78 P E R S ON A L G R OU N DWO R K F O R C OAC H I N G There are three key areas Liza and the rest of us can work on to adhere to our energy budget each day. Let’s break it down: 1. UNDERSTAND YOUR NATURAL ENERGY CYCLES AND LEVERAGE IT Just about everything in nature has cycles. The seasons change in cycles, the weather moves in cycles, the planets rotate in cycles, the oceans move through cycles and each one of our bodies has biological cycles. Many of these cycles are universal and predictable in uniformity for each. But then there are cycles that become unique in every one of these areas. For example, seasons have different cycles on different places of our planet - it’s winter in Australia when it’s summer in Europe. All the planets in our solar system rotate around our sun but some do their individual daily rotations much faster or much slower than other planets. All oceans have the oceanic conveyor in common that moves cycles through each ocean in a uniformed and predictable way, but each ocean has its own unique cycles in plant and aquatic life. And each one of us as humans has common biological cycles but we each have unique energy cycles. Some people are morning people. It’s natural for them to rise early in the day and they have a greater amount of energy, creativity, and stamina early in the day. Some people are night people. They get their greatest amount of energy, creativity, and stamina at night. Some people have more energy in the spring. Some in the fall. All of us have energy cycles and it’s different for everyone. Most of us are pretty clear about when we peak in our energy and when we don’t but how many of us actually think about leveraging that? Leveraging your peak times would mean designing your schedule, activities, and performance intentions around the times you are at your energy peak. For example, Liza was a morning person in our earlier illustration. To reduce her energy budget, we identified her peak hours which were between 5 a.m. and 11 a.m. We then looked at the things on her e-dollar usage list that required the most energy, creativity and stamina and talked about what we could move into her peak hours so that she would spend less energy (e-dollars) because she had more energy. She identified the following: • She would get project and school materials ready for the children in the morning. • If she brought work home to do, she would do it in the morning versus the evening. • She would schedule all her meetings and client presentations before noon as much as she could.
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