How Are you Going to Spend your Energy?

Your energy is finite, the pandemic has made that very clear. The question to answer (posed once in a milk commercial, if I remember correctly), is how are you going to spend that energy?

September offers something of a fresh start (https://www.wsj.com/articles/september-is-the-real-new-year-1473875636). It is a good time to consider what matters most to you. Before you launch back into life as it once was for the sake of feeling normal, give yourself the space to think about where your energy is best used. When you are clear about your values and priorities, you can set up boundaries to protect your energy.

As coach Gary Wood likes to ask, "what gets your 'yes'?" Remember that every "yes" has a corresponding "no" - yes to increased responsibility in one place means that you have less time or energy for something else (including sleep!) Having foregone many of the usual commitments and events this year, you have an opportunity to decide what to pick back up and what to leave out. What did you not miss? What kinds of interactions drain you? Which ones fill you up? What matters enough that you are willing to spend energy fighting for it?

This has been a very hard year. Whether or not you are aware of it, you have expended considerable energy just keeping the wheels on all these months. You might be burned out and in need of recuperation. You might just need a few days off to refocus. If nothing else, the pandemic offers an opportunity to look at your life with fresh eyes. You would be wise to put some energy into doing so.