3 Simple Tips To Turn Your Energy Around

How can you turn your day,

Your energy,

And the blahs around?

That's what we're going to explore today on the Y's Effort Show.

Welcome back.

I'm Dr.

Diana Hill.

I'm a clinical psychologist and host of this show,

And this show is all about turning your energy around.

It's about getting you to a place where you feel open,

Spacious,

Free to move in directions that matter to you and helping you enjoy and savor the good of your life along the way.

So today's episode is a skill building episode.

These ones are short,

Sweet,

To the point.

So a member wrote in to me and basically what she said was that she's doing high value work.

High value,

High effort work as a caregiver and she is burned out.

And there was a diagram that I did with Jenny Nash,

If you go back to the real play,

The Y's Effort Diagram,

Where I talk about one way to turn your energy around is to engage in high value,

High effort activities.

But what happens when you are doing that?

You're living your values.

You too may be thinking,

I know my values.

I follow my values all day long.

I eat well.

I exercise.

I even get enough sleep.

So why do I feel so blah?

So in today's episode,

I'm going to give you three things that you can do that are not about exercise.

I love it.

You know,

I love it.

I'm writing a book on it right now with Katie Bowman.

It's not about sleep.

You know how important I think sleep is,

But I know that you know sleep is important.

It's not about eating well,

Which if you're not eating well,

Everything is going to feel blah to you.

So please get your nutrition dialed in.

It is about how you are using your energy and how to use your effort wisely.

Wise effort is not just about pointing your arrow towards your values and going at a level 10 on repeat.

You know that I tend to do this and many of the high achievers and strivers that I work with do this as well,

Where you see a treadmill and you want to find a 10.

5 even if it only goes to a level 10,

Right?

But sometimes and oftentimes more is not more when it comes to your energy.

Sometimes wise effort means dialing it up.

Other times it means dialing it back.

And almost always it means changing things up.

Variability,

Variation is the foundation of evolution.

So if you want to upgrade your day from blah to I don't know,

Hurrah,

Try these three simple things.

You can do it today.

You can do them 10 times a day.

You can do them in 10 minutes a day to turn your energy around.

Here's the first one.

The first one is noticing the point of diminishing returns.

There's a point when doing more doesn't get you more.

And some things aren't just worth putting extra effort into.

So the question for you to start asking yourself is what is worth your precious energy?

Early in my career,

I was the clinical director of an intensive outpatient program for eating disorders.

And instead of putting people on meal plans,

We offered a holistic,

Intuitive,

Appetite based approach to recovery.

I studied under Linda Craighead and had research appetite awareness training.

And we had found that using your hunger and fullness to guide your eating led to people being less preoccupied with food than telling them to eat three meals and two snacks a day and write it all down,

Right?

So we'd help clients pay attention to their appetite cues when they ate.

But I would also assign them another task.

And this was called the worth it,

Not worth it list.

I had them make a two column list.

On one side,

They wrote about the foods that they were eating and the things that they were doing with food that were worth it.

And on the other side,

They wrote what was not worth it that day.

By creating this worth it,

Not worth it list,

They started to develop a more flexible way of viewing their eating.

It's not so black and white.

And then they could listen inside throughout their day and ask themselves,

Is this worth it in this moment,

In this context,

And make a wise decision moment to moment,

As opposed to having a rigid eating plan.

So worth it,

Not worth it food list would look like something like the first three quarters of the slice of cake was worth it.

Maybe the last quarter wasn't worth it.

My mom's spaghetti was worth it,

But the garlic bread,

Not worth it.

Eating more whole foods,

Worth it,

But getting really restrictive about my calories,

Not worth it.

And you can see how nuanced this is.

Like it's more nuanced than good food,

Bad foods.

And it takes tuning in to notice for yourself,

Where's the point of diminishing returns and what is worth it to you?

So I want you to apply the same worth it,

Not worth it list to your effort today.

Get out a journal,

Get out a piece of paper,

Take a note on your phone.

I don't care how you do it,

But keep track of what things are worth it to you and what things are not worth it to you.

But also when is the point of diminishing returns?

I did this on Sunday for myself,

And this was what I had on my worth it,

Not worth it list,

Which will kind of inform me for the future.

So totally worth it to write in the morning from seven to 9am.

Not worth it writing from 11 to one.

My energy was drained,

My focus was poor,

And I was just pushing myself,

But not getting much done.

Totally worth it to make waffles for my kids.

Not worth it to not sit down and eat with them,

To stand up while eating.

Totally worth it to go for a walk with my mom.

Not worth it to talk about myself the whole time.

Totally worth it to have sex with my husband.

Not worth it to pick a fight with him in the first place.

Sorry,

Honey.

Love you.

Okay,

So when you consider a spot where you feel stuck,

You're in this like tangled up energy of unwise effort,

I want you to look at where are the places that you're following your values,

But you're starting to feel like it's not worth it.

What would go in your worth it and not worth it columns?

Make a list.

Pay attention to the points of diminishing returns.

Step two,

Diversify your energy diet.

When you've lost joy in what you're doing,

Even if what you're doing is meaningful,

Purposeful,

Guided by your values,

You need to take a look at what you were doing,

Not just how much.

My good friend,

Katie Bowman,

Who authored the new book,

Your Perfect Movement Plan,

She's going to be on the show coming up,

Has taught me a lot about the power of diversity when it comes to movement.

She calls it nutritious movement.

For example,

Most of us think that if we go on a treadmill,

We'll run 30 minutes,

We're good to go,

Done for the day,

But for Katie,

A nutritious movement diet is so much more than that.

Just like a nutritious diet,

Food diet is about getting the right amount of calories.

You need to get the right amount of movement calories,

But you also need movement macro and micronutrients.

If you're running on that treadmill,

Did you move your eyes?

Probably not if you were just inside looking at a screen.

If you were running on that treadmill,

Did you move your arms over your head?

Probably not unless you run weird,

Right?

So to move nutritiously,

To eat nutritiously,

To live nutritiously,

You need to diversify.

You need to diversify.

When it comes to wise effort,

This principle is really important.

Too much of one thing,

Even if it's kale or running or taking care of your aging parents,

Can become a bad thing if you don't add variety.

We had Michael Harreld on the show a couple of episodes ago.

If you haven't listened to that one,

It's probably one of my favorite real plays I've ever done.

He's phenomenal and a confidence coach with a neuromuscular condition.

Towards the end,

We talked about what would be his fearless review for him of his next year if he could live fearlessly.

And he talked about diversifying his energy,

Spending some days going 100% on his exercise plan and other days with his friends drinking a beer in the sun at Vienna.

In my own recovery from disordered eating,

Diversifying means sometimes I snack on carrots,

But also sometimes I snack on chocolate and popcorn,

Right?

Note,

If you only snack on carrots,

Your palms will turn orange like mine did when I was anorexic.

Too much of a good thing is a bad thing.

One principle that can help you with diversifying your energy diet is something called productive procrastination.

Productive procrastination is when you swap one values-aligned activity for another adaptive,

Although maybe less important one.

And Erin Westgate,

Who's a researcher at University of Florida,

Shared with me about productive procrastination in an interview I did with her.

Go back and listen to it.

I love Erin.

She's a researcher that has worked on psychological richness as well.

And she talked about how she noticed that when she was in graduate school,

She'd be in the library and she'd be really stuck studying for an exam.

And then so she'd go and procrastinate working on a paper,

Right,

That was due in a few weeks.

She went on to research this concept of productive procrastination and she found that not all forms of procrastination are equal.

Individuals who engage in productive procrastination,

Like cleaning their room to procrastinate doing their homework,

Had the same benefits in terms of their GPA as non-procrastinators.

And this was not true for those that were just engaging in just general procrastination.

So try diversifying your energy diet with some productive tasks.

If you're sick of working on your taxes,

Try answering some emails.

If you're sick of answering emails,

Call your mom.

Okay,

So take a look at how you're using your energy.

How can you diversify it a bit?

Where could you try something new,

Mix it up,

Productively procrastinate so that you have more nutritious effort diet.

And included in that,

Of course,

Is our last and very important step to banishing the flaws and uplifting your day,

Which is having more fun.

So tip number three,

Have more fun.

One of the things that surprised me the most when we took our kids on summer retreat to Plum Village Monastery was that the nuns wore tennis shoes under their brown robes.

They'd spend the morning in sitting meditation,

Leading Dharma talks,

Cleaning the dishes,

Chopping vegetables.

And then by afternoon,

They'd be out there playing ping pong,

Basketball,

Volleyball with the kids.

And it is such a sight to see these bald nuns in brown robes spiking a volleyball or a nun stealing a soccer ball from your kid,

Right?

This type of fun,

Like all things done at Plum Village,

Is actually done on purpose.

And when I asked Sister Deer Park,

Who was the head of the children's program,

About having fun,

She just smiled at me and told me that happiness and joy is what gives her energy to hold compassion for those that suffer.

So if you work in a helping profession,

A caregiver,

Or you're a leader of an organization,

Or you're engaging in social activism,

It's actually really important for you to take time to have fun,

Especially if you think that you don't have time for it.

And fun isn't just good for you.

It can be a form of activism.

There's a book called Pleasure Activism,

The Politics of Feeling Good by Adrienne Marie Brown,

And she writes about engaging in pleasurable activities as challenging the norms and structures that perpetuate suffering and oppression.

By prioritizing happiness,

Fulfillment,

Satisfaction in your life and in your communities,

You can enhance your resilience and your effectiveness in whatever social movement or activism or political movement that you want to do.

So living out your values does not need to be joyless and full of sacrifice.

Go back and listen to my interview with Dr.

Michael Ricker,

Who's the author of The Fun Habit.

He recommended that we generate this fun file where you kind of reconnect with what brings you joy.

And in it,

You can make a list of 8 to 15 enjoyable activities,

Making sure that on your list,

You include things that require no preparation,

Little time,

Moderate planning and time,

And things that take a little more effort to make happen.

My low effort,

Low prep list on the fun file is playing Uno with my son,

Going out to the garden.

I love making dessert on a weeknight.

My medium effort list has things like going to the farmer's market,

Hiking with my dog,

Making pasta from scratch.

And my high effort list includes things like going to an outdoor concert,

Taking a painting class and leading a retreat for all of you in Costa Rica.

Okay,

So here are the three simple steps that you can do to uplift your day today,

Turn your energy around.

One,

Make that worth it,

Not worth it list and notice the point of diminishing returns.

Number two,

Diversify your energy diet,

Do some productive procrastination.

And number three,

Have more fun.

I want to know what you did in each of these categories.

Tag me on Instagram if you are doing any of these,

That's a little accountability practice for you all and go sign up for that Costa Rica retreat.

I'd love to spend a week with all of you.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the wise effort podcast.

Wise effort is about you taking your energy and putting it in the places that matter most to you.

And when you do so,

You'll get to savor the good of your life along the way.

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only,

And it's not meant to be a substitute for mental health treatments.