Have you ever experienced a period in your life when you felt drained, both mentally and physically? Most of us can identify with this in some capacity, especially when even the simplest daily tasks start to feel like hard work.
I have first-hand experience of feeling completely drained in every area of my life, and it affected me in so many ways. I felt constantly tired and overwhelmed. It was as though my sparkle was slowly fading.
Years ago, during a session with my own coach at the time, Suzanne, she encouraged me to take a step back and logically review what it was in my world that was draining me. I’m a firm believer that coaches need to be coached!
We worked through three key questions:
- Who are the people currently draining your energy?
- Which tasks at work drain your energy?
- Which tasks in your personal life drain your energy?
If I’m honest, this was an unexpectedly easy exercise for me to complete at the time, although I did feel guilty about some of my answers.
Of course, identifying someone as an energy drain doesn’t necessarily mean they are a bad person or that they have done anything wrong. Sometimes it is the role we play around them, how much of ourselves we give, or the boundaries we haven’t put in place that leave us feeling depleted.
Once I had identified my energy drainers, Suzanne and I worked through them to understand whether any of those tasks, commitments or relationships could be removed from my life. Unfortunately, about 99% of them couldn’t. That left me feeling rather deflated and even lower in energy. Momentarily, I felt trapped by my circumstances.
What I hadn’t realised was that I was approaching the problem as though the only way to feel better was to remove everything that drained me. When that wasn’t possible, I assumed there was nothing I could do.
But managing our energy isn’t only about eliminating the things that deplete us. It is also about making sure those things don’t go unanswered. If we can’t remove every demand, perhaps we can become more intentional about what we place alongside it.
That was only the first part of the exercise. Suzanne then asked me:
- Who in your life gives you energy and lifts you up when you spend time with them?
- Which tasks at work make your heart sing?
- Which activities or hobbies outside of work make you feel happy?
These questions were also surprisingly easy to answer, although I took a little more time to make sure I felt certain about my responses.
What became apparent was that I wasn’t engaging with any of the people or activities on my second list during that period of my life.
There will always be tasks, responsibilities and people in our world that require more of our energy. There is often no getting away from that. The difference comes from what we choose to place alongside them.
Once we become aware of how we are using our energy, we can take greater responsibility for replenishing it. We may not be able to remove every drain, but we can make more room for the people, places and activities that bring us joy and lift us back up.
One of the things I recognised was that spending time with animals relaxed me and gave me some of my energy back. There is something incredibly calming and unconditional about being around them.
When I spend time at the horse stables, I can physically feel something shift. My breathing slows, my mind becomes quieter and I feel more present. Nothing in the rest of my life has necessarily changed, but I return to it feeling different.
My breathing slows, my mind becomes quieter and I feel more present.
So, I set myself a challenge to make time for the activities that lifted my soul.
I’ve done Goga, which is goat yoga, hiked up Runyon Canyon in Los Angeles with rescue dogs, enjoyed countless coffee-and-cats experiences, and made weekly visits to the horse stables at Biltmore.
More recently, my husband and I consciously chose to move somewhere surrounded by wonderful wild animals. I’m talking bears, wild turkeys, deer, turtles and groundhogs. You name it, we basically have it.
And I have to mention that, although it can be tempting to try to stroke a bear, even I wouldn’t attempt that!
Simply seeing animals I never had the opportunity to experience while living in the UK makes me very happy. They bring me into the moment and remind me how much joy can come from simply noticing what is around me.
My main learning from the exercise with Suzanne was that replenishing our energy shouldn’t begin only once we are exhausted. I needed to regularly make space for the things that counteracted the more demanding parts of my life, even when I wasn’t consciously feeling tired or overwhelmed.
We can have a tendency to expect ourselves to keep coping through challenging periods without paying attention to what is restoring us along the way. The activities that lift us can easily be treated as optional, something we will make time for once the work is finished, everyone else is happy, or life becomes a little less busy.
But those things are not simply rewards. They are part of what sustains us.
Take a moment to consider what is taking from your energy and what is helping to restore it.
Which people, tasks or responsibilities are taking the most from your energy at the moment?
What brings you back to yourself and helps you feel more present?
How much space are you currently giving to those things?
What is one restorative choice you could make before you begin to feel depleted?
Perhaps the time to think about what restores your energy isn’t when you are already running on empty. It is while you still have enough energy to make those choices deliberately.
Take some time to answer the same questions for yourself. Notice not only what drains you, but whether the people, places and activities that bring you back to yourself are receiving any space in your life.
You may not be able to remove every demand on your energy. But you can make sure the things that lift you are no longer treated as optional.
Make room for what brings you back to yourself.