We are slowly orienting ourselves with the Post-Covid world. And, it has been intense – physically, mentally, and spiritually.
So many of us who were loving our work from home couch have to soon realize that the world order is very much there now.
Think about it: the amount of time we used in our daily office commute was replaced by short team calls – which, sometimes, weren’t that very much warranted.
And the coffee conversations with our friends at our workplace were so much missed and revered. At least some chatter can ease up the pressure of looming deadlines on our heads!
In some ways, the world has really changed – and so have our energy levels and brain’s computational power to process new things every day.
The question then comes up is NOT how do we manage our time, but how do we manage our energy – when there are so many things to tend to.
I’ll let you in on one great thing you can start doing from today – meditate! (Go for Ziva Meditation!) This increases your adaptive energy to experience new challenges and pivots with grace and confidence.
You need to build some form of structure in your lives to accommodate new expectations from people – especially in your workplace. Would be best to look at the often ignored word – discipline – from two dimensions:
- Functional. These are the autopilot things we do on a daily basis. But they should be pursued with the intention of ‘I get to’ (in Daniel Pink’s words) instead of ‘I need to’. For example: I ‘get’ to exercise. I ‘get to’ take a bath. I ‘get’ to finish my sales presentation. I ‘get to’ answer from tough-call emails with grace. Etc, Etc, Etc. Once you start something, the motivation to continue it follows! After all, who doesn’t like a feeling of a job done? You create more energy when you start. The hard part is just to start. But the intention to complete something and not leaving it half-way, makes room for more active participation in the work you’re part of.
- Creative. Creativity is more of a muscle you build than just a serendipitous moment of awakening. Of course both are true. We do have our ‘eureka’ moments, but we need to balance that with ‘daily meaning making’. So the best way to build your creative discipline into your life is by examining what perks you up every day – apart from the job you do. Well, not all of us love our jobs. But we can all create a purpose that aligns with our bigger work (not jobs) in our lives, so we can enjoy the little things that make us feel great. Writing? Journaling? Meditating? Talking to your colleagues/ friends? Making new connections? Whatever nutures your seeking system – just do it!
This way you can create more inner space for things that need your acknowledgment or attention. This is how you create a sense of flow in your daily life and harness the power of your mind’s energy in doing things that matter. Sure, you’d need energy for other things, however, in the larger state of flow, you make the mundane a part of your flow state and feel more present with yourself at the moment.
That said, ‘structure’ and ‘discipline’ then becomes our favorite word – oftentimes the word we all run away from.
How do you manage your energy? Do you feel it more like a flow or faintly delving into new work streams without any goal or intention?
Photo by Jukan Tateisi on Unsplash
