3 easy steps to more and better emotional energy

In their popular book “The Power of Full Engagement,” authors Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz write that energy, not time, is your primary resource. They go on to mention four main kinds of energy: mental, physical, spiritual and emotional.

In this article, our focus is on getting you to leverage your emotional energy and become emotional resilient.

1. Hop out of the pot before it’s too late

One of the emotions that you’ve experienced in your life is anger. If you leverage the energy that comes with emotional intensity, you can avoid what I call “the complacent frog syndrome”.

Rumor has it, if you place a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will immediately hop out. But, if you put it into a pot of room temperature water, and slowly bring up the heat, it will stay until it can no longer save itself.

It’s possible to get complacent, and not realize that the environment around you is becoming intolerable. This may have happened in the past, and you have felt powerless to make a change and to act on your own behalf. Making a change, hoping out of the pot, takes energy. Few feelings sap your energy faster than the feeling of hopelessness.

It is possible that you can turn your anger into a refusal to settle for less than you are worthy of. You can turn the energy that comes from being fed up into the energy to move and change your situation.

“Eustress” is a positive form of stress, for example, when you accomplish well work that you find challenging.

When you are leveraging your emotions to serve you best keep these three ideas in mind:

1. The right emotion

2. The appropriate degree of intensity

3. For the right amount of time

Even intensely beneficial emotions will burn you out if you keep them up for long periods of time.

2. Three great resources that you always have available

Anytime you wish to draw on these resources, they are ready for you:

• Your Values

• Your Imagination

• Your Emotions

Your values will guide you in making countless choices each and every day. And of course, the person you become and the results in your life will reflect those choices you’ve made. Note how often people put their lives on auto-pilot and wake up one day decades older, genuinely surprised that they never accomplished what they might have. Your values might include the commitment to be who you are, at your best.

A great man once said “Imagination is more important than knowledge”. Do you know who this great man was? Did you guess Albert Einstein? You would be right. He went on to say that “your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.”

When you are making decisions in the moment, you’re wise to use your imagination to consider how happy your future self will be as a result of your current choices.

Imagine a better mood. When you’re in a foul mood and want to snap out of it quickly, ask yourself and answer this question: “How would my life be better if this didn’t bother me right now?”

Your emotions have the power to stimulate energy and excitement that will sustain you even through the challenges that are inevitable as you work towards long-term goals.

Use each of these resources every day. They are powerful, they are free and they are unlimited.

3. Be emotionally resilient

Picture that each day you are given a full tank of emotional energy. Each and every day, that tank must last you through the entire day. Tomorrow, you get a fresh tank of emotional energy.

If you picture that your emotional energy has limits, it will help you make more deliberate choices. For example, you could choose to be furious about something that happened in the past. At the end of the day, that person is still a jerk and your energy tank is empty.

Anger is expensive; indifference is free. How will you spend your emotional energy?

Let’s say that you’re driving to work, and some aggressive driver cuts you off on the freeway, and you choose to be mad. That will burn some emotional energy. You think about it all the way to work, more energy gone. You talk about it to several people at work; you draw from the tank again. You find that you’re so upset about this your energy is tapped out before you even get home.

Consider that there’s an opportunity cost to negative emotions, whatever they may be, it will cost you as you no longer will have that emotional energy reserve in your tank.

Bad moods cost, and so does love, and meaningful work, and contribution.  How much do these beneficial emotions cost?  How much do you have?  How about a full tank of emotional energy?

If you would like to learn more about how to keep your emotional energy tank full, then the free eBook “Emotional Intelligence Secrets” is the right choice for you.