Why is it so hard to really take control of our own time and energy? We know how important this is, right? And yet so many of us struggle with finding (and keeping) the right balance for ourselves. The reality is, we go to school to learn many things, but not how to manage ourselves – our own time and energy. Instead, we have always been told to look to others to do this for us: our parents told us what to do, our teachers told us what to do, and now our bosses tell us what to do. And in an ideal world, our boss would have the time, energy, and interest to really care for our time and energy, but in reality, they barely manage (if that) to look after their own time and energy in a sustainable way.
Add to that all the other outlets (media, technology, people) that fight for our attention, our time and energy, and we now get a clearer image of the never-ending time and energy spending that we do. We are experts at giving our time and energy away, but we are novices at knowing how to properly replenish that energy again. This is your main job now: learn how to look after your own time and energy. Learn how to look after your own wellbeing. Because if you don’t, who will?
Yes, you have other responsibilities too, but the main responsibility you have is you. If you don’t function to the best of your capabilities, then how can you ever bring the best to other people and tasks?
Nourishing yourself includes paying attention to the foods you feed to your body – are they actually nourishing, do they actually bring energy to the body, or do they require the body to use energy to process them? Quick rule of thumb: the more processed the food (e.g. fast food, packaged food coming from a factory) the more processing your body needs to do to break it down into the body, the more energy this requires –> NOT nourishing and eating away your energy! Feed your body with wholesome, unprocessed foods like fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, and make sure to include protein and fats sustain your energy levels.
Nourishing yourself also includes paying attention to the information you feed to your mind! You can see this in the same light as nourishing your body with food: the amount and quality of what you feed your mind does matter and has a direct impact on the control you have over your own time and energy. Think about it this way: when you allow news updates to pop up on your phone, it feeds your mind new information at a moment that is completely out of your control, and with a content that is completely out of your control. How will this news update make you feel? Anxious, stressed, helpless?
Is this information that helps you in your day-to-day life? Can you actually do something about it now? If the answer to the last two questions is “no”, then you may want to ask yourself: why am I allowing this information to eat up part of my precious time and energy, when there is nothing I can do with it?
At the end of the day, everything is a choice. Some choices may be more conscious than others, but everything we do, everything we pay attention to, is a choice. A choice that
you get to make, that you have control over. The question is: do you dare to take this control and own what you spend your time and energy on, or do you give away the control you have and feel like a playing ball of your circumstances? The choice really is yours.
Ready to take charge? I’m here to help!
