These principles are based on my years’ experience as a coach, and the work of Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz as explained in the highly recommended book, The Power of Full Engagement.
Below, I will be drawing on some concepts from the book as well as providing my own simplified explanations.
When you are fully engaged, you are enthusiastic, productive, decisive and effective.
Full engagement relies on management of your personal energies. Our energies naturally refresh, however we must be careful to keep the energies in balance, not over-used and not under-used.
Attempting to engage with work or life when your energies are low can be a waste of time, or even downright disastrous.
There are 4 personal energies to manage:
Physical Energy: This is the energy of our body. All other energies depend on our physical energy, because we are physical beings. Our physical energy depends on proper breath, water, nutrition, sleep and exercise. Your optimal performance starts here.
Emotional Energy: The ability to think positively and turn adversity into challenge. This may also be described as resiliency. This is a muscle that you can build with exercise. The more you are doing, the more important this muscle becomes.
Mental Energy: Ability to focus and make decisions. This is an energy that is absolutely essential to effective work. You may not realize how draining decisions are, and also, the extending out of decisions by procrastination.
Spiritual Energy: This is your long-term fuel of sustained action. What is the big picture inspiration for what you are doing? If you don’t have an inspiring vision based on values for what you are doing, you are setting yourself up for burn-out.
5 Tips for Managing your Personal Energies:
- Make your physical health your top priority for career success.
- Stop wasting mental, emotional and spiritual energy on things you do not control. (Hint: This sphere is probably much, much larger, in your mind, than it should be.)
- Become a master at communicating boundaries (it just takes awareness and practice).
- Make sure your “reasons for” are inspiring to you, and fill you with joy, awe, gratitude and/or love.
- Practice your emotional resiliency with the small things, at all times.
As part of your coaching, I will help you learn more about these concepts and manage these items. This is just part of the entire picture of what coaching will do for you. If you want to get started, please start here.