Replenish Your Energy

Today, let’s briefly consider the importance of replenishing our energy.

WHY?  So we maintain freshness and avoid burnout.  And no, I’m not naive, this CAN be possible for you.

Specifically, I want to talk about being strongly intentional about committing to refueling and “filling our tank”.  

Which means we need to be intentional about carving out time to refuel and fill our tank.  Most of us are super-busy, and this WON’T happen by accident.  We need to FIGHT for our time to recharge.

Simple, not easy.  A simple idea, but not easy to pull off, given all the demands we have and all the things competing for our attention.

Before we know it, our day has once again dwindled away and we fall into bed, exhausted.

“But I don’t HAVE any time to rest and refuel.”

Ironic, isn’t it?  I get it.  Let’s at least start with a couple foundational ideas.

In order to avoid burnout, we NEED regular replenishment.  It’s not an option!  We can’t trick our biology, not for long.  There is a 100% failure rate for those who try, and if you haven’t crashed and burned, it’s because you haven’t crashed and burned, YET.

I’m not one to go around making careless guarantees, but I WILL absolutely guarantee that burnout will eventually occur, for YOU, if you don’t figure out how to regularly, and SUFFICIENTLY, replenish your energy.

Now, in order to get regular replenishment, we need TIME to do so.

AND, in order to get that time to replenish our energy, we need to protect our time.  To guard our time.

Do you guard your time?  I’m specifically talking about that time to recharge.

Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, because you might not be at the point yet where you’re committing time everyday to recharging.

So here’s your field work for this week:

1) Be proactive and set some time everyday to recharge.  What you do in order to recharge is up to you.  Just make sure it replenishes your energy, or at least moves you in that direction.  And no, sleeping at night doesn’t count!  Obviously sleep is crucial, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.

2) Guard your time to recharge.  In other words, don’t allow things to bump it off your calendar.  Say “no” where you need to say no.

3) Observe how well you do with all this after a few days.  Are you actually committing time to recharging?  If you are, are you following through and keeping these “appointments” with yourself?  And if not, what does that mean?  What are your BARRIERS to pulling this off?

That’s all for now.  Set time everyday to recharge, follow through, and if you don’t follow through, identify the barriers getting in the way.

And then make the necessary adjustments.

And as always, I’m here to help.

Have a great week!

– Sean Cox, Chicago