Grow With Soul: Episode 132 - How To Manage Your Energy
Energy is a fickle thing that is hard to pin down or systematise - we know whether we haven’t or we don’t, but beyond that it is mysterious. Unlike time, which has books after books after podcasts after articles written about it, energy seems to get lumped in with sleep and nutrition and other topics rather than stand alone. But without an understanding of energy, you can’t live and work and play. I’d go so far as to say that energy management is just as crucial as time management.
In this episode I talk about:
My personal experience with energy
The guilt and fear around energy
Holding energy, rather than using it
Leaning into cycles of energy
Accepting our energy
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Read the episode transcript:
Energy is a fickle thing that is hard to pin down or systematise - we know whether we haven’t or we don’t, but beyond that it is mysterious. Unlike time, which has books after books after podcasts after articles written about it, energy seems to get lumped in with sleep and nutrition and other topics rather than stand alone. But without an understanding of energy, you can’t live and work and play. I’d go so far as to say that energy management is just as crucial as time management.
Let me start by telling you a little of my personal history with energy. My earliest memories are of not getting out of bed. We joke about my not being a morning person, but even at the age kids are supposed to be terrorising their parents with early mornings, I was terrorising them by not getting up on time and skipping breakfast in order to get to school on time. By secondary school I was late every day. At university I never once attended a 9 or 10am seminar. At work I was, again, late every day (my boss once frustratedly huffing “I don’t understand it, you live the closest but you’re always the last here”).
I have felt, still feel, guilt around this; I would like very much to wake up energised and ready for the day, but no matter the combination of night time routines I try, I wake up exhausted. Becoming self-employed meant that this didn’t matter anymore. In the first years I would roll out of bed at whatever time and then hurl myself into flat out working for the rest of the day - although I still had the conception that if I started at 11 or 12, that meant I “couldn’t” finish until 7 or 8.
In those early days I was motivated and energised by the work I was doing, had these long lists and overlapping goals and I was maintaining a consistent level of output six days a week without breaking for much more than going to the shops. My energy was a laser beam pointed at one thing, and I kept turning the dial of the intensity up until it broke off in my hand.
I burned out because I used all my energy stores on setting up a business without ever bothering to replenish them. And then, when I tried to restock, I had nothing but work and didn’t know how to relax or have fun or connect or create any energy.
After that, I felt fearful of energy. Like rehabilitating an injury you are scared to move or over-exert yourself lest you make it worse, so you continue to limp even after you are healed. I was afraid to run out again so I eased back on the amount of work I was doing - but instead of burning through energy, I leaked it. Without anywhere focused to go my energy went into worrying and overthinking, dreaming, ideas I was too scared to follow through on and projects that were never started.
In 2021, I think it’s safe to say I burned out again, only this time on life, not work - ending a relationship, selling a house, finding somewhere to live, financial pressures, health issues all added up to burning through the energy I had. I couldn’t work really that year. I was able to maintain things with 121 clients (which, with savings, is what kept me afloat), but I was mentally and physically unable to have an idea on which to work. Although this time I recognised it, and while there was only so much I could do about the life pressures, I allowed space and joy in to try to keep mentally healthy instead of piling on work pressure too.
For some reason, after moving and getting out from under the responsibilities I’d been holding for so long, I expected my energy levels to spring back up to maximum. I had time, space, projects, a room of one’s own. I had everything! But I was out of practice with managing energy, and needed to bring my expectations back into step. Even as you consciously try to live differently from a society that demands output and productivity, it can be easy to slip into their groove. I needed to conceive of energy differently.
Now, energy is something to hold, rather than something to use. My focus is on maintaining a 50-60% level for longer, rather than maxing out. We all know the whole “ebb and flow” analogy, but we don’t really want to believe it - we never want to ebb, and so we push to always flow to avoid it. But that uses energy, which leads, inevitably, to an ebb. I now want to put the ebb off for longer by holding the energy I have, treating it as a resource to use specifically and carefully, and replenish as I go.
The first way I’ve done this is to do things the way my energy wants to do them through the day. So, I don’t force myself to get up at 6am because I know that nothing will be done anyway. I get up when I feel like getting up, and do the focused, creative work I need to, usually for a couple of hours straight. Then, by mid to late afternoon, my energy knows it needs replenishing and I start to feel the physical need to go outside for a walk - so I do. When I get back it’s usually right in my energy dip, 4-6pm. Rather than tidy up and start making dinner, I honour the dip by having a snack and lying on the sofa reading or watching trash tv, depending on my mood. I feel the energy returning because I start to feel fidgety, and that’s when I do the tidying and the dinner-making, later in the evening. Not fighting with my energy to fit a routine more “sensible” means that I feel in flow most days.
Another thing is to understand and allow for natural cycles. This might be menstrual, lunar or seasonal, but to greater or lesser extents they are affecting you. It always strikes me, when the clocks go forward in Spring, how surprised everyone is by how much happier and more energised they feel with the extra light, as if they aren’t a natural being existing within a natural cycle. Low light, coldness, lack of green affect us as much as hormones. During the winter I accept that my energy will be generally lower just as I accept drowsiness at the start of my menstrual cycle.
Sometimes energy is a dog that gets onto a smell in the woods and rather than shout and scream for it to come back you simply need to follow where it’s going. Energy will go where it wants to go, which is not always where you want it to go. Last night I wanted to make a start on writing this episode, but my energy wanted to write down some thoughts about love. It was inconvenient, but my energy put a block on any kind of idea for this episode until it had had its way, so I went with it and then, this morning, I was able to write this.
We worry sometimes, I think, that this is procrastination or distraction, but we need to be a little less hasty with the labels. My energy was obviously in the mood for something a little more creative, which is probably because it wanted to replenish itself, and creativity does that. Writing the other thing about love wasn’t a distraction; it was a part of being able to write this episode. Instead of using or draining energy, it helped hold the equilibrium.
The last thing I would say has really helped me with my energy management is lowering the bar to the floor. This won’t work for everyone, but I think because I have become so anti-striving it’s the only way I can get myself to do something. Some people love the challenge of a big goal they can measure their progress towards - 20 reps with a higher weight, the whole book finished in 3 months. The idea of this does not feel energising to me, it feels draining and effortful and like I’d rather lie down. But getting on the mat every day, even just doing one child’s pose for 20 seconds, does. Even if I really don’t feel like it, I know I have the energy to just sit on the mat - so I do it, and then I never just sit on the mat because once I’m there I’m going to do at least one ten minute yoga video. The same with work: I am going to do one paragraph, one 30 minute chunk, and then I can be done - but then, I’m not done. I’ve started.
I’ve come to realise that I am a wind up battery in a world where we are expected to be a light switch. We are expected to flick ourselves on, preferably early in the morning, and keep as bright and constant all day through school and work and chores and dinner and hobbies until we go to bed and turn the light off and fall instantly into a healthy sleep. But I am a wind up battery and, honestly, once I do get out of bed I move like a sloth around the house, brushing my teeth in slow motion, staring at the option of three jumpers to wear for ten minutes. Once I sit down at my desk I need support to start working - perhaps ten minutes of music or my desk sand timer. But then, once I’m through the difficult first ten minutes, I start to build momentum, build energy. By the time evening comes round I have the energy to exercise, to tidy up and cook myself a nice meal, to read.
Understanding and managing my energy is what enables me to live the life I want to live. In Mapping there is a whole section on energy and here is one of the first paragraphs. One of the first things I talk about with energy is acceptance. Acceptance can be something we resist because it feels like giving up; “I don’t want to accept my current energy levels, I want them to improve!”. But I don’t think we can improve until we accept. Acceptance is not saying “this is my lot so I’ll stop trying”, acceptance is saying “this is where I am, this is my true baseline - this is where I can always return to and look at what I can do here”. With everything we do in the name of growth and personal development we start wanting to already be there; acceptance is grounding in the fact that you are here, and here is the place to start from.
When we stop looking at what we don’t have we open the door to the possibilities of what we can do.