Living a Productive Life (Part 9)

I trust you have been enjoying this series exploring the 7 Keys for Living a Productive Life from my book: The Productive Life. In this message I am going to give you an extract from my book where I explored explored Key #7: Renew Your Energy.

In this Key I wrote about four kinds of energy that we need to renew: Physical; Mental; Emotional and Spiritual. Here is what I wrote about the first two kinds of energy:

1. Generate Physical Energy
The first step to renew your energy is to generate physical energy. I have learnt that how we live our lives will determine whether we show up with energy or drag ourselves through each day hoping for a weekend or public holiday where we can recharge before the next stretch.

Here are some things you can do to generate physical energy:

  • Health: It all starts with eating well and even if you don’t go overboard but eat healthy foods and avoid harmful foods you will have more energy.
  • Exercise: You don’t have to be a fitness fanatic who works out two times a day, although that may be your thing, but even if you just keep moving and walk a few kilometres every day, like my wife and I do every day, you will generate energy to release.
  • Sleep: I have had seasons in my life when I worked late into the night and had to drag myself out of bed in the morning not ready to face the day. Make it a regular habit to get seven to eight hours of sleep a night and you will have more energy!
  • Rest: I have numerous practices around rest that help me to generate energy, including: (1) Guarding my work rhythms by only working two thirds of the day and very rarely three thirds; (2) Taking a day off each week; (3) Taking a weekend off every two months; (4) Taking three weeks of continuous leave over my annual holiday period, and (5) Taking a three-month Sabbatical every seven years.

Be Productive Right Now!

  1. What one thing can you do to generate physical energy?
  2. Set one goal for each of the following areas:
  • Health:
  • Exercise:
  • Sleep:
  • Rest:

2. Generate Emotional Energy
The second step to renew your energy is to generate emotional energy. In recent years, as I have begun to understand how my brain works, I have realised that managing my feelings is a truly critical part of living with energy. I think positively and when I find myself tempted to have a pity-party or complain or give in to negative thoughts, I make a conscious effort to return to a place of positivity and without fail my mood starts to move from negative to positive.

I am not pretending that it is not a huge challenge at times, like when I received news about eye conditions that could have resulted in eye loss, but here is what I do know: (1) I can’t control everything that happens to me; (2) I can control how I react to what life throws at me; and (3) I can become better because of what I go through.

Here are some things you can do to generate emotional energy:

  • Embrace Positive Thinking: I explored this concept in some details in the Focus key so I won’t repeat myself here apart from reminding you that thoughts matter and that they build mindsets – so think positively and build mindsets that will lead you to productivity and success.
  • Avoid Negative Thinking: When you catch yourself thinking negatively, stop and reject the negative thought and replace it with a positive thought.
  • Embrace Positive People: Go out of your way to spend time with positive people so their positive energy can rub off on you. Energy is infectious!
  • Avoid Negative People: This may sound a little harsh, and obviously you can’t totally avoid people, but move away from people who have the potential to steal your positivity.

Be Productive Right Now!

  1. What one thing can you do to generate emotional energy?
  2. What can you do to replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts?

Challenge:
Make it your intention to show up with energy, take time to prepare for every opportunity you get to engage with people, prepare as if you were a gladiator preparing to enter an arena, and just maybe it will end up being your finest hour – as reflected in the words of Sir Winston Churchill during the second world war: “To every man there comes in his lifetime that special moment when he is figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered a chance to do a very special thing, unique to him and fitted to his talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds him unprepared or unqualified for the work which would be his finest hour.” (The Transparent Leader II by Dwight L. Johnson).

In my next message I will pull things together as I wrap up this series exploring each of the 7 Keys to Living a Productive Life.

Don’t forget you can buy a copy of the book in various formats and places:
Amazon (http://bit.ly/TPLBOOK) – eBook and Paperback for global shipping.
Takealot (bit.ly/TPL_Takealot) – the paperback for shipping in South Africa.