External Energy Drains
“Innovation is moving at a scarily fast pace.”
Last week, we looked at the basics of living life with all the energy you need to make progress, not just limp through the day only to do it all again tomorrow. Now, we'll continue on with a tour through other factors to look out for in the quest to maintain your energy.
- New information. I mention this first because in the age of information, it's a constant. The degree to we are assaulted with new information every day is unprecedented in human history, by several orders of magnitude. While distractions have always been available to those who sought them, they are now everywhere we look. Every time you choose to ignore one and refocus on what's important to you, that uses mental energy and possibly willpower, depending on how much the distraction appeals to you. We may need to do this hundreds of times per day. This is an energy drain that cannot be discounted, particularly since it's not going anywhere in the foreseeable future. Processing all of this information, and deciding whether it's going to be useful to you and how, takes effort that could be directed to what's most important to you. We all very much need to craft an information policy that can help us stay balanced amid the onslaught. Spend some time thinking through your goals and values, and how well your current information consumption habits are serving them. For instance, what if, instead of watching the news, you just scanned the front page of a newspaper or two and then followed up with an article on anything that seems pertinent to you? What if you watched less T.V. and played more music so you'll have more brain power available to create rather than being lulled into just consuming? You don't have to be absolute about these choices, but being reactive to someone else's curation of influences is far more draining than choosing your own. Sometimes, finding new information is necessary, and a wonderful privilege. Sometimes, it's a burden. Only you know the difference in any given moment.
- Interpersonal pressure. Many people you interact with want something from you. Sometimes they tell you what it is, and sometimes it's unclear, but you can just feel the ickiness of their attempts to work you. Sometimes you're happy to give it, and sometimes hell will freeze over first. Navigating through all the vagaries of figuring out what people are asking and what your answer will be can amount to a major energy drain. I suggest reading Influence, or some other similar book, in order to better understand the tactics people may use to manipulate you. Then, think about what you have to give in the context of your whole life right now, and would like to. These two actions combined will help you to recognize and evade requests that are not in your wheelhouse without feeling too bad about it. Even the world's most famous enlightened masters have not advocated attempting to solve all of the world's problems single handedly. Of course we should give, for many reasons, but as part of a cycle of giving and receiving that seeks balance and longevity; you don't want to burn out on giving and spiral down into negativity and need, which will do no one any good.
- Unpredictable events. Every day you walk out your front door, you are choosing to interact with an environment teeming with life, including many other humans who are exercising their free will alongside you. Much of their behavior is impossible to predict. This means that you must constantly adjust to the world and the people around you. While this has always been the case, we now have to do it at high speed when we drive our cars and at lightning speed as we deal with the instant communication of e-mail and social media. We also have a 24-hour news cycle constantly blaring the catastrophic and the inane from all over the globe (almost never any positive or empowering items). Are you starting to see why modern life can be so tiring? Put this together with the expectation that we will continue to take on more and more new challenges at home and at work, and it becomes apparent why stress is at epidemic levels.
If you want to conserve enough energy to make progress in the areas of your dearest desires, you need to make that conservation a focus and get smart and strategic about the effort. You may not enjoy it, but this is a basic life skill at this time in history. Like personal hygiene, it's never going to go out of style! Learn to love becoming an energy-conserving ninja so that you can thrive throughout your life and feel good about what you've been able to give at the end of it! Next week, we'll look more closely at the how-to's of doing this well.