The Importance of Managing Your Energy Effectively
The topic of Energy is one of my favorites. The idea of managing our energy has become one of my deepest interests because of how necessary it is when it comes to living a more intentional life, a life that reflects your values and your dreams.
Because frankly none of that is possible if you just don’t have the energy to take it on.
A Quick Energy Audit
Pause for a moment and think about where all your energy on a given day goes.
➡ Work is probably a big one.
➡ Relationships are probably another one. Friends, partners, family, and kids!!
➡ Life-min … cooking, cleaning, shopping, paying bills.
Also, think about how your energy fluctuates.
Energy is a lot like time … it’s hard to track, and it’s not always consistent. Just like time can go by fast, and tick by slowly, you can feel suddenly drained or supercharged.
Energy also can be impacted by bigger things going on in the world and how our nervous system is reacting; cycles of the season or menstruation can have a big impact on our energy.
For example, something I’ve learned to expect as a coach, a mom, and a human being, is that the start of fall is extremely energetic. There’s like an energy surge, and then – if you’re not careful – an energy depletion!
There’s a sensation of starting fresh when fall arrives, because many people are coming off from summer break. There’s a sensation of everyone being back online, of things kicking off, of new undertakings and projects, new goals to hit for the last quarter of the year, and heading back to school, of course.
Energy management is super important during this time of year.
It is also super important when you want to keep moving toward your bigger goals in life and living your values – no matter what happens around you.
Energy is vital to your health, your relationships, your impact, your goals and your joy.
Energy Levels during my First Year in Business: A Reflection
In my first year as a business owner – I noticed two things:
Starting my business took a huge effort. Sometimes I wondered where I'd find the energy to keep going.
As my coaching clients prepared to go after their own big dreams, many also struggled with start-up energy. Their daily lives already demanded a lot. How could they take on anything extra?
When I told my mentor coach about how hard it was to maintain my momentum, she said:
“Lisa, your biggest business asset is your energy.”
The idea stopped me in my tracks.
Our energy determines whether we move forward with any goal.
Your biggest life asset is your energy.
What does this mean?
To live your best life, you’ve got to become an expert in managing your energy.
Over the years, this idea has only continued to be reinforced.
Because now, I’m not only a business owner, but also a mama of two little kids. I don’t want to take away any of those things … I love my work AND I also want to raise up these two beautiful humans with my husband and share my life with them.
Energy Management Experts
To keep going after your dreams, you’ve got to manage your energy.
Over the course of my coaching business, I have been introduced to many experts who have impacted how I think about energy.
👉 Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz wrote the book “The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal”. The most lasting ideas that I took from this book was that we need to watch our energy expenditures and energy renewals. The two authors use top athletes as an example of how to think about how to manage our energy for top performance.
Take a top athlete like Serena Williams. Think about the energy she expends during a Grand Slam tournament. Think about all the rituals and habits that she keeps – around training, diet, sleep – in order to show up as her best at one of these tournaments. Also, think about the time after that she takes off to rest and recuperate after a big effort like this.
This is the idea that Loehr and Schwartz introduced me to: That we need habits and rituals like these to be at our best. And that we also need to build in times dedicated to rest and renewal.
👉 Thomas Leonard one of the founding contributors of the coaching profession today, is another key contributor to the conversation. He talked about energy drains, which he called tolerations.
Tolerations are anything that you’re putting up with, things that are less than ideal. A toleration could be something as small as a dirty windshield or as foundational as not making enough money to make ends meet.
When I learned about energy drains, I started to seeing Energy Management as this two sided coin.
On the one side is everything that gives us energy and renews our energy.
On the other side is our energy expenditures and drains.
(You can read all about energy drains in this blog post on tolerations)
👉 Mary Jo Barrett, who co-authored the book Treating Complex Trauma, talks about Energetic Domains. I was at a conference with her, to support coaches and therapists during the pandemic. She encouraged us to think about where we were both expending energy, and replenishing it -- and the importance of knowing how to replenish it. This model I think is especially important now, because the pandemic has probably thrown us all off balance, in some of these areas. The six domains to think about are: Social, Intellectual, Physical, Spiritual, Sensual, Emotional.
All the above experts have valuable insights to share which can be applied to our lives.
Energy Boosters and Renewers
To create the type of life you want, and to be able to keep going after your most important goals, you need to get really good at noticing, maintaining and caring for your energy levels.
To help you do that, I want to invite you to try this experiment:
First, think through your average day and your daily activities. What habits or activities make you feel good, refreshed, or restored?
Maybe it’s cuddling with your kids before bedtime, exercising first thing, or playing the piano.
Start tracking these “energizing activities.” Write them down on a chart and track how often you do them during one week.
On your chart might be: Yoga, Playing Words with Friends, Going to bed at 10, Turning off my laptop at the end of the work day.
Schedule a half hour to take stock at the end of the week.
What do you notice? Some observations might be: A morning workout keeps me feeling positive through the whole day. Or, I need to stay off my phone at 9PM.Then make adjustments. Start a new tracker with revised activities for the following week. Get specific about the activity… Chart another week.
Ultimately, you want to find out: What three daily activities give you the biggest energy boost?
Once you identify your key energy boosts, you really start to notice their benefits.
You value them. You make time for them.
You prioritize them as non-negotiables. (Essential for those of us who always put caring for others first!)
You find you have a reserve of energy to generously give to others around you, rather than always running a deficit.
You find you have more energy to go after your dreams.
Your biggest asset is your energy.