Have you ever been scrambling to find a charger for your phone because you forgot to charge it the night before? If you don’t charge it, it stops working and we’re no different. Human beings only have so much energy to put out into the world. We are in a constant cycle of giving energy and receiving it. How we move through the world and how we’re individually wired determine how much we have available at any given point in our day. Most of us think of our work life as the biggest culprit in the energy drain, but everything you do either adds or subtracts from your internal battery. That includes how we take care of (or don’t) ourselves, the people we surround ourselves with (or don’t), the spaces we live and work in and so many more.
Finding out what fuels you and what drains you can make all the difference in the quality of your life. I can promise you that there are people who you feel literally suck the life out of you and others who leave you feeling energized and inspired. Everything in your world – from the food you eat to the way you tackle your to-do list – has some impact on your energy levels. Learning to recognize what gives you energy versus what takes it away can be transformative in your life.
Everything has to start somewhere, so I like to recommend to my clients that they identify just 3 things that fuel them and 3 things that drain them. They can be big, little or somewhere in between, and you don’t have to do anything but become aware. As you begin to build an awareness of the ebbs and flows of energy throughout your day, you will automatically begin to identify the sources. Once you have that, you then have the choice to make changes or not.
Some changes may be easy, like choosing foods that energize you rather than those than drag you down. The tougher ones are what do with the energy vampires lurking around your life or the job that is so stressful it leaves you with barely enough energy to crawl into bed at night to escape. No matter what you discover, there is always an improvement you can make to begin to reclaim yourself. Make one small change and then another. Before you know it, your life will improve in ways you can’t even imagine.
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