How to Become an Expert at Managing Your Energy (Ep 34)
Energy is important to everything we do … from work to relationships to taking care of kids or pets. Your biggest business asset is your energy. Your biggest life asset is your energy.
In today’s episode, I’m talking about why you should know where your energy is going, how to determine if you're putting your energy towards things that energize you or drain you, and tips for managing your energy levels.
What is your vision for a fulfilling life? Are you putting your energy towards the things that matter to you? This episode will help you put your energy towards a purposeful, rewarding life.
In this episode, you’ll learn...
[02:39] The importance of understanding where your energy is going each day
[07:09] Why you need to become an expert at managing your energy and prioritizing activities that promote rest and renewal
[12:11] How energy drains suck your energy and ways to address them to free up more energy
[14:19] An exercise to help you notice, maintain, and care for your energy levels
This season is all about the different kinds of leaps you can make in your life. If you’re looking for habits and tools to keep you going after your leap, be sure to tune into this episode.
Standing at your own crossroads and ready to get clear on your direction? Apply for my Catalyst Coaching Program today!
If you are at that sort of stage where you are trying to figure out what do you want out of your next role, and you want to do some self reflection, I have something that is going to help you do that. Check out my self-paced digital course, Illuminate Your Career Path in 5 Steps. Five different modules will take you through step by step how to do some of this initial planning and thinking about what you want next for your career path.
I want you to know about my new free change planner. This planner is for you if you'd like to make a significant change in life or work, but you're feeling kind of stuck. My change planner will help you get the clarity you need to take your next steps. Inside, I'll show you how to understand what you really want and why it's important, how to face your fears constructively so they don't hold you back, and this planner also has a scenario cruncher. I hope you get all possible scenarios out of your head so you can find the right one for you!
Links mentioned in this episode…
The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz
My blog post about tolerations
Download my FREE Energy Tracker Worksheet
Transcript of Episode 34: How to Become an Expert at Managing Your Energy
[00:00:00] Lisa Hoashi They often struggled with. How could they take on any extra? How could they create the space for the change that they wanted to make? And also, sometimes, you know, when we really understand that we need to make a change, it's when we're already feeling kind of bad. We've been in a tough situation for a long time, and it's really dragging on us energetically, confidence wise, in many ways. So at that moment, it's so important to have the energy to move toward what you want to change.
[00:00:34] Welcome to Leap Like Me, the podcast that helps you to be bold in life, to stretch what's possible and find more adventure, joy and purpose along the way. I'm your host, Lisa Hoashi. I'm a life coach who can help if you're ready to take a new, more authentic direction in life. On Leap Like Me, we share the inspiring stories of people like you who have made a brave leap and offer practical tips for how to set your leap in motion, too. Let's get started.
[00:01:14] Hello everyone. I am so excited to be back for another season of Leap Like Me. I'm Lisa Hoashi. And today we are talking about one of my favorite topics, energy. The idea of managing our energy has become one of my most abiding interests because of how necessary it is when it comes to wanting to live 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. After today's episode, you're going to have a new framework for how to think about your daily energy and your daily habits and have an experiment for the next week that will help you get more energy to devote to the things that are most important to you.
[00:02:12] One quick thing before we get started. This season, we're moving to an every other week schedule, releasing episodes on Wednesdays. So make sure that you subscribe if you're not already. So you don't miss any episodes. By the way, I made this change and my schedule so that I had enough energy for this fall. This is perhaps an excellent place to start with our conversation with context. So I want to ask you to just pause for a moment and think about where all your energy on a given day goes. Work is probably a big one. Relationships is probably another one. Think about the energy that you spend with friends, with partners, with family, with kids. And then think about the life men all the life admin stuff. So the cooking, cleaning, the shopping, the paying bills and also think about how your energy fluctuates.
[00:03:20] Energy kind of makes me think about time, like it's hard to track. It's not always consistent and just like time can go by fast or also tick by slowly. You can feel suddenly drained with your energy or you can suddenly feel like supercharged. It just depends. It's like very fluid. Energy can also be impacted by the bigger things that are going on in our world and how our nervous system is reacting. Stay tuned for more of this in our next episode. Think about how energy can be impacted by what you just read about in the news or that you saw on Instagram. Or even just like the bigger things of like the cycles of the season or menstruation. And there's so much that can impact our energy.
[00:04:17] For example, something I've learned to expect as a coach, a mom and a human being is that, for example, the start of fall is extremely energetic. There's like a huge energy surge. And then if you're not careful, a huge energy crash, there's this sensation of starting fresh when fall arrives because many people are coming off of summer break. They're feeling more rejuvenated. Maybe there's a sensation of everyone's back online, of things kicking off, of taking new classes or projects that you have new goals to hit for the last quarter of the year. There's that back to school for students and teachers, of course.
[00:05:03] And so energy management, I find, is super important during this time of year. And really in any time that there's a transition, a transition of season or a transition that you're facing in life, it could be a transition from your thirties to your forties. It can be a transition from leaving one job and starting a new one. Energy management is so important during transitions, and it's so important when you want to keep moving towards your bigger goals in life and living your values no matter what happens around you. Because, of course, we live in this very complex and imperfect world. Energy is vital to your health and to your relationships, your impact, your goals and your joy.
[00:05:55] So here's a story from my first year in business. That was eight years ago. Now I just celebrated my anniversary. In that first year as a business owner, I noticed a couple of things. Number one, starting my business took a huge effort more than I expected. Sometimes I wondered where I would find the energy to keep going. And the other thing I noticed is that I was starting to help my clients to go after their big dreams. And what I noticed as they started to prepare to do that. They also struggled with startup energy. Their daily lives already demanded a lot, and so they often struggled with how could they take on any extra? How could they create the space for the change that they wanted to make? And also, sometimes, you know, when we really understand that we need to make a change, it's when we're already feeling kind of bad. We've been in a tough situation for a long time, and it's really dragging on us energetically, confidence wise, in many ways. So at that moment, it's so important to have the energy to move toward what you want to change.
[00:07:09] So when I told my own mentor coach about how hard it was, I was finding it to maintain my own momentum in my business. She said, Lisa, your biggest business asset is your energy. And the idea stopped me in my tracks. I realized our energy determines whether we move forward with any goal. And whether we are able to continue to persevere. Your biggest life asset is your energy. So what does this mean? But in order to live the life that you truly want to lead, 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, I've been able to maintain that, but I'm also the mama of two little kids. And I don't want it to take away any of these things because all of these things make up my own vision for like what's a really beautiful and meaningful life. I love my business. I want to raise up these two beautiful humans with my husband, and I want to share my life with all of them.
[00:08:31] So yeah, as I move toward a more fulfilled life, I'm adding some pretty big things to the picture. As just this funny side note, I just added one more thing to the mix this fall, which is volunteering to be on the Amba, which for all Americans is the Spanish version of the PTA, the Parents Association for our Kids School. And it's not only going to be like this little extra thing, but it's also this two year commitment and in a foreign culture. But the reason why I did that was that I realized that this is a way that we could continue to really intentionally build community in our local village and in our school. And that is also part of my vision for a full life. So that's why we said yes. And that's why, again, it's going to be really important to understand the energy management, because we just added one more thing, and this is kind of how life goes. So to keep going after your dreams, you've got to manage your energy.
[00:09:37] After my coach shared this idea with me, she introduced me to a book called The Power of Full Engagement. Managing Energy, Not Time, is the key to high performance and personal renewal. By Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz. The most lasting ideas I took from this book was that we need to watch our energy expenditures and our energy renewals. And what I liked is the authors used the example of how top athletes learn how to manage their energy in order to be top performers. So let's think about one of my favorite athletes, Serena Williams. So think about the energy that she expends during a grand slam tournament. Think about all the rituals and the habits that she needs to keep around training and what she eats and her sleep. So many different things in order to show up as her best at one of these tournaments. Also, think about the time after a tournament, after one of these big efforts that she takes off to rest and recuperate.
[00:10:49] 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 then we also need to build in times dedicated to rest and renewal. So here's a quick question. When you plan your week out, do you reserve some times that are dedicated to rest and renewal? Do you also make time for and know which activities and energy habits renew you the most?
[00:11:23] So next, as I continued on in my coach training, I learned about the work of Thomas Leonard, who is one of the founding contributors of the coaching profession today. He talked about energy drains, which he called toleration. So toleration 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 seeing energy management as this sort of two sided coin. On the one side is everything that gives us energy and renews our energy. And on the other side are the energy expenditures and drains.
[00:12:11] So today I'm going to give you an exercise at the end of this episode to help you cultivate the habits that renew and add to your energy. But before I do that, I want to also pause to talk about energy drains. Lately, I've been realizing how incredibly important they are because they can really be sizable when you can take care of a significant energy drain. They can really free up a lot of energy. And also, sometimes they're unpredictable. Sometimes you do something and you're like, Whoa, that had a big impact. So they can really be a powerful. Thomas Leonard was really on to this, and he recommended that people become a toleration free zone. I'm not that extreme. I want to be realistic. But I do want to encourage people to have an awareness of their drains and to have a set of different strategies to address them.
[00:13:12] So here are some ideas. First of all, think about where does a lot of your mental and emotional energy go? Perhaps you struggle with some reoccurring bad habits or patterns that you haven't been able to resolve on your own. In that case, maybe it's time to consider getting some outside help with that. Or maybe a significant energy issue could be resolved by upholding better boundaries. Could you set and maintain a boundary that would help with a person or a situation that consistently drains your energy? If you are intrigued about going further into thinking about toleration and energy drains, head over to my website for a blog that I have about all of this. It's at LisaHoashi.com/blog/tolerations. Or find it by heading on over to the podcast show notes.
[00:14:13] Okay. Now let's turn our attention back to the plus side of the coin energy boosters and renewers. To create the type of life you want and to keep being able to go after your most important priorities and 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 of all, 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 when you first see them when you get home. Maybe it's exercising first thing in the morning. Or maybe it's playing a piano. Start tracking these energizing activities. Write them down on a chart and track how often you do them during one week.
[00:15:14] So on your chart might be yoga, playing words with friends, going to bed at ten, turning off your laptop at the end of the workday. And then what I'd like you to do is to mark off how often during one week you actually do those things. I went to yoga two times. I played words with friends every day. I went to bed at ten. Just two days. And then schedule a half an hour at the end of the week to notice, like, what happened? How did you feel after you didn't get to bed at ten? When did you feel the most energetic? When did you feel the most drained? What was happening?
[00:15:57] So some of the observations might be, Oh, a morning workout keeps me feeling positive through the whole day, or I really can't go to sleep very well if I'm on my phone past 9 p.m.. I need to turn it off before then. And then start to make some adjustments. Think about your next week. Start a new tracker with some new, you know, revised and or tweaked activities for the following week and get specific about what you will do. Okay. I will turn off my phone or put it in airplane mode at 9 p.m. every night, see if my sleep improves. Ultimately, what you want to find out is like what three daily activities or habits gave you the biggest energy boost.
[00:16:48] Because once you can identify these key energy boosts, you really start to notice their benefits. You start to really value them. You make time for them, you prioritize them as non-negotiables. You know, you put them in your calendar and you know, that's going to stick there. And these are really essential for those of us who are often caring for others first. You will find you have a reserve of energy to give generously to others around you rather than always running on a low tank. You will find you have more energy to go after your dreams. And I just want you to remember, your biggest asset is your energy.
[00:17:36] Hey, everyone, thanks for listening today. Before you head out, I want you to know about my free resource that will help you to get started on identifying your top three energy habits. Head over to LisaHoashi.com/resources to download my Free Energy Tracker Worksheet. It will help you track your energy habits week to week, just like I described in today's episode. Get it over at LisaHoashi.com/resources. Until next time, be bold and take good care.
