Three Ways to Manage Your Energy in 15 Minutes a Day!

Photo by Riccardo Annandale on Unsplash

These practical energy boosters help you center yourself so you can lead others from a place of maximum integrity.

By Nick Van Nice, ScalePassion Personal Leadership Coach

In the fall of 2008, I had just launched my second start-up, Results Driven Coaching, and I hired my first coach, Grace Durfee, to help me grow the business.  Within months, the great recession hit, our business took a major hit and my life partner of 16 years and I ended our relationship. Fear was starting to grip me as I tried to stay positive and present with my clients and build my business. 

My fledgling start-up could not afford to have me take a sabbatical. As a founder of an early stage company you are likely wearing many hats and you don’t need a global financial crisis to appreciate that things get crazy. It’s a lonely and daunting position to be in because everyone relies on your focus and energy. 

You find yourself wondering, “Can I even do this?”

I was aware that my personal energy was core to my ability to push through crises of any kind. So, I asked Grace to help me rediscover my energy source.  She replied by asking me where I got my energy. 

To provide more context for her query, she asked a question that was related. “Who are you, Nick?” 

That question led Grace and I to work through a “personal foundations” process that helped me clarify my life’s purpose, core values and unique abilities – in other words, the things that make me, me – and just as important, the things that energize me. We mapped out an energetic leadership plan that laid out my daily habits and drivers to optimize opportunities to operate in my zone of genius (ZOG), which is the starting point for developing energetic leadership. 

We read Bruce Schneider’s Energetic Leadership, which explained how our influence with others is linked to our “resonating energy level” that comes from our core beliefs, thoughts and actions. Energetic leadership is simply a transfer of energy from one person to another. In order to be an effective leader, you have to maintain a high level of energy – enough, in fact, to energize others as well as yourself. 

Now, I’m a huge advocate for proactively managing my personal energy and helping my clients do the same. Once you do the work of understanding “who you are,” you don’t have to devote hours each day tapping into your energy. Fifteen minutes or so will usually suffice.

Here’s what to focus on.

Three daily energy boosters

1. Reflect on your ZOG and recite your mission: Knowing who you are and what your purpose is leads to strength and conviction. Living purposefully leads to a deep feeling of integrity.  Before my one-on-one coaching sessions, I love to remind myself of my zone of genius, the thing that fills me with life and energy: “I inspire and equip leaders to discover their voices, lead their teams and achieve their wildly important goals.” That centers me and fires me up!   

2. Count your blessings: When you intentionally focus on the good in your life, you feel blessed and more secure and this frees your energy up from worry and fear. When we focus on the richness of what we have, we shift into an abundance mindset and see more opportunities and possibilities. Seeing and believing always precedes action! Often, if I find myself slipping below the line in my thoughts, I’ll pull myself back above the line by pulling out my gratitude list that provides positive, effort-affirming proof of life’s bounty. Keep a gratitude journal on your desktop, and write in it daily!

3. Align with your Source:  Most of us draw personal power and energy from the idea of some force existing beyond ourselves – something to which we can align ourselves. It may be a particular faith or even a disciplined practice such as meditation. Get in the habit of connecting with this force on a regular basis and you will find that it supercharges you, removing some of the daily noise that is preventing your engine from starting, not to mention running smoothly! For me, the ultimate energy source is being aligned with the Creator, through meditation often undertaken in nature. And when I operate in my strengths/ZOG in alignment with my purpose, great things happen. 

As you build these practices into your daily routine, don’t look for super-dramatic impact from the git go. After all, what you are doing is basically rewiring your mind, and that takes time. But coming to a place where you know who you are and what energizes you is worth every minute of the journey.

So what is your go-to source of energy? And how can you get better aligned with it? Feel free to share one of your favorite life hacks or routines that boosts your energy.