How To Optimise Your Energy At Work: 3 Tips From An Energy Expert By Dolly Waddell with Chris Baréz-Brown

According to the American Psychological Association’s 2021 Work and Wellbeing Survey, 26 per cent of workers admitted experiencing a lack of interest, motivation, or energy due to work-related stress.

Microsoft’s 2022 Work Trend Index also reveals that more than half of managers (53 per cent) report feeling burned out at work – slightly higher than employees in general.

While these statistics may be staggering, they’re in no way surprising. As leaders, we’re constantly facing situations that require us to lead with empathy while managing escalating demands. All of this – coupled with the other day-to-day demands of our roles and businesses – can lead to increased burnout and stress.

So, the question is: how can we get our energy right in the workplace? How can we embed a human, energetic and creative working culture in our businesses and, in doing so, make work easier, more successful and, dare I say, more fun?

Let’s find out.

What our biological design says about our energy levels

In the latest episode of extra-Ordinary Leaders, I sat down with Chris Baréz-Brown, author, speaker, and founder of Upping Your Elvis.

One of the first things Chris pointed out was that humans are not biologically designed for the business world. 

While the way we work and live has certainly changed over the last few centuries, we could learn a thing or two from our evolutionary makeup. The more we understand how we have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, the easier it becomes to live in alignment with our energy and to implement the right changes.

Chris: “We're all designed to be hunter-gatherers on the savannah. We have actually developed this design for millions of years. Therefore, we all have a commonality – a particularly foundational way of coming at anything in the world. The question is, how do we take that commonality and make it work for us in the world in which we live?

The best leaders are brilliant at doing that. They look at themselves and at the situation, and they ask, what's needed here? How can I play a little bit more into who I am to make sure that today counts?”

It is critical to note that there are different energy needs and levels. For example, you require a different type of energy to walk your dogs versus carrying out a financial review or a business audit. 

Optimising our energy as leaders begins with understanding how to make it show up for the work we have to deliver. It means understanding our evolutionary design as hunter-gatherers, what makes us tick as individuals, and then tuning our different energy levels to create strategic, long-term wins.

Chris has three tips for optimising our energy in the workplace:

1. Build healthy lifestyle habits

While the modern world has made it significantly easier for us to lead sedentary lifestyles, this change negatively impacts our health and energy levels. 

According to a 2014 study, longer sitting times were found to be associated with more fatigue in a sample of Swedish adults.

This means that in order to get our energy right in the workplace, we must start at the foundation: physical energy.

Chris: “I think that the foundation of all energy is your physical energy. You have to get your foundational energy working best. This means getting sufficient exercise, rest, sleep and nutrition.”

2. Set the right mental boundaries

Neuroscientists believe that we are conscious of only about five per cent of our cognitive activity. Most of our decisions, actions and behaviour are impacted by the other 95 per cent of subconscious brain activity.

Unfortunately, our subconscious has an in-built negativity bias. This bias means that our brains are wired to detect danger and assess risks before recognising opportunities or positive outcomes. While this evolutionary mechanism is crucial for survival, it often hampers our ability to maintain focus in modern settings.

In simpler terms, the human brain is not designed to focus – at least not as much as we have been led to believe. It’s up to us then to understand this innate design and learn how to wield it to our advantage.

Chris: “Our focus is designed to dissolve over time. We only have between 90 and 120 minutes of deep focus per day.

Most people will waste that though. They'll use it for emails and other meetings when in reality, we should be protecting and making the most of it. So learning how to use focus – finding that sweet spot is vital to performance.”

Data about historical geniuses and elite performers across different fields all say the same thing – the human brain can sustain only about four hours of focused work a day.

The best performers in this world work for only about three-and-a-half to four hours per day, but they do it with absolute focus, and they spend that time on high-priority, fulfilling tasks. Thus, in order to optimise our energy at work, we can follow this pattern by setting the right mental boundaries and fiercely protecting those four hours of focused time a day.

This means that as leaders, we must become even more intentional and disciplined with our self-management

3. Prioritise self-management

In his book, The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness, Stephen Covey talks about self-management, primarily in the context of developing habits that will help keep you focused and foster interdependence among colleagues.

To be a highly successful leader, you must ask (and seek the answers to) some hard-hitting questions.

How do you function at your best? How can you foster effective self-management to boost your energy at work? 

For Chris, one of the biggest obstacles to self-management for leaders is adrenal addiction – a concept we’ve explored in previous blogs.

Chris: “It's easier not to manage ourselves. It's easier just to float through days going, “What do I do now? Oh, let's look at my diary. Oh, there's a meeting. I'll go to that.” 

Being busy is easy because you don't have to concentrate. You don't have to think or prioritise things if you're busy. You don't have to make the hard decisions or think, how should I use my unique talents today? You just roll from one thing to the next, basking in the rush of adrenaline. 

This busyness makes us feel like we're doing something useful, but it's total rubbish.”

Instead of succumbing to the fleeting thrill of busyness and the adrenal addiction it fosters, how can we prioritise the tasks that best align with our unique talents and abilities? 

In doing so, we not only optimise our own energy at work, but also positively influence energy dynamics within the teams we lead.

I hope you’ve found this article insightful.

Stay tuned for more episodes of extra-Ordinary Leaders, released each week, and if you’d like to be the first to know when a new episode goes live, follow me on LinkedIn.

You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel or explore the free resources I have on my website for more insights on how to dial up the extra-Ordinary in your leadership.

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