“I want more emotional energy. NOW!”
by Mira and Charles on September 11th, 2009In our last blog we talked about what emotional energy is. And now you’re feeling, I want some of that!
But isn’t your emotional energy level just something you’re born with? NO! Can you really do anything to raise it? YES!
Getting more emotional energy is something anyone can do. No matter how low down, laid low, burned out, bummed out you may be feeling, you CAN feel more emotional energy. What we discovered in the research that led to our book The Emotional Energy Factor is that those people who have high emotional energy aren’t that way because of who they are but because of what they do. And there’s nothing they do that you can’t do. You just gotta do it!
What we discovered in our research is that there are 25 things high emotional energy people do to feel alive and engaged. You are probably doing some or even many of them now. But there are always a few areas where we miss out.
It’s like vitamins. You might be loaded with one, but if you’re deficient in another you could still feel lousy.
So what are these things you can do to feel more emotional energy? To see all 25, and to discover how to tell which are missing in your life, you’ll have to check out The Emotional Energy Factor. But here are some suggestions to get you going:
- Let go of other people’s expectations. You would be surprised at how powerful and important this is. Most of us live trying fulfill other people’s views of who we are and how we should act. But then guess what? When you put out a ton of energy trying to be the person they want you to be, they end up getting all the benefit. What do you get? You’re spending energy but not getting any back. And that’s just nuts. Instead, ask yourself, who do I want to be? How do I want to live? AND DO THAT. You don’t have to make a total transformation. Just a small step in the right direction will have huge EE (emotional energy) benefits.
- Give yourself something special to look forward to. High EE people turn out to have a lot to look forward to. They plant the future with goodies. A small thing next week. A bigger thing next month. An even bigger thing for the coming year. But here’s the key: it has to be something that’s really meaningful to you. Activity for the sake of activity isn’t enough.
- Do everything the fun way. There are two ways to do everything: the wrong way and the fun way. Or at least the funner way. Fun is the yeast of life. If you take things too seriously, it’s like drilling a hole in your big plastic energy canteen and then watching all your EE leak away. Just watch yourself as you go through your day and keep asking, How could I be having a little more fun right now? The more you ask this question, the better you’ll get at answering it.
- Banish envy. In our research we were amazed at the extent to which people’s EE plunged every time they ran across something that made them jealous. It doesn’t take much. Maybe just a story about some rich guy’s boat or a high school friend’s vacation, and down you go. The envy/depression connection is fast and powerful. How to prevent it? First, be aware of how frequent and potent this is. Then you can say, Here I go again. That alone helps a lot. Then refocus not on what other people have, not on what you don’t have, but on what you want for yourself. Then think about one thing you can do to come closer to getting it.
Okay, that’s enough for now. These are just four of the twenty-five things you can do to increase your emotional energy. Now you need to do them. Start now. What are you waiting for?
