When you’re feeling a little uninspired, underwhelmed, and generally blah, what can you do about it? Strategic Coach Unique Ability specialist Julia Waller and Program Designer Shannon Waller offer these five strategies you can use to bring your personal energy back up to full steam.
1. Daydream
We tend to put a high value on doing, but not a lot on thinking and dreaming. Yet the meandering, subconscious part of our minds is often where the best breakthroughs pop up from. Without that interior time, we tend to just keep doing what we already know.
One Coach client likes to drive his car and listen to music because that gives him the freedom to think and dream in ways he finds he can’t anywhere else.
Another client gets up in the morning half an hour before his wife and watches the sun rise. Later on, he’ll exercise and start his day, but that sunrise time is dedicated to thinking and being with himself, and he finds it incredibly rewarding.
2. Do more of your Unique Ability
We define Unique Ability as something you do in life that you’re passionate about, exceptionally good at, and get energy from doing.
Your Unique Ability is also what other people count on you for — so there’s absolutely nothing wrong with doing more of it. It’s downright strange that so many of us pick up the impression that we’re somehow responsible for doing things we don’t like — especially when you’re in business for yourself!
The more you can do your Unique Ability, the more energy you’ll have. So how do you keep yourself from sliding into all the other stuff?
Following a one-on-one session with Julia to help him zero in on his Unique Ability, one of our clients came up with a brilliant list of four questions to ask before taking on any new activity. He calls these ‘My Reality Check’:
1. Could someone else do this?
2. Am I doing this out of fear?
3. Is this activity going to help me get to my bigger future?
4. If I can only get three things done today, should this be one of them?
3. Launch yourself into a scary/exciting goal
“Create a goal for something you don’t know how to do yet,” says Shannon. “Particularly if you’ve been doing the same thing for a long time, go back to the beginning of the learning curve and put yourself in circumstances where you have to create new synapses, new connections in your brain, to make it work. That’s always energizing.”
4. Do a Positive Focus
At the start of every important meeting at Strategic Coach, we do a Positive Focus: Each person shares five recent accomplishments in their life, why they matter, and what they can do next to build on that progress. (continued.)
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“If you get too stuck on thinking about the past or the future, you’re not going to have a lot of energy in the present — or it’s going to be negative rather than positive energy,” says Shannon. “So do a Positive Focus, and that’ll put fuel in your tank.”
The 21-Day Positive Focus gives you instructions and worksheets to make this energizing frame of mind a regular part of your life.
5. Get outta town
Physically relocating yourself is a great way to break out of the doldrums. “Put yourself into new circumstances,” says Shannon. “Your day will have a different structure, and you’ll bump into new people and make connections you normally wouldn’t have.”
If you can’t get away, go do something physical, even close to home. Most of us today spend a lot of time behind a desk or at a computer, so using your body instead of just your brain is a good way to restore your energy and connect to different parts of your intelligence.
You’re in charge of your energy
Whether you’re starting on a new goal, working on your Unique Ability, or letting your mind drift away on a daydream, the bottom line is that you have a say in how your energy is spent.
You can keep your reserves from being squandered, and you can also generate new momentum. And sometimes you have to get completely out of a situation or mindset before you can find new wellsprings of energy.
For more advice from Strategic Coach, click here.
