What’s Draining You?
Unrealized dreams and goals can sap energy
In last week’s newsletter, I shared about how feeling overwhelmed can be a sign that you’re not filling your energetic tank. In order to tackle the responsibilities in life that aren’t as invigorating, we need to do the activities that boost our energy regularly.
Sometimes a sense of overwhelm can also indicate that you aren’t taking inventory of the energy-draining tasks in your life and work. If you don’t know what drains or gives you energy, you won’t be able to balance the two.
Conscious leaders prioritize being aware of their energy and how they’re showing up for themselves and their teams. To develop this ability, make a list of the thoughts, feelings, and activities that drain your energy. Then write a list of the thoughts, feelings, and activities that boost your energy.
Look for opportunities to decrease the energy-draining activities while increasing the energy-boosting activities. This is also a powerful exercise to lead your team through so they can identify ways to increase their energy, and therefore their overall satisfaction, creativity, and productivity.
Another energy-drain is that amorphous list of things you’d like to do, but haven’t. Nagging thoughts about incomplete goals or unfinished projects are like a slow leak in a tire—they will sap your energy over time and then you’ll have an energetic flat tire.
Conscious leaders can help clear these nagging thoughts by writing a list of goals, dreams, projects or tasks that are incomplete in their life, or challenges they’ve had for more than a year.
One of the biggest benefits of working with a coach is identifying these energy-draining lists and then getting the encouragement and accountability to finish the list. Or perhaps revise the list based on determining your true motivations, values, and goals.
I once heard the observation, “The key difference between ‘successful’ people and those who don’t feel successful is successful people have a new set of goals every year because they achieved the prior year’s goals.”
If you or your team are stuck in the trap of not feeling successful due to unachieved goals, or engaging in too many energy-draining tasks, it’s time to get out of the rut and prioritize energy-expanding thoughts, feelings and actions. The first step is increasing consciousness about what drains or boosts energy and then creating life and work that maximizes your energetic potential.
Work happy. Live happy. BE happy.
Meredith
The way we work and build teams is rapidly changing. Leaders often feel unprepared to navigate the transition. As a conscious leadership coach, consultant and communicator, Meredith helps leaders and their teams create new ways of working and relating so they can prepare for the future by consciously co-creating it.
Contact her to develop your conscious leadership and transform your organization into the workplace of the future.
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