or a season of life, we can get really tangled up when things change — and friend, things always change. Roles shift, seasons end. But what God has placed in you, what He's entrusted to you, that doesn't change with your job title or a changing season, which means that guarding it isn't about protecting a position. It's about protecting your inner life, the thing that affects how you show up for everything that you've been asked to do.
And listen, here's the thing. I've already said it, but I want to say it again. Our first and primary calling is to belong to Him. Before we do anything else, before we do the first thing for Him, before the assignment, before any specific work — our primary purpose as believers and followers of Jesus is to know Him, to be known by Him, to love Him, to be loved by Him, and to make Him known. Everything flows from that.
There's a question that's been asked and answered for nearly 400 years — what is the chief end of man? The Westminster Catechism says the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Ultimately, everything really does come down to this. And when we get this right, we see it in our lives, we see it in our leadership, we see it in our relationships.
So when we talk about self-leadership and stewardship, that's where we start. It isn't about productivity. It isn't about time management. We talk about guarding your heart. A well-guarded heart makes room for you to do what God called you to do. It makes room for you to be who God created you to be.
Guard Your Heart
And that brings us to Proverbs 4:23. Scripture says very specifically, "Guard your heart for everything you do flows from it."
Everything that you do — not just a few things, not just some things, not just the spiritual things, but everything. Everything is a heart issue. Your leadership flows from your heart. Your relationships flow from your heart. Your capacity to keep showing up day by day, season after season. Your character — it all flows from your heart. The way that you love your family, the way that you serve your community, the way that you serve in your local church and fulfill your calling, all of it flows from your heart, which means the condition of your heart is not just a personal matter. The condition of your heart affects everything and everyone around you.
So the question becomes — are you guarding your heart?
Guarding your heart is about access. It means being intentional about what you allow in. And so self-leadership looks a whole lot like self-control, like boundaries. Actually, I don't believe that you can have one without the other.
Scripture gives us another clear picture of what happens when you let your guard down, when you stop guarding. In Proverbs 25, it says, "A person without self-control is like a city with broken-down walls." A city with broken-down walls — it's not just a matter of inconvenience. A city without walls is actually vulnerable and defenseless because everything can get in. Every demand, every distraction, any voice, even if that voice has nothing to do with what God has placed in you.
Over time, that's what an unguarded life looks like. It's a wearing down of your purpose and your calling.
Five Ways to Guard What God Has Entrusted to You
So what does it mean to guard your heart or to practice self-leadership? What does that actually look like practically speaking? What does it mean to guard the good thing that God has entrusted to you? I want to give you five things that you can do starting today.
1. Know what is yours.
Scripture says in Psalm 139, "You created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made." Do you know what that means? That means you are not an accident. What is in you is not random. God was very specific, which means that you can be really specific too. You can identify the gifts that He's put in you. You can name them. You can embrace them. Clarity around your calling and your purpose and your gifts is a necessity. And please hear me — understanding, acknowledging, embracing your gifts, having confidence in God, in you, is not arrogance. Please don't miss that.
2. Learn to say no.
Galatians 1:10 gives us a clarifying question. "Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings or of God? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ." Friend, saying no can be just as much an act of faithfulness and stewardship and obedience as saying yes is. Because the thing is, every yes costs something. When you say yes to something, you're inevitably saying no to something else. Or to put it another way, learning to say no means that you're holding space so that you can say yes to the things that matter most, to the God opportunities that come in front of you. Saying no to what isn't yours to carry allows you the freedom to say yes to what is yours to carry.
3. Protect your time with Him.
We have already said it. Our primary calling is to know Him and to be known by Him, which means we have to make that relationship a priority by protecting our time with Him. That cannot mean that we fit it in wherever there's time left over after we've taken care of everything else. It means it has to be a priority. That doesn't necessarily mean first thing in the morning. It just means intentional, prioritized, scheduled, on-purpose time with Him in prayer, in worship, and in the Word.
I have to talk about Luke chapter 10 here because I love this story, and it gives us a clear picture of exactly what I'm talking about. Jesus has visited the home of Martha and Mary, and Martha is busy. She is hosting. She's taking care of all the things. She's distracted by details and preparations. And Mary — we find Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus. She's just being present with Him, listening to Him. And Jesus tells Martha, when Martha complains that Mary is not helping, Jesus tells Martha that Mary has chosen the better thing, and that He will not take it away from her. We have to learn what it means to choose well, to choose what's better, to choose Him.
4. Pay attention to what drains you versus what fills you.
Again, in Scripture, Ephesians chapter 5 starting at verse 15: "Be very careful then how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is." This is where awareness has to lead to action. We've talked about that around here before. In Episode 4, in fact, we talked about the importance of paying attention to what's happening inside you. You have to pay attention to what's happening around you as well. And this is where that kind of awareness becomes stewardship. You have to notice what's draining you, what's depleting your energy, what's distracting you, and then also notice what brings you life, what's filling you up, what energizes you. But the key is then you do something with that information. Wise living requires it.
5. Be intentional about who has access to you.
Proverbs 13:20 — "Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm." Friend, it's worth saying here that not everyone gets the same level of access to you, to your heart, to your time, to your energy. Part of guarding your heart is being intentional about who speaks into your life, who you allow close, who you let influence your thinking and your decisions and your sense of self. You have to find your people — people who encourage you, support you, who pray for you, and people who will tell you the truth. People who celebrate with you, people who will weep with you.
And listen, it's probably not going to be a giant circle of people. Think of Jesus — He had a small group of twelve followers and friends, and then an even smaller group or an inner circle of three: Peter, James, and John. It is okay to keep your inner circle small. In fact, it is probably wise.
These five things — this is self-leadership. Self-leadership is keeping the main thing the main thing, doing what you have to do to make sure you don't bury the lead story. Friend, this is the work, and it is worth it. It changes everything.
What You Carry Matters
So given all of this, here's where I want to leave you today.
We started off with a story where I'm sitting at the table with my calendar open and my sweet girl's quiet voice cutting through the noise and a question that bubbled to the surface that had been building for a long time — "What am I doing and what is it costing me?"
I could have refused to answer that question for myself. I could have pushed it aside again like I had been doing, and it would have continued to cost me greatly. In fact, I wouldn't be here with you doing what I'm doing. But I decided the cost was too great.
Side note — we did go on that day trip, and it did create ripples at work. But it was okay. It was worth it. It was the right thing.
Now, what about you? What are you doing and what is it costing you? Maybe it's time that you ask and answer those questions too. Maybe you've been moving along with your head down, doing all the things, making things happen. Maybe your heart is heavy and somewhere in all of it, the lead story in your life has gotten buried or you've forgotten.
But I want to remind you today, just like Paul reminded Timothy — the world needs what you carry. The world needs that good thing that God has entrusted to you. Friend, you are still called and what God has placed in you is good.
But if it seems like your gifts and your purpose have gotten crowded out or they've grown dim or dull — if it seems that you're not making the impact that you want to make or that you used to make — can I encourage you to sit with this question this week: How am I guarding what God has entrusted to me?
This is not about waiting for your life to slow down before you tend to your heart and your soul. You have to choose what's better now. Because listen, life probably isn't going to slow down, and no one else can do these things for you. It is your responsibility to steward the calling. And because of God's kindness, through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives in you, friend, you have everything that you need to do what He's asking you to do. That is a promise.
Choose what's better. Choose well. Guard your heart. The world needs what you carry.
Until Next Time
Hey friend, thanks for tuning in to The Purpose Project Podcast. I hope today's conversation helped you feel seen and a little less alone in the messy middle of life. If this episode encouraged you, would you take a second to share it with a friend or leave a quick review? That will help other women who need hope and encouragement find this space, and it truly means the world to me.
You can always find free resources, upcoming events, or join the email list by visiting my website, thepurposeproject.us. Remember, friend — you were created on purpose and for a purpose. Until next time, be brave. And eyes on Jesus.
Meet Your Host
I’m Valerie Jones, a Christian Life & Leadership Coach and the host of The Purpose Project Podcast. I created this space for Christian women who are navigating the messy middle: those in-between seasons where faith is real but stretched, and life doesn’t look the way you expected.
My approach is rooted in biblical truth, emotional health, and brain-based methods because I believe God designed us as whole people, and transformation and personal growth should consider our whole selves.
“An untended fire doesn’t provide the light or the warmth it was intended to provide. And neither does a neglected calling.”
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