Your Bold and Courageous Good Person is now moving on to both make great change in the world and create a more positive and delightful environment for all the people around you. I have every confidence that you are on your way to leading the fulfilling and extraordinary life you deserve and will impact society in ways you might never have realized you could. So I want you to be equipped with every tool that I know of for expediting this process.
I was recently reminded of one such tool while on a conference call just last week. On this call I was listening to the chairman of a particular company rather eloquently giving context and direction to board members about setting up an effective board of directors meeting next week. As I was listening, I noticed how he was navigating around some interesting and potentially problematic issues. He was very sensitive to the possible repercussions and did his best to make sure that these particular issues would not be brought up or waste any of the board’s precious time and energy. And that’s what got me thinking about my trio of tools for conserving your psychic, psychological and physical energy
[tweetthis]Here are 3 tools that can help lead you to the fulfilling and extraordinary life you deserve.[/tweetthis]My first tool: a mental shield for conserving your energy by eliminating “energy leaks”
As you progress on your own incredible and extraordinary journey to disrupt outmoded ideas and make change, you have to make sure you protect yourself and most importantly conserve your energy. The biggest threat to you accomplishing what you are destined to be is not having the energy to push across the finish line. That is why you need to understand the concept of “energy leaks.”
Being conscious of energy leaks and making sure you avoid them is as important as taking steps to avoid working with the kind toxic people or jerks I talked about in a previous blog.
Since you will need all the energy you can muster to accomplish great things, you have to shield yourself against depleting it when you need maximum energy to amplify your efforts and move forward at a faster pace when indicated. The net result is: you only have so much energy in a day and you cannot afford to waste it. So let’s review a few common everyday energy leaks and what you can do to eliminate them now.
Just after the conference call I mentioned earlier, I was driving to another meeting and someone pulled out in front of me, causing me to slam on my brakes. I immediately felt my blood pressure rising, then realized I had been going 15 miles over the speed limit – my bad! So I said to myself, “energy leak!” and laughed.
As you go through your day you will see how many energy leaks you face on a daily basis. You’ll be surprised at how often they occur. A good sign that what you’re experiencing an energy leak is if something that can be ignored or rationalized makes you angry, even to the slightest degree.
Control dramas, which usually involve worrying about a situation that is outside of your control and trying to make people behave in a reasonable manner, are sources of energy leaks that you need to be cognizant of and tone down.
I’m sure you can think of many more such situations that waste your energy –which brings me to another key device you really have to employ to become a truly effective protector of the planet.
My second tool: A calculator for choosing your battles wisely
This will enable you to actively choose not to participate in minor, unimportant, or overly difficult arguments, contests or confrontations, saving your strength instead for those that will be of greater importance or in which you have a greater chance of success.
Since you have only so much energy and time on a daily basis to do the important work you are destined to do, this mental calculator can help you to:
Keep from getting angry over transient or inconsequential situations or skirmishes by measuring whether the points at issue, or trying to explain to someone what they are doing wrong is really worth the time and energy. What, you should be asking yourself, is your agenda and purpose in engaging with them anyway?
Realize it can take more strength and courage to take the high road and just move on than to seek retribution or reparations for every instance in which you are the victim of unfair or inequitable treatment.
Remember that confrontations, no matter what they involve or how you got into them, are a huge energy leak source and rarely have a positive outcome. (Yes, I am advising you to avoid confrontation entirely over small matters if you are possibly able to do so.)
My third tool: A separator for differentiating the personality from the institution
This tool has saved me significant amounts of time and energy because in most conflicts or energy leaks, family, businesses, there two very distinctive components: one the person, the other the company, the institution or the enterprise involved. Both need to be handled separately.
In order to use this tool properly, you need to ask yourself if the real problem is the individual with whom you’re dealing or is it the entity or the company. By separating these issues it makes any conflict much more manageable, without having to raise your voice, and limits the amount of energy that you are leaking.
So there you have it — another component of being able to do the incredible and extraordinary things that you are destined to accomplish for the good of humanity.
(This tool is something I was given years ago by a business guru I considered my mentor, who advised me to always use it whenever there are confrontational issues to deal with.)
I will leave you with this thought from author and poet C. JoyBell C. that really captures the concept of saving both your psychic and physical energy for your most important efforts:
“Choose your battles wisely. After all, life isn’t measured by how many times you stood up to fight. It’s not winning battles that makes you happy, but it’s how many times you turned away and chose to look into a better direction. Life is too short to spend it on warring. Fight only the most, most, most important ones, let the rest go.”
