The most overlooked factor in changing your life, work, or business successfully
When it comes to creating change to achieve what matters most to you, people focus mostly on planning and the tasks they need to do to get from where they are to where they want to be.
That is, without question, an important part of creating change successfully.
However, over the last 20 years of creating numerous changes in my own life, work, and business and helping countless clients do the same, I have noticed a crucial factor in the change process that is commonly overlooked but absolutely essential to your progress and outcomes, especially at midlife and beyond.
It is this:
Having enough physical and cognitive energy.
Changing your life, work, or business takes a huge amount of energy, over and above what you need to juggle all the day-to-day things you already have on your plate.
So, if you are regularly feeling exhausted or burned out, lack energy, a woman going through menopause, recovering from illness, or just have too much on your plate already, creating change is going to feel like a mountain to climb.
When you feel depleted of energy, at best your progress will be slow and inconsistent. At worst, it can keep you stuck and totally sabotage the outcomes you desire.
Overlooking the role your energy levels play in changing your life successfully is common. But think of change as driving a car from where you are to where you want to be - you are not going anywhere on an empty tank. You need to fuel up before you head off and keep fueling up regularly along the way.
But rarely do people include having a stay-fueled strategy as part of their change process and plans.
I highly recommend you make fueling up with enough cognitive and physical energy as important as planning and tasks.
Here are a few ideas to help you get started with that:
- Identify what is draining your cognitive and physical energy. Form a plan to address those things.
- Identify things that boost your cognitive and physical energy. Create a plan to do more of those things.
- Identify anything you can clear off your plate, even if it is just temporarily, while you navigate the changes you want to create.
- As part of your planning process, create a stay-fueled plan.
- Drop the phrase “self-care” and replace it with “fueling-up.” People often treat self-care like some kind of luxury. It isn’t. It is essential to ensure you have enough physical and cognitive energy to achieve what matters most to you. Calling it fueling-up shifts your mindset to prioritise it because you know you are going nowhere without enough fuel.
The bottom line:
Creating change successfully requires cognitive and physical energy, over and above, what you need each day for your current life, work, or business commitments. Make it an important part of your change process and plans. Because it is.
