When you’re cause-oriented—there’s something you care deeply about and you’ve committed part of yourself, your life to it—it’s normal and understandable that you might wring yourself out in support of that cause on a semi-regular basis.

You believe in this mission, this ideal, so when variables shift, opportunities arise, or conflicts brew you realign your life so you can throw more time, energy, and resources at this most-vital undertaking.

The unfortunate consequence of such a pivot is that you can easily stretch beyond your safe limits without realizing it. And when we’re persistently strained and taxed and depleted, things that were previously effortless become overwhelming; even everyday, bare-basic things.

Moments of placidity are replaced with long, pervasive periods of calmness-crushing anxiety.

You become a raw nerve, a bruised muscle, a fraying tendon.

You’re still you, you still care about what you care about, but you no longer have the same internal resources, the same energetic and psychological capacity to invest in anything—not relationships, not work, not your health, and not those larger convictions that otherwise fuel you.

This is something I personally struggle to remember at times, but there are moments in which the most productive thing any of us can do is take a step back, assess our personal wellbeing, and leverage some of our available time, energy, and resources to ensure we’re in good mental and physical shape before jumping back into the arena.

This doesn’t mean you should stop caring about or working toward things you believe in. On the contrary, it means pausing to make smart investments in personal (and social) infrastructure capable of supporting you during your upcoming bouts.

It’s shoring-up and bulwarking and sharpening and assessing, not retreating.

For me, this usually means recognizing when I’ve become stirred-up about something in a non-productive way, consciously stepping back, looking at the big picture (including myself and my life), and then figuring out how I can return to that cause as a more measured, focused, and stable version of myself; one that’s capable of sustaining for the long-haul and doing the smart thing rather than just something.

It might look different for you, and that’s okay.

What’s important is learning to tell the difference between effective and ineffective applications of passion and energy, and how best (for your personal inclinations, needs, and circumstances) to reinforce your foundations and charge up your battery when necessary.

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