Five Steps to Energy Empowerment - build your confidence and self worth.

Your workload is always there. It’s persistent and won’t fall off the edge of the cliff… and yet how much time do you spend sacrificing your energy for the deadlines and pressures of your work role?

And I bet you feel like you’re always teetering on that cliff edge. It’s scary, uneasy and not supporting your confidence in any way.

“I feel bad about leaving work early.”

“I should finish my work before I leave.”

“I have to miss my gym class to make sure this is perfect.”

“I don’t have time for lunch.”

Text message to friend 2 hours before: “Sorry, I can’t make our dinner tonight, I’ve got to work late.”

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All of the above is me at one point in my life.

Even now as I’m writing this, I’m questioning whether I have ‘enough time for my swim’ tonight as my workload has piled up since I got back from my holiday (and took an extra day off work on Monday).

Do I have enough time? Of course… there’s plenty of time – I can choose how I spend that time. And my choice impacts my energy.

Choice 1: work over 5:30 tonight, potentially another 2-4 hours to clear the demanding tasks. Energy Impact: depleted. Not much space to decompress, cook a nutritious meal. Feeling drained, ughh.

Choice 2: leave at the same time at 5:30, less time to clear work tasks, hit the swimming pool at the same time. Energy impact: topping up mindset resilience and emotional space. Probably feeling a bit guilty and anxious about workload, but knowing tomorrow is an earlier start in the office.

Choice 3: extend working for a bit longer, clear the prioritised deadline driven tasks. Energy impact: bit more mental space going into tomorrow, bit more tired than Choice 2, but compromise between physical versus emotional and mindset energy. Feeling a bit more hopeful that I can prioritise myself and get ahead tomorrow.

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Noticing that we need to take control of our energy management? Every decision we make is a values-based decision. We offset different types of energy in the process but ultimately if you choose to continually give away your energy to hit deadlines – what is left for you?

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Here’s a practical toolkit that you can do right now to start managing your time in way that isn’t deadline driven, but energy driven.

Time = space, pause and energy.

Notice if you’re lacking in certain areas and see if you can take away a few action steps to empower your energy, and ultimately build your confidence that you can take control of your life. These are the building blocks of your confidence and with every step, you may even notice that you can give yourself permission, without the feeling of guilt, to prioritise your needs and your energy.

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Five Steps to your Energy Empowerment

1. Set Clear Boundaries

• Define your limits: Identify your personal and professional limits. Once you know what you need, make sure you let others know about you – set expectations with colleagues, family and friends.
• Say no: Practice saying no to work outside of your scope, or commitments that you know, hand on heart, are not your priority and depleting your energy. ?
• Diarise “me-time”: Schedule in calendar slots for yourself like time for relaxation, exercise, and what defines your self-care needs. Remember by diarising - we then need to ‘protect’ them by not deprioritising them out!

2. Prioritise a Pause

• Regular breaks: Take regular breaks throughout your day to rest and recharge. Whether it’s a few deep breathes, a mindfulness practice, making yourself a drink, going for a short walk, or perhaps even a good stretch.
• Diarise breaks between meetings: Incorporate short pauses so you can decompress between meetings to mentally and emotionally prepare. This also includes lunch!
• Diffuse a disagreement: Call out a pause during a heated discussion or disagreement is essential to give you time to emotionally regulate. If you’re continuously experiencing fast-paced-conflict you’re running on adrenaline and draining your energy.

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3. Create a Healthy Relationship with Time

• Focus your brain: Write and cross off to-do lists, utilise planners, or digital task managers to organise your tasks so you can feel a sense of control of your workload.
• Prioritise tasks: Identify and focus on high-priority tasks first and do the hardest ones in the morning! Notice tasks that don’t need as much brain-power and do those when you know your energy is lower. That could be a time of day, or a particular day of the week. ?
• One-small-step-at-a-time: Break bigger projects or tasks down into smaller bitesize chunks and where you can – delegate! It’s OK to lighten your load and make sure you’re not taking on more than one person’s workload.

4. Limit distractions, create flow

• Diarise ‘focus time’: Diarise specific times for focused work where you remove distractions and avoid interruptions. Put your phone away, close the door, work through your to-do list crossing off as you go along to stay in flow.
• Digital prisons: ?Set boundaries with your phones or other tech by limiting non-essential notifications and even scheduling specific times for checking emails and social media. If you find yourself picking up your phone, it’s OK – try to lock it away in a ‘phone jail’. Sometimes to focus we need to be ruthless and take away temptation!
• Create a nice working environment: Especially if you’re working from home – you need to be somewhere where your brain wants to be – warm, inspiring to be in, conducive to productivity, free from distractions, and equipped with your IT and resource needs. Don’t take breaks in your work environment… move away.

5. Manage expectations

• Share your boundaries: Communicate your needs and boundaries clearly. You deserve your energy. Start with your energy first to then give back to others.
• Get help: Don’t hesitate to ask for help when needed, whether that’s from colleagues, friends, or other professional sources.
• Regular me-check-ins: Regularly check in with yourself and your energy levels. Think of your energy like a feeling – is it low, or high? Constricted, or expansive, depleted, or bright? Adjust your boundaries and workload as needed to maintain a healthy flow into your energy cup, topping it up with different needs as-and-when you need it.

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What’s your initial thoughts going through these 5 Steps? Perhaps this feels overwhelming, or perhaps you might even think, this is impossible.

I truly believe that the only way we can feel good about our self-worth and build confidence is by looking inwards. All the external validation in the world through ‘productive outcome’ is not going to top up your energy or give you that sustainability you’re looking to feel in yourself.

Where I see people having breakthroughs in their limiting beliefs and their lack of confidence and self-worth, is by giving themselves permission to prioritise themselves. When that prioritisation happens, suddenly there are pockets of space that opens up for us, and that’s when we can start to give ourselves permission to be in that space and top up our energy.

Empowerment is about knowing you have a choice.

You have a choice to hold your energy, and you have a choice to give away your energy. Energy is the source of your mindset and flow.

You are doing enough.

Just ask yourself, are you doing enough to prioritise your energy resources? It takes the Power of Courage to do something differently. And that’s uncomfortable and possibly so foreign or alien for you – that it’s going to take a while to see the benefits in your energy. But like all great things – it’s worth investing in now. Life is for enjoyment and laughter. There’s so much out there that we could be doing and even the smallest things in life, can bring us moments of joy and content.

Need a pause with a professional coach to Power Up Your Energy?

Follow this link and book in a Discovery Call with me: https://tr.ee/2vMyse4AB6

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