“If you need to chase anything, chase energy over the task.”

Like other parts of our body, our brain uses energy for mental functions. A typical person’s brain uses approximately 10.8 calories every hour. And by the time you run out of energy, you also lose the capacity for quality functioning of your mind. You take a longer time to finish the work, you procrastinate, or you feel overwhelmed with little stress or pressure, so your body reacts, and you don’t engage with the work.

Having an awareness of energy will allow you to plan your day differently. You will be able to remind yourself to chase the energy when you feel the need for it. You will prioritise the task to finish which requires quality energy. Otherwise, you will end up with a feeling of being overwhelmed, stressed, anxious, tired and eventually lost. Continuing with activities that drain energy will make you undriven. You will not be able to think, feel or do the quality thing that matters for your success. 

According to a Harvard Business Review article, The Neuroscience of Trust by Paul J. Zak, compared with people at low-trust companies, people at high-trust companies report 74% less stress, 106% more energy at work, 50% higher productivity, 13% fewer sick days, 76% more engagement, 29% more satisfaction with their lives, and 40% less burnout.

No matter how resourceful you are or how often new opportunities knock on your door, if you don’t find the right energy to grab the opportunity, you will never be able to progress. You will never be able to grow. You will feel lost and out of control of your situation.

You need to ensure that your energy is generated, managed and used toward the tasks that you choose. And for doing that you need to check that in three ways:

–         The way we show our fortitude

–         The way we flow out energy

–         The way we fuel our energy

“My general attitude to life is to enjoy every minute of every day. I never do anything with a feeling of, ‘Oh God, I’ve got to do this today.” – Richard Branson

Energy is not a tool; it is the lever

A lever is used to move a heavy or firmly fixed load with one end when pressure is applied to the other. Levers can be used to exert a large force over a small distance at one end by exerting only a small force over a greater distance at the other (Wikipedia).

A lever is a great representation of our energy at work or in life. You can call it the pace or the drive. To be more effective, to be more engaged, or to create a better culture, energy is the tool that can multiply performance, thus driving our success milestones.

“Give me a place to stand, and I shall move the Earth.” – Archimedes

As an ambitious leader, it is your skill to manage scarce resources effectively. In most cases, we measure our success and performance based on time and outcomes. You can measure the time or the outcome, but you cannot measure the energy. That’s why we hardly think about our energy – our right mental state. However, we now know that by shifting energy from negative to positive to leveraging, we can shift ourselves from reactive to responsive, and from a responsive to the reflective work environment.

In a high changing environment, which is already stressful and overwhelming, your job as a leader is to leverage your own energy first. By doing that you can create the ripple of energy around you at your workplace, with your team, at home, with your family members which will shape the organisational culture as well as the family norms.

If you feel lost, find yourself procrastinating, or not starting, you are not having a problem with prioritizing or time management. You have a lack of energy.

Reactive

A place with negative energy is a place where people are not encouraged but rather blamed. It involves ball passing or passing off responsibilities; not having ownership and not asking for help or not being supportive of each other. They are often in a competitive state and do not appreciate others. Here people are more reactive, they are easily annoyed and angry. They don’t see any positiveness; they treat any change as a big threat. They have a lack of ability to manage their own energy or are unaware of being able to create positive energy.

Responsive

People with positive energy engage and motivate others. They delegate the task to achieve the outcomes. They follow the process to be more effective. They are responsible to meet their targets. They support others, appreciate others and give feedback for improvement. Working in a positive energy environment is engaging. People feel empowered and they follow leaders to drive toward a shared goal.

Reflective

With leveraged energy, people enter the learning zone. People are inspired by others. They take ownership and have the courage to think differently or creatively. They are proactive in offering support; they ask for feedback and work with others collaboratively like a family. With leveraged energy people feel rewarded, secure. They have core confidence and self-trust. This gives them the certainty which activates the open learning centre of their mind. They become highly adaptive to change.

With energy, you can make a big difference. Regardless of how big your ambition is, chase energy and your success will chase you. 

 “Entrepreneurship is a great leveller, the wonderful thing is that money is not the sole currency when it comes to starting a business; drive, determination, passion and hard work are all free and more valuable than a pot of cash.” Richard Branson

Onwards,

Ayesha

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