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Plugging Your Energy Leaks
by Catherine A. Bruns
You can’t water a garden with an empty bucket –
right?! Last month we worked on filling your bucket and keeping it
that way, http://www.coachbalance.com/self-care-for-women.html but a
full bucket doesn’t do much good if you’ve got lots of leaks. A
leaky bucket requires you to put much more effort into filling it
than if you have no leaks at all. Don’t you want to keep the energy
you put in your bucket? Don’t you want to be in charge of how you
choose to use your energy? Sure you do! Read on and learn which of
the 3 Energy Leaks are creating the biggest holes in your bucket.
ENERGY VAMPIRES – the things we just put up with and tolerate.
Just think of a vampire – it sucks the life out of you! And that’s
just what all those little things in life that you’re simply putting
up with do to you. Look around your home or office right now. Is
there a pile of paper or clutter that you’ve been walking by
thinking that you’ll get to it later? Do you hate the color of the
wall? Is your computer slower than molasses and it drives you crazy?
These are great examples of tolerations. Every time you walk past
that pile and think you should do something about it, a bit of your
energy is drained away – the toleration has occupied space and taken
some of your resource. Here’s the challenge – make a list of
everything in your world that you are tolerating. It can be stuff,
or people, or attitudes – things you can do something about or
things you can’t. Keep that list handy; you'll be using it later.
ENERGY WASTERS – our bad habits.
Picture this. You are running a race, an important race. You are
effortlessly bounding towards the finish line, exuberant and full of
energy. You gloriously leap across the finish line to celebrate your
great accomplishment. Nice picture, huh? OK, how ‘bout this one?
You’re running the same important race, but tied to your ankle is a
small footstool. You have to run in a really awkward way to avoid
stepping on the footstool and it keeps banging into your other leg.
Now imagine, that the footstool becomes a sofa tied around your
waist. You’re running as hard as you can, but making such little
progress and using so much energy that you often have to sit down on
the sofa to rest. You can’t even see the finish line. Our bad habits
are just like the footstool or the sofa (or perhaps even a
refrigerator!), wasting our energy and preventing us from finishing
our race with energy and joy. What are your bad habits? Make a list.
ENERGY QUICKSAND – worry.
When you think of worry, think about your garden hose in the
backyard with the tap turned on. If you worry a little, the water
just trickles out endlessly, if you worry a lot, it gushes out
flooding your whole yard and making it impossible for things to
grow. Here’s an exercise for you. Draw a line on a piece of paper,
with 1 at one end, 10 at the other, and 5 in the middle. Then rate
your self on this ‘worry scale’. Put yourself closer to 1 if worry
doesn’t impact you much – if you find yourself worrying, you take
action to solve your problem. Mark closer to 5 if worry affects you
somewhat, impacting your sleeping or eating and other things in your
life. You're closer to a 10 if worry affects your life daily and
your sleep, eating, moods and relationships are regularly affected.
If you mark yourself above a 3, you likely have a worry leak that
needs some attention.
So, now that you’ve identified some of the leaks that you’d like to
take care of the question is what do you do to plug them up?! April
is Plug Your Leaks month at the Balanced Living Journal, http//:www.balancedlivingjournal.blogspot.com
(my blog - remember). Throughout the month I will be posting some
very specific ways for you to tackle your leaks and hoping that you
will also post what works for you. So go there frequently during the
month to get and share information about your energy leaks.
Some leaks are easy and some are much harder to plug up, but I'm
quite confident that you can do it. Awareness and persistence are
your tools in this task.
About the author:
Copyright 2005 Catherine A. Bruns. This article may be reprinted in
full with the following attached: Life Coach Catherine Bruns coaches
women to success in their personal and professional goals. For more
information visit
http://www.coachbalance.com
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