How's your energy right NOW?
Energy: how to generate it, how to infuse others with it, and how to hang on to it as our end-of-year batteries start to run flat…
Christmas can be a challenging time, not helped by the fact that our energy reserves are often running at their lowest just as the festive season rolls around. With that in mind our Women In Business team felt there was no better time to stop, take stock and turn the spotlight on ENERGY and how it affects our performance levels…
Led by head of coaching and mentoring, Catherine Duncan, this year’s final Women In Business Breakfast saw 23 fascinating women gather to share their unique and valuable insights into rebooting energy levels.
Catherine kicked things off, outlining the ‘Emotional Quadrants,’ the performance zone, survival zone, burnout zone and renewal zone, and explaining why nobody can operate in the performance zone 100 percent of the time.
Citing the example of high performance athletes who plan specific time between competitions to renew their energy, Catherine asked: “how often are you consciously entering the ‘renewal zone’ and what are you doing to reboot your energy on a daily basis”?
Catherine also emphasised the importance of surrounding yourself with people who energise you. “Your energy levels become the average of the five people you spend the most time with,” she said. “Think about what you want to get out of life, who you want to be, and be selective about who you spend the majority of your time with.
Catherine said it isn’t about eliminating people from your life, but simply about taking a more strategic approach to how you spend your valuable time. “I try to surround myself with people who I like, and who are like me and different to me, energise me, challenge and stretch me, and call me on my crap when required,” she said!
Our breakfast attendees came from diverse backgrounds and occupations including catering, real estate, manufacturing, law, counselling and wellness, town planning, design and communications. Here are some of the energy rebooting tips they shared during our two-hour Women In Business session:
- Stop and do nothing, or stop and draw five deep breaths – a mindfulness practice that has been shown to have calming, centering, stress reducing effects (plus your body can’t make energy without oxygen!).
- Be disciplined about taking time out, whether it’s to meditate, do some exercise, take regular days off or weekends away, or simply sit down with a bottle of wine and Netflix. Whatever your chosen ‘time out’ is, calendarise it and stick to those diary dates.
- Take emails off your phone (confronting for some people, but one of our breakfast attendees swears by it)!
- Separate your business and work email accounts. When you are on leave, set an ‘out of office’ on your work email account and only look at – and respond to – personal messages.
- Start your day doing something for yourself rather than responding to emails or making phone calls. If you start your day putting other people’s needs and email requests first, you will be reactive all day.
- Learn to say ‘no’. It feels like a risk but being selective about what you agree to do or take on is empowering.
- Focus on living a life that’s happy, healthy and fit and emphasise these values within your family as well.
There’s no denying that operating under stress can be productive sometimes – propelling us to perform at our optimum, kick goals and achieve more than we thought possible. But it’s not possible, nor healthy, to operate in stress mode continually.
What are you waiting for? Don’t wait until the Christmas holidays to make time for yourself to reenergize and recharge!
Ready…set… STOP!
To speak to Catherine Duncan about coaching and mentoring please call (03) 93256300.
To express your interest in attending our quarterly Women In Business breakfasts please email info@matsteer.com.au