Low Battery.

It's the downslope time of the year again and what keeps us most motivated is the idea of a holiday coming up or Christmas being close. Well, if you count more than a hundred days close...

Identify the battery-drainers

What or who is taking your energy? Who do you allow to tap from your battery...and if you know that now...should they be there? It's normal to have things or people in your life that take your energy, it should happen. The most important thing, however is to make sure that the people taking the energy are key role-players in your life. For a swerving taxi to take your energy is quite unnecessary, but for your 3-year old to do so makes sense. The same is true for our non-human interactions: does it help your battery to spend a boat load of time on social media?

It can be quite difficult to analyze every and all energy-sapping elements in our day, but just for one day, identify the mayor ones. The first step in curing a 'low battery', as with most new processes, is to be aware of the things that either count for, or against what you are trying to establish.

Identify the rechargers

Who or what revives your energy? Whether you are introverted or extroverted, we have people and things that energize us. To take inventory of these factors are once again crucial on your way up from a low battery. In these crazy last few months and upcoming even crazier months, allow yourself to spend time on the things that recharge you...even if you disappoint people along the way.

Rechargers can look as simple as sleep and as complicated as a social media fast for a week, but whatever it is, just do something. Over my years as a student I perfected the art of afternoon naps and found that just an 18-minute can refresh me for the day, maybe try one of those...just not at work. Lastly, we need to realize that when saying yes to some things means we need to say no to other things, and visa versa. The upside of this, is that we can easily replace a drainer with a recharger and already feel a massive difference in our battery levels.

Finishing Strong

Although rest is extremely important (yes go read my post on rest), we need to sometimes tough it out and commit in these Low Battery times. By saying this however I don't mean we need to pretend like we have everything sorted out and allow straw on our backs until it breaks. There should be intentionality behind our rest times as well as our work times. September and October are weird months of the year that make us all feel seemingly way more tired than other times; make time to rest; make time to get to loved ones and make time to finish strong. You deserve to 'end' off this year great!

TF