Managing Your Energy

Do you go home exhausted every day after work and not have enough energy to be who you want to be in every other area of your life? This is something that, as I continue to work with people, they tell me all the time. It's not just that. Sometimes, you get up, and you've had a good night's sleep, but you still don't have a lot of energy, and by about nine or ten o'clock, you don't feel like you've been rested at all. Well, stick with me because this week, I want to help you with some key strategies on how to shift this.

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, leadership and sustainable performance coach, and today I want to continue our conversation around the shift in your productivity by helping you manage your energy.

Over the last few weeks, we have been talking about that old chestnut—productivity—and we have made sure to dispel some rumours and get rid of some old teachings that weren't serving us.

You cannot manage time; it's not within your control, and yet it's the thing that everybody focuses on — time management.

"I don't have enough time."

That in itself creates a lot of overwhelm, which reduces your productivity. So, a couple of weeks ago we talked about the fact that you're not going to manage time; you're going to manage, firstly, your expectations of yourself as well as the expectations of others. And last week we talked about managing your environment and ensuring it was conducive to getting things done.

Today, I want to finish this conversation around this shift by talking about a finite resource—and that is your energy. For me, this is the key thing that I want to manage and that I teach others to do the same, to enable you to go from that high-performance burnout to sustainable performance, to enable you to get more done but then still have enough energy left at the end of the day to be who you want to be for every other part of your life.

Work is not your life and something you need to balance with your life; it's just one part of life. I know from personal experience and from working with many people like you that it can become all-encompassing and take over your life. That's why I feel like sharing what I went through and how I made this shift will help you.

Most leaders I work with are sleep-deprived, fuel-deficient, and not eating correctly, if at all, during the day. A big problem is brain dehydration, where they hardly drink water. That can lead to burnout and a sense of, "I don't think I can do this anymore." I've been there and if you followed me at all, you would have heard my story of my physical and mental burnout which left me unable to help anyone. My motive for getting up and serving people was to help them. However, because of how I was doing it, I got into a position where I couldn't help anybody, including myself.

So, you need to do things differently. Exercise self-care, fitting your own mask first before looking after everyone else. Be fuel-efficient by putting good stuff in, caring for your body, staying hydrated, and being brain-friendly. Keep your brain optimised and use it in a way that allows you to get the most out of yourself.

This whole area of professional leadership I am talking about is about getting results from your own efforts. So, you need to make sure that you optimise your energy so that you can not only accomplish what you need to get done each day but still feel good and have the energy left to do other things. You can avoid becoming one of the statistics of burnout, which is so prevalent around the world again right now. To do this, I want to introduce you to seven key strategies I’ve adopted and learned from other professionals and mentors. These strategies helped me get back on track and achieve more without burning out.

Now, I need to let you know that I’m a work in progress in every single one of these, just like you will be. There are still reasons why you do things the way you do—those psychological underlying issues we’ve talked about before. So, it’s a work in progress, and it’s not a dichotomy where you go from having low energy to high energy. It’s a game you play every single day, and it’s about consistency. What I want you to do today is pick one thing you can start working on and then gradually increase your capacity in each area. It's not about taking on another seven things that you have to do because that's going to sap your energy as well.

The first strategy is to match your peaks.

Everyone is different. Some people are morning people, some are evening people, some function best in the middle of the day, and others can maintain their energy throughout the entire day. Matching your peaks means that when you know you are at your best energetically, you do the tasks that require the most energy. You can focus on less intensive activities when you're not at your peak. Now, I understand you can't always follow this because there are other people involved, and sometimes you need to do things at a certain time. It's not like being able to go, "Well, hey, I'll come to work in the morning, and I'll go home in the afternoon," because that doesn't give you a collaborative team environment. However, where you can, I want you to match your peaks and utilise that high energy level to get more done in your day.

The second strategy is really important, and that's to do one thing at a time...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE: https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/managing-your-energy

Grant Herbert (aka The People Builder) describes himself as an ordinary guy, with an outstanding wife and 5 amazing kids, who has a passion to help people escape the performance trap and regain their authenticity in every area of life. He is a VUCA Leadership Mentor, Sustainable Performance Coach, Master Coach Trainer in Social and Emotional Intelligence,?and the founder of People Builders.

Visit www.grantherbert.com to find out how you can connect.