How to Win the Battle In Your Head

Of all the challenges you face as a leader, one of the most intense is knowing how to win the battle that goes on in your head.

Leadership is above all a mental (and therefore spiritual) game.

You can have all the hard skill sets in the world—a fantastic education, tremendous insight, wisdom, the ability to rally a team, to build things and to get things done—but if you don’t know how to deal with the voices in your head, you can go down in defeat.

Sometimes you don’t need anyone to take you out of leadership. You’re perfectly capable of doing it yourself, just by listening to the voices in your head.

You know what I mean, the voices that say:

You’re not up for this.

What’s the point?

You’re not doing a great job.

Just do something else with your life…it will be easier.

This doesn’t really matter.

Don’t bother.

Most of us have a series of messages (like these) that play back over and over again in our mind, like a mixtape. Yours may be similar or a bit different, but they’re there. 

Sadly, too many of the voices in your head try to defeat what God wants to accomplish in you and through you.

Win the battle in your head, and you can win the battle in leadership. Lose it, and you can lose everything.

So how do you ultimately win? Here are 6 things that have helped me as a leader.

1. Win the battle by calling an audible

The problem most of us experience with the battle in our heads is that it’s been going on for so long, we hear the negative voices as a kind of white noise.

When I’m struggling with thoughts in my head that aren’t helpful and can’t get clarity, I call an audible. I name (sometimes out loud) the reality that all the actual opposition I’m facing is in my head. 

Personally, I find by saying something as simple as “wait…this is ALL IN MY HEAD” can be tremendously clarifying.

It’s not real…not yet. I’m just thinking it.

And—remember this—the stuff that’s in your head is only as real as you let it become.

It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution, but it’s a great starting point.

2. Stop focusing on yourself

I often find when I’m losing the battle in my head that  I’m focusing on myself, not on the mission.

Self-focus is helpful when it’s tied to self-awareness, and you’re confessing, changing, building or growing as a leader. Beyond that, it’s increasingly less productive.

Self-focus beyond self-awareness as a leader becomes selfish.

So ask yourself: is my self-focus helping me or hurting me? Am I growing as a leader, or am I just finding a new rut to get stuck in?

If your self-focus is not productive, drop it. Because selfishness is never productive in leadership.

You know this to be true: the selfish leader is rarely self-aware, and the self-aware leader is rarely selfish.

3. Win the battle and find a bigger challenge

The voices that play in my head get worse when I’m bored…when there’s no challenge that’s dominating my time and attention.

Sometimes the fact that the voices are present and there’s a malaise is evidence to me it’s time for a bigger challenge.

That doesn’t mean quitting your job or looking for something new. It just means upsizing the scale and importance of your current mission.

Fortunately for church leaders, we have the biggest mission on planet Earth. Nothing could be more exciting, challenging or worthy of our lives.

If you’re not excited about the mission of the church, you don’t understand the mission.

Refocusing on the mission of the church is a very effective way of silencing the negative voices in your head.

4. Take a break and come back fresh

Occasionally, the problem isn’t that you’re not working hard enough, it’s that you’re working too hard. You’ve gotten lost in the long drone of day-to-day leadership.

Instead of staring at a wall and letting the dialogue in your head ramp up to another level, take a break and do something not related to your job.

Go for a run. Hop on your bike. Take a hike (literally). Watch a movie. Game a little. Cut your lawn. Have dinner with a friend and DON’T talk about work.

Take a nap or go to bed an hour early (going to bed earlier is almost always more energizing than sleeping in).

The mental distractions these activities provide give us a break from the long drone of leadership.

Every leader needs a break from the long drone of leadership. So take one today.

5. Lean into your energy

You get an equal amount of energy every day, but you never bring the same amount of energy to each hour.

You likely have a 3-5 hour window every day where you’re truly at your best. Your energy is high. Your mind is sharp, and your enthusiasm runs deep.

The problem is that often, you squander that energy on unproductive things, like a meeting that went too long, or email that made your eyeballs numb, or small tasks that could have been saved for later.

The key to maximum effectiveness as a leader is this: do what you’re best at when you’re at your best. That’s what top-performing leaders do (here are 12 other traits of top-performing leaders).

If your key strength is communication, do your writing or thinking in that 3-5 hour window. Save the administration for later when your energy is lower.

Or if your key work is building into your best people, get them in a room when your energy is at its best.

For me, my best hours are between 5-10 a.m. I try to do my most important work in that window.

Discover your peak hours by monitoring your energy level and then doing what you’re best at… when you’re at your best. (I wrote more about how to do that here.)

6. Pray and have people pray for you

Prayer is so important to Christian leadership, but it’s so often neglected.

I admit, I would lean toward participating in a strategy meeting over a prayer meeting any day, but that’s also a critical mistake. If we’re being 100% dead honest, you might lean in the same direction (and if you don’t—great).

Praying about the battle in your head is a necessary and powerful step every leader can take. And it should be the first step.

Also, when the battle wages on, it’s a good idea to have other people pray for you.

When I entered a period of burnout a decade ago, the prayers of close friends and family were instrumental in helping me see the light of day again.

Prayer fixes my mind on Christ and lifts me above the problems I’m facing at any given moment.

Here’s what I’m learning as a leader: fixing your mind on Christ fixes your mind.

What About You?

What voices do you hear in your head that want to take you off-mission and out of the game?

How do you battle them…and win?