In my last posting I mentioned Melissa, whose ‘energy bucket’ was the lowest I have ever seen. She had been working 12 hours a day seven days a week for seven months. She was exhausted and experiencing daily headaches, had stopped exercising, wasn’t eating well, and was drinking and smoking more. She was scared that she would lose her job because she couldn’t remember specific regulations (compliance) that she used to be able to quote without problem. She was fragile.
In the midst of her tears she said, “I don’t want to be like this anymore!” That was the start of her change. Pivotal moments in our lives often require courage. For Melissa, her journey would require a lot of courage for a long time.
Over the next six weeks we talked daily about her successes from the day before and what her plan was for the day. What small changes would she make in her work routine – substituting breaks in places she never took before; listening to music on her commute to/from work rather than calling work; slowly decreasing the hours she worked; being more conscious of what she ate; getting more rest; taking more walks during the day and not working more than 90 minutes before she took a 5 – 7 minute break.
What was fascinating for me was that as Melissa changed her routine, she began to feel better, have more energy. This fueled her desire to begin to exercise again, cut down on smoking and her alcohol intake. After two and a half weeks her memory began to return. That encouraged her to continue the path she was on. She worked her way down to 8.5 hours per day. She found that she was more efficient and productive in that time than she was working the long hours she had worked before.
I knew at five weeks that she had enough momentum with her new habits that we no longer needed to speak daily. We dropped our brief daily calls to once per month. At eight months I asked her to reflect on her experience. The first thing she said was, “I will never go back there again.” And as far as I know, she hasn’t.
Granted, Melissa is an extreme case, but she demonstrated what can happen when we ‘do violence’ to ourselves. Since then, I have run into dozens of people who deplete themselves more than they energize themselves. I observe this phenomenon in enough quantity to believe we are close to an epidemic regarding our willingness and ability to care for ourselves.
In Melissa’s case the logical consequences of her choices were self-evident. Most of us would likely say that we wouldn’t allow ourselves to get down that far. I hope that is true. So where would you draw the line on your energy bucket? Are you in a ‘good place’ with how you are caring for yourself? What would you like to improve – is it in the Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, or Spiritual realm? Or are your struggles in more than one energy center?
It’s been about 17 years since I began my own journey into ‘managing my energy.’ The first book I read on the subject was The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz. Here is how it begins.
“We live in digital time. Our rhythms are rushed, rapid fire and relentless, our days carved up into bits and bytes. We celebrate breadth rather than depth, quick reaction more than considered reflection. We skim across the surface, alighting for brief moments at dozens of destinations but rarely remaining for long at any one. We race through our lives without pausing to consider who we really want to be or where we really want to go. We’re wired up but we’re melting down.
Most of us are just trying to do the best we can. When demand exceeds our capacity, we begin to make expedient choices that get us through our days and nights, but take a toll over time. We survive on too little sleep, wolf down fast foods on the run, fuel up with coffee and cool down with alcohol and sleeping pills. Faced with relentless demands at work, we become short-tempered and easily distracted. We return home from long days at work feeling exhausted and often experience our families not as a source of joy and renewal, but as one more demand in an already overburdened life.”
Can you identify with what they wrote? It sounds to me like it was written just last week. It was written in 2003. I was 52. My children were 23, 20, and 17. I was CEO of a medical debt collection service owned by four health systems. My wife was a receivable consultant for a regional accounting firm. While our lives weren’t the same busyness that we had when all three children were home and younger, our lives were busy. I identify with the speed with which our lives move and know the guilt of coming home to family and seeing them as one more burden, rather than the joy they are.
One of the early lessons from the book was, “It is more important to manage your energy than to manage your time.” I read it again, and again, and again. My initial reaction was that that wasn’t true, but it stayed with me for several days before I decided to ‘test’ out that notion. I took a few more mini-breaks during the day. I paid more attention to my energy centers, enough to understand that, for me, when my Spiritual center was off, the rest of me was off.
It was not uncommon for me to go to sleep fine but wake up at 3 or 4 a.m. and have trouble going back to sleep. I learned to not worry about this but to adjust my day accordingly. Some days I would leave work early, rest, and work from home into the evening. By not depleting myself so far physically I was more productive.
I came to an intimate understanding of why it was more important for me to manage my energy than my time. Everything I am flows from that energy. If I am depleted because I haven’t gotten sufficient rest, or one or more of my Energy Centers has been neglected, I cannot bring the best version of me to being a husband, father, grandfather, uncle, great uncle, my work, my life. Energy management is so critical to my ability to experience and bring joy to my life and to others. It is harder to celebrate, to be ‘awake and aware’ to all around me that feeds my energy. It is harder to have gratitude. It is harder to understand and to savor each day.
Our lives are about choices. Some might say that, “We are our choices.” Each day represents a new opportunity to make different choices. I don’t know if we always see that, but it is true. The choice to have children, even if they ‘show up’ unannounced, is a choice that comes with it an enormous requirement for energy if we are to do it well. Truth is, life done well requires enormous energy, and that is why learning to manage our energy is such a critical component in doing and experiencing life well.
No questions for you. You already know what to ask and what choices lie in front of you.
To a better you…
Jim