What zaps your energy?
Lately I noticed that the battery on my phone wasn’t holding its charge like it used to. I’d leave the house with decent battery strength and before you know it, I’m down to desperate measures, power saving just to keep a signal and avoid the dreaded shut-down before I get home.
Eventually I’ll need a new battery or phone that’ll hold a charge, have more stamina and off I go again. Lucky phone. Us humans don’t yet get the option of plugging in a new battery so stamina is something we need to master for ourselves.
Because I loathe spending money when I don’t need to, when this first started happening with my phone, perceived wisdom was “look at what’s draining the battery”, “see if you really need it”. Wise words. It led to a discovery of a whole new world of insight I’d no idea was there. At the press of a button the phone magically told me what was zapping the phone’s energy.
When my battery first started playing up, someone told me how you can look through the phone to understand energy drain. For me a phone’s a phone so this opened up a whole world of insight I had no idea that I could see. In essence this part of the settings looked at all the apps I was using, how often I used the phone, how intense the usage was and what was zapping the phone’s energy. Critically it also told me that at certain points more energy was being drained than the phone’s ability to recharge.
What fascinated me was the way things I’d habitually taken for granted and assumed were just part of the phone were draining energy far more significantly than the value I was getting from them. In fact some apps were happily drinking from the battery I hadn’t really known were even there. Removing these hungry hippos immediately helped my phone and made no difference to my daily life. What a win.
Of course humans are not machines. We have a pulse, we have variability. We don’t have the ability to just go get a new battery but this energy equation still applies. Marie Kondo has risen to fame decluttering people’s homes, we are habituated to collecting and gathering stuff. And so it is with our lives. We collect activities, engagements, commitments, obligations and concerns often without even realising it. Some of these things drain energy but others add great joy and excitement and kinetically create energy. We just don’t have a little button to do the math for us and tell us what’s what.
So it’s on us to do our own energy audit. To figure out things that make our energy go ZIP and what makes our energy go ZAP. And we need to act preventatively before burnout catches us. Burnout is a sign of mostly zap, and not enough zip. When burnout catches us, it’s like our battery won’t take a charge any longer, it’s gone into the deepest sleep, we get the urge to give up and shut-down. There’s not even enough energy in the tank to even start recharging.
By doing your own energy audit, you can look at your own energy equation, highlighting the things that create a natural solar recharge in your life and which elements truly drain your energy, place a huge burden on the system and seemingly give you very little return for the expense of your energy.
If you have access to a coach, get them to act as your very own Marie Kondo because sometimes having someone really challenge you on whether spending hours at night binge watching Squid Games is recharging or energy draining is up for big debate.
If you don’t, then here’s a simple exercise to get you started on your own energy equation.
You can do this on a sheet of paper or you can use a template like the one I’ve given you. Reflecting on where you are right now – consider what are the big challenges zapping your energy right now. To help you out, but stop this get over-complex, I’ve suggested you may consider four aspects;
- WORK; by which we can also mean career or business if you own your own
- FAMILY & FRIENDS; by which we can also mean significant others however defined
- HEALTH; both physical and emotional health
- GROWTH; which can be learning or our emotional growth, I’ll let you define what works for you
You can scrub things out, start again, write all over it. Just put up there the big things you think at the moment are zapping your energy.
Now shift to the left hand side and do the same but this time consider what are the things that really give you a zip in your energy levels. At work it could be a specific project or co-worker that you really get on well and collaborate with. Within your family it may be love you receive or give. And so forth. There will be something, there’s always something.
Next take a step back. As you look at the energy zappers in your life compared the energy zips, what’s the balance looking like? Is there enough zip to overcome the energy drain, or are the zappers just way too strong?
Then in the middle against each of your four headings write down one actionable thing, that’s within your control that you can do to improve the outcome of your energy equation between the zips and the zaps. It could be, spend more time with someone you love, spend less time with someone who you know has a negative impact on your mood. Look for a new project that gives you more natural vigour and enjoyment over what you do now. There may be some things that are energy zappers that can’t be avoided right now, but you may be able to counter their effect by introducing something new as an energy booster. It will all be personal to you.
If this is your first time doing an energy audit then aim for actions that are within your gift right now. As you get more advanced in this technique you can learn to spend energy to save energy – for example moving closer to where you need to work involves spending energy on a house move to save energy on the daily commute. But that’s the advanced stuff that can come later. For now pick things within your immediate control.
And when you’ve done all that. You have a starting point of understanding your energy equation and how we have a choice to subject ourselves to the “ways things are” or buck the trend, take control and change the balance for our own good. The first step to being an energy leader is to master energy ourselves.
Ever felt there’s never enough hours in the day to get everything done, overwhelmed, exhausted and never quite achieving what you want? Time is finite, but energy is not. Achieve more without working harder or longer through mastering sustainable energy. To learn more about becoming an energy leader subscribe for free at https://www.linkedin.com/company/ian-browne-coaching
Share this article with someone you love or respect and let’s all become energy leaders.
