Strategic leadership requires energy. How do you keep top of your game with so many things distracting from our goals and detracting from our focus. Here is a three step process for getting and staying charged up:
Step 1: Feel
How’s your energy? Check in with yourself and see where you’re at. How? Sit still for five minutes and just feel. Feel is a four-letter word to some of us. It is also a verb. Just sit and feel for five minutes. Are you excited? Anxious? Tired? Frustrated? Worn? Giddy? Does your body hurt anywhere? Sore feet, aching back, pounding head? A five minute scan brings to the surface all those little things that your mind body and spirit would have been fighting against on their own throughout the day, distracting you from your goals and detracting from your focus. Now you know what they are.
Step 2: Take Inventory
What’s on your mind? In step one, you may have discovered you could use an aspirin. Or perhaps you were reminded to stretch before getting in the car so your back didn’t seize up. There may be some other issues that you found are weighing on your mind. Grab a pen and paper and write down every single thing that comes to mind during Step 1. Write down what aches, what feels funky, what’s bugging you, what questions are nagging. Write until you can’t write any more.
What’s draining your energy? Take a look at your list. What items jump out as the most draining of all? What’s really weighing on you? Pick one and run it through the energy drainer exercise. Here’s the cheat sheet for the exercise and here’s where you can find the guided version. Basically, unpack that $#i! and overcome it.
Step 3: Overcome the Energy Drainers
From a neuropsychological standpoint, by noticing, naming and addressing what’s draining your energy, you are freeing up much needed brain resource for being your best creative, innovative, long-range thinking self. Strategic leadership takes guts, man, but it also takes brains. And you can’t be your best strategic leader self if your brain is overloaded with energy drainers. Be Uncommon.
Want to overcome your own Energy Drainers? Download a free copy of the Energy Drainer Exercise below: