Becoming Energy Efficient

My client showed up to our coaching call completely burned out.

He was waking up at 4 am. Scrambling into international conference calls at 5 am.

Eating whilst listening in on meetings for lunch. Briefly stopping work to greet the kids after school. And then proceeding to work through calls until 7pm.

The evening comes, and no sooner than he puts his kid to sleep is he ready to sleep himself.

And then the weekend arrives, and between family commitments and chores, he only had to blink before Sunday evening arrives, and he is bracing himself for another non-stop week once again.

As extreme as it sounds, the story that I heard from my client wasn’t too dissimilar to my own.

My story

I remember being in a corporate job in medical sales and having to wake up and be out of the house at 5 am on some days to make it to the hospital I was supporting.

Some days would require me to support surgical cases in the evenings and I wouldn’t be home until 10 pm.

One of my main reasons for wanting to leave my job was to have full agency over my time. To work according to my calendar, not someone else’s.

But six months into running my business full time, I was working more hours than ever before!

I was always swamped and always felt like I had more tasks to do than time available to do them.

I felt like life was going at a million miles an hour, and I was trapped in my business.

It was no surprise that I experienced burnout on several occasions and felt unhappier than I did when I had a corporate career in medical sales.

Until I realised that all of my time-related problems were made up!

Made by me.

I was choosing to make time for work and work only.

I was choosing to find the time for everything else, only when there wasn't important work to do.

And by hoping to find free time someday in the future, it never came.

My relationship with my wife, my life satisfaction and my health all suffered.

Eventually, my work did too.

It was time to take a long hard look at myself and acknowledge that it was me who was causing this to happen. Not my work, not my company or anything else other than myself.

Life changed when I started to make time in the calendar for rest and recovery, the same way I did for client meetings and business activities.?

It was no longer about accommodating rest time when it was convenient and making it an integrated part of my work week.

And since then, I’ve seen my productivity increase massively and no more episodes of burnout either!

More Hours Does Not Equal More Productivity

Old thinking tells us that working hard is the only way forward. And the more hours you’re working, the harder you’re working.

This thinking is outdated and one based on conventional jobs that were paid on an hourly basis.

But nowadays, most people’s pay isn’t proportional to the hours that they work. It’s proportional to their output.

The same thinking doesn’t apply anymore.

On top of old thinking is also our own ego.?We can sometimes feel like we have a sense of duty to work longer hours. That how many hours we work is a reflection of our own importance or commitment to something.

None of this is real, though, outside of our own mind.

The Law Of Diminishing Returns

The law of diminishing returns is a financial concept that says there's a limit to how much benefit you get from doing more of something.

Imagine you’re studying for an exam.

The first hour you study might give you a lot of value and understanding, but as you keep studying beyond a certain point, the extra time you put in doesn't give you the same amount of benefit.

You might become less focused, tired, or less able to absorb information effectively.

In simpler terms, it means that there's a point where doing more doesn't always lead to better results.

It's like eating your favourite food. The first few bites are incredibly satisfying, but after a while, you might start feeling full or even get tired of it.

Similarly, when it comes to work, pushing yourself too hard for an extended period might make you less productive overall because you reach a point where your efforts don't bring as much value as they did initially.

Cause and Effect

In the case of my client, I started by asking him a simple question?

How are you contributing to the situation you are in?

Because the truth is, that there is always something that we can do to change.

More often than not, the circumstances that we find ourselves in are something that we have caused, not something that we are at the effect of.

If you find yourself lacking time and energy, it’s useful to understand the reason you are here in the first place.

Take ownership of your circumstances.

To begin, a good question to ask yourself is:

What is causing me to have no spare time and very little energy?

Time vs Energy

Time is a limited resource. There’s a limit to how many hours you can work in a day or a week.

But energy is different. You can expand it and see exponential gains rather than linear gains.

With my client, we found that waking up one hour earlier and having more time with himself before his children woke up, gave him more energy and productivity than waking up later.

Less time asleep resulted in higher levels of energy.

It seems counterproductive but it worked!

Deep Questions

With this in mind, let’s explore how you can create more energy in your life.

It’s important to be truly honest with yourself about what’s going on in your world and what’s really holding you back.

As Tim Ferriss says, ?‘All that stands between you and what you want is a better set of questions'.

So here are seven questions that you can use to create more energy for yourself.

• ???????What activities in your week bore you?
• ???????What tasks are you taking on that you should delegate to others?
• ???????What do you delegate to others that you should be doing yourself?
• ???????What times of the day are you most energised?
• ???????What times of the day are you most drained of energy?
• ???????What habits increase your energy?
• ???????What habits drain you of energy?

More Energy = Better Quality

By default, we often approach performance with a ‘do-more’ attitude – “In order to be better, I have to do more”.

Or “ In order to get paid more, I have to work more".

It’s a flawed approach for us to try and fit in more to our daily lives without being able to extend the time we have to do the extra work.

Because time is a finite resource. Energy is not.

Make A Change. And Then Another.

So what’s next?

Now that you have identified what energises you and what depletes you, it's time to start taking action.

How can you double down on what works and start cutting out what doesn’t?

In this way, you can perform higher-quality work much more efficiently.

?

It Is Up To You, To Be You

We can often be our own worst enemy.

The best way to be true to who you are is to live in alignment with yourself.

Most people are tired, stressed and burned out because their lives are filled with activities and habits that they don’t want to do.

It is not selfish to start setting boundaries.

It’s self-respect.

Making decisions based on what is important and energising to you is liberating.

You might find yourself filled with more energy than ever before.

If you are finding yourself trapped on the flywheel of work, I would be happy to make some time for a conversation that will help you create more energy in your life.

You can book a time in my calendar using the link below:

https://calendly.com/mkcareersolutions/45min