013: Learning How to Protect Your Energy Will Change Your Life
Have you ever tracked your energy throughout a typical week? Or deliberately payed close attention to what things or people energize you or drain your energy? Most of us don't ever do this, and it turns out it's life-changing!
In this episode we'll learn what it means to protect your energy, and cover all the tips for creating a life where you feel energized most of the time!
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Hi, my name is Katy Blommer and my passion is helping women learn how to put themselves first, I learned all the tools for success on my own 12 year journey that has led me to finally figuring out how to live my best life. My journey included overcoming body image issues, and yo yo dieting, climbing the corporate ladder to a multiple six figure career, navigating mom guilt through a 60 hour workweek turning around marriage issues, and much more. Now, I'm truly living my best life. And I've pretty much become obsessed with teaching others my tried and true methods for creating balance, maintaining healthy habits, improving your relationship, career development, and how to stop tying your value and worth, to the way you look and how you serve others. I'm so passionate about helping others learn this, that I created the working mom happiness method to help you get there too. So if you're ready to learn how to live your best life, pull up a chair or put on your walking shoes and get ready to dive in. This is the working mom happiness method podcast.
Okay, thanks so much for listening. I'm really excited to get started on this episode, which is all about protecting your energy. And if you're wondering, what does that mean, we're going to talk about that, first we're gonna talk about what does it mean to protect your energy, we're going to talk about activities that drain your energy, people who drain your energy, we're going to cover a ton of tips for success around protecting your energy. So to start off, what does it mean to protect your energy? Well, as we've talked about a lot in the program, society has taught us as women that our value and our worth is based on number one, how we look, which we're not going to cover in this episode, but we obviously cover throughout the program. And we'll continue to do that. And number two, how do we serve all those around us taking care of everyone, unfortunately, taking care of everyone, but ourselves is the most common thing.
And we've talked about all the reasons why that is, right. We observed our moms doing all the things for everyone, and generations and on and on. And so I don't want to get into all that here, because we've talked a ton about it. But the reality is, most of us as women have our value, and our worth rooted in serving all those around us. And what that ends up doing to us is exhausting us. Each day, we feel exhausted, and overwhelmed. And this has to change. And so when I say protect your energy, what I mean is stop doing all the things for everyone all the time. And this whole program, right is based on learning how to do that you've created your best life master plan, you set boundaries, right? So we have a lot of things going on that are teaching us how to stop to stop doing all the things for everyone all the time. I know, I can't just tell you to do that you're going to do it right, there are tools that you're learning to help do it. And it's a gradual process over time. But this is where we get very literal about paying closer attention to your energy levels, understanding them, learning what your limit is, through trial and error. And then when you're at your limit from an energy perspective, meaning when you run out, run out of energy, stop, stop doing things that's reactive, when you run out of energy, stop doing things. It's amazing. It's reactive, we also want to get proactive, where we start to know ourselves enough, and what types of things impact our energy level in various ways that we can be proactive for setting ourselves up for success on having good energy most days. And I think it's worth calling out that no one is ever going to have amazing energy every day, right? We've talked about I said this a lot of times during the program already, I'll continue to say it. Happiness is not feeling good and having happy feelings all the time. Happiness is not having amazing energy all the time. However, I believe that happiness is having an health is one of the one of the definitions of true health is having good energy most days, right. And I feel like most of us, at least most of the women I talked to, and I've worked with, and I've coached and myself before learning all this. I could not say that I had good energy most days. Most days were exhausting. And I remember I used to say to Mike before we would go to bed that that was the most exhausting day of my life. We started sort of joking about it after we had kids.
That everyday was the most exhausting day of our lives. And this has to change. We do not we do not have to live this way, our value and our worth is not based on taking care of everyone in a way that makes every day the most exhausting day of our lives, right? We have to change this. And maybe you're not at that level and if you're not amazing, however, I'm sure you can benefit from paying closer
attention to your energy levels and what impacts them and making changes to be proactive and set yourself up for success when it comes to your energy. Alright, so let's talk a little bit more about this in detail. Back when you did the boundaries exercise, one of the things that you wrote down, was, and by the way, if you're new here,
I highly recommend going and starting from the beginning, because there's a whole working mom happiness Method program. And it builds on one thing on the next on the next. And so if you start from the beginning, you're been creating your best life master plan document, and you have your boundaries written, and you would have done an exercise back in the boundaries module where we took some time to think about and write down what types of activities drain our energy, what types of activities, give us energy, energize us, and and who are the people in our lives who drain our energy, and who are the people in our lives who energize us. So if you've done that, you already have a list, and you can go back and refer to it as you think about this.
But the reality is, there are activities in our lives, and there are people in our lives, who energize us and who drain us. And so, in general, paying close attention to these things is the key to learning how to protect your energy, so learning about yourself and taking this stuff in.
So I want you to start to pay really close attention here over the next week, to how your day goes. And throughout your day, what are your energy levels like. And for the most part, most human beings have better energy during the first half of the day or the first two thirds of the day. And then we tend to have an energy decline towards the last part of the day. But there is a percentage of humans who it's the opposite. And there are books on this, you can Google them I, I'm not remembering them off the top of my head. But this is something that has been studied. And people write about how to figure out what type of person are you and how to structure your day based on it, I think they're amazing.
But the reality is, there is a percentage. And I want to say, from what I've read, and don't quote me on this, because I'm just going off of memory that it's like, somewhere around 80% of humans tend to have better energy during the first part of the day doesn't mean you're a morning person, it just means like your energy is higher in the earlier part of the day. And then I think 20% tend to have their energy higher in the latter part of the day. And then there are differences even within those.
So knowing which one you are is life changing. And structuring your life according is life changing. And so maybe you already know, right, maybe you don't even have to really analyze it or think about it, I still think you'll get benefit to tracking it in detail from a regular week perspective for you looking at it day to day, maybe you already know. So when it comes to protecting your energy, and being proactive about this, what I mean is, you're going to start to pay attention. And if you notice that you are the type of person who you tend to have higher energy during I'm making this at 9am to 11am.
Then what you need to start doing is planning the tasks that drain you so that the activities that more drain you. And if you have a typically structured workday, right, you might be thinking about what things at work tend to drain me more than energize me what are the things that are harder for me to do or that I procrastinate more on. And you're going to want to try to tackle those during the time period where you have more energy in the day. And then on the flip side of that, if you are somebody who tends to have an energy tank around, you know, three o'clock in the afternoon, I know that's really common for a lot of people, including myself, you're going to want to plan to do activities that are easier or more energizing to you during that part of the day. And you can also get creative too, because a lot of us want to have some sort of sugary treat during that time to pick up our energy. And that actually can backfire because then we'll have the sugar crash. So another thing you can do and planning is just a little bit of body movement during that time. So get up, you can walk around your office, you can do I love to do like some air squats, right, like you just stand up and do like some squats, you could do a couple jumping jacks, whatever. Walking is fine if you don't like high impact exercise, but get up move your body around that time period because it will give you a similar effect to eating a sugary treat without the dip that comes from that. So that's just one little proactive tip that you can find in there. In general, though, getting really super smart about these types of activities that drain versus energize you and then planning your day accordingly is a game changer. The other thing that you can do is plan your weeks accordingly. And we talked about in the boundaries model when somebody asks you to do something. So it could be a social activity. It could be at work from your boss or an assignment, something like that. Really anything somebody asks you to be responsible for something and do something. Always start by saying let me check my schedule. Let me check with
spouse, give yourself a time to pause. Always start with that. Because what becomes life changing is then when you take a step back, and you go and you look at what you have planned for that week or month, or depending on what the thing is, you've been asked to do what's going on in your schedule, around that timeframe, and choosing whether or not you say yes to it based on what your energy might be during that time. So for example, if you are more introverted, and you don't like things like going to a party,
that maybe there's a party that it's really important that you go to your supporting a friend who's maybe getting married at a bachelorette party or something like that, where you really do think you should go and it's the right thing to do, you're going to want to make sure the day of and the day after, or however long it takes you to recoup and recover for things like that, that you really make an effort to say no to things other than just that party, so you have time to recover. So you're going to want to make sure your work day is pretty light on the day, if it's like a Friday night leading up to the party. And then on that Saturday, you're going to want to clear your schedule, and taking care of yourself in this way, this sort of radical self care, it just it makes your life so much better. It's amazing how it opens up space for us to be so much more productive and creative and just peaceful and calm in life. It's amazing. It really truly is. I don't want to sound cheesy, but it is it's incredible. When you get you create a habit of doing this you get in the routine of not saying yes to anything until you've assessed? Is it going to energize my knee? Or is it going to drain me? Am I going to just want to stay in and watch Netflix that night? Or am I going to be okay with going out based on the other activities I've done? And most of us I know I certainly didn't before I learned this stuff, we don't pay any attention to this, we don't really look at it, we'll look to see if our schedule has a conflict in it. You know if we actually are doing something different at that time, but we don't really we're not proactive and thinking through how that's going to impact our energy or drain it. So life changing, same with people who drain your energy.
So some of the people who drain your energy you have to keep in your life like for example, your children, right? You're not going to abandon your children because they drain your energy. But how can you plan time with your children and your children's activities in this similar way where you protect your energy. Alright.
So the other thing that becomes really interesting here and critical and important. And I think I actually even mentioned this in the last episode, when we were talking about the morning routine is planning your energy based around your monthly cycle. So let's get into what that means. There's a book that on this, it's amazing. It's called in the flow in the F L O by Alyssa VD. And it's all about this topic, it's about how to take advantage of our monthly cycle as women and live our lives more plan fully based on that more according to that cycle. And so protecting your energy not only applies to days and weeks, but it applies to the month. So if you are somebody who is grumpy or exhausted or you have strong symptoms as it relates to your period the week before, that's the week before for a lot of people, some people it's the week of really start to be more mindful of
what you're planning during that time what your work schedule looks like. If you have flexibility with planning, you know, more difficult things at work versus easier things at work, move what you can out of that time period, to give yourself an easier time to deal with that don't plan, things that are going to drain your energy during that time period. I've started doing this over the last couple years. And it's pretty amazing because we really do want to allow ourselves in our bodies times time to rest. And I before I read this book had never even thought about this. I mean, I did know in the moment if I was feeling a little drained or grumpy the few days before my period that like oh, I don't really feel like doing anything I should just rest i It's not that I didn't notice that it was more about the proactive planning of it. It is completely life changing to free up your schedule and give yourself time to rest and relax. And in the book, she gets into all the things that are going on in our body during that time and why we need to rest and relax and how doing vigorous and strenuous exercise during that time is actually detrimental to our health and hurts our bodies more than it helps us you can find your exercise schedule around it too. She also talks about what foods it's beneficial to eat versus different time periods in your cycle. When you're likely to have more energy versus less. It's amazing. So definitely check out that book if you haven't read it because it goes all exactly in line with protecting your energy in the ways that we're talking about here.
Some other things to pay attention to while you're tracking your energy and as it relates to your energy is how much caffeine do you rely on throughout the day in order to feel like you have good
Energy. So if you feel like oh yeah, I feel great most days and you are having, you know, 500 plus milligrams of caffeine a day, that is not to be trusted as your actual energy level. So that's really important. I am not saying caffeine is bad by any means there's nothing wrong with having some caffeine throughout the day. I did recently listen to a podcast with a neuroscientist on sleep. And the studies show that it is pretty important to not have caffeine after midday. Caffeine has a half life that will last in your body quite some time. And if you drink it after midday, it will impact your sleep. But if you drink it before midday, there's nothing wrong if you're keeping it to, you know, 300 400 milligrams or below. But if you're somebody who is drinking caffeine and relying on it throughout the day, to keep your energy, there is something else that needs to change in your life. Right. And I know that's not easy, and it's much easier said than done to to make that change. Like I get it. Be really mindful of how much caffeine you're using to create the energy levels that you want.
The next thing for tips for success on protecting your energy is focused on one thing multitasking drains our brain's energy, really, our human minds aren't set up to multitask. And you've probably all heard that. Effective multitasking isn't really a thing I do know, especially as women, I believe we're like really good at it. And most of us do it all the time. However, it's not the most effective use of our brain. Now, there are some ways that it is effective if you're using the part of your brain where it's like body movement to multitask. So for example, if you are listening and learning to something in headphones while you're out on a walk, that's totally fine, that form of multitasking. But as far as using that thinking side of our brain and switching between things that need the thinking side of doing them all at once. So if you're in a meeting, and you're messaging with somebody on a different subject while you're in a meeting, those types of things, those drain our energy, they make us more tired at the end of the day. So really, really important to see if you can set up some tools and habits to stop yourself from trying to multitask all the time. One of the things I've implemented that has helped me is when I'm on a meeting at work, I will actually bring up a document and take notes about the meeting. So that way I'm not messaging with somebody else, or looking at something else are distracted, really paying attention. Even if I'm not gonna use the notes for anything else. It helps me to really focus and not multitask. So multitasking is an energy sucker for the human brain. Even if you feel like you're really good at it, it's still an energy sucker. The next tip is do the hardest thing first. There are two books that I really love about this. Number one, and I'm forgetting the author, it's called Eat That Frog. If you listen to the last episode, I offered up a free list of the books that I recommend for personal development reading, it's on that list. So you can go get that in the last episode, click in the show notes. You'll also get some more information about morning routines there.
It's called Eat That Frog. And the premise is, you know, eating the frog eating a frog sucks. It sounds awful. And so he explains it all in the book. But it's like what, in your typical day is your version of eating frog? What what is the thing to you in your day, that sounds the worst and the hardest and sounds awful like eating a frog. And to do that very first thing, it doesn't mean very first thing as in exactly when your eyes open. When you wake up in the bed. It's more like when you started your day. So when you've done your morning routine, you're sort of like ready to go for the day. Maybe it's a work related thing. Maybe it's not, what is the hardest thing for you to do? Do it first block out time in your calendar standing time, maybe you come into work, and you check your emails to make sure there's nothing that's like emergency on fire, you know, that needs your attention right away. And then you have that next 30 minutes to hour blocked out to get the hardest thing done.
As it relates to protecting your energy. This is a game changer. What we tend to do is procrastinate The hardest thing because it's hard. And we wait until the end of the day to do it. And then we're exhausted and we're dreading it and it sucks even more of our energy. So if you can get it done first thing and get it out of the way. That's amazing. This really works as it relates to exercise for those of us who really don't enjoy exercise, me included, I literally never want to do my workout. Getting it done. First thing for me has been life changing. It's the only way I've ever been able to keep it sustainable.
I have other things related to this to specifically in the area of having sex. So get excited. I'm going to tell you all about it when we get into the sex component of module four.
Changing it to the morning changed my life. But we don't have time to get into that right now. It'll be a whole focus in a different episode. So think about what is your equivalent of eating a frog and get it done. First thing there's another book that I love related to this called The One Thing by Gary Keller and it's similar it's not necessarily about what is the hardest thing it's more about what is
The most important thing, and Gary Keller did this. I don't know if you call it a study, I don't think it was scientific. But he did a test and learn on this where he, in his company, experimented with senior leaders focusing on three things a day, versus just one thing a day. And what they found was when they narrowed their focus down to the one most important thing of the day, so it doesn't necessarily mean the hardest thing like Eat That Frog. But the most important thing for their business strategy that day, focusing on that and getting that done, they grew like crazy, it's really interesting, I recommend the book, it's on that list of recommended reading that I just talked about, that you can find in the show notes from the last episode.
Two great books, though, for really motivating you to do these things that will protect your energy. The next thing that I love is using something called the Pomodoro Technique. The Pomodoro Technique was based on studies that show that the human brain does things in smaller increments with breaks, better than focusing on something for a really long period of time. And so the way that it works, there's a free timer you can use to time yourself on the Pomodoro Technique, it's called tomato timer.com, you can just Google tomato timer, it'll pop up, I think it has a hyphen in the actual URL tomato timer. Google that it's free. And what it does is it sets you up to get work done and focus in workflows that are 25 minutes. So it has a timer already set to that. And you click the timer and you only focus on one thing for 25 minutes. So you shut off all messages, you get rid of your phone, and you just focus on that one thing. And then the timer beeps after 25 minutes and you take a five minute break. And your five minute break is not multitasking. It's not checking your email, it's not doing anything like that. It's like getting a drink of water, or getting up and walking around for five minutes, just taking your eyes off the computer. Because giving that brain your brain that break makes it so much more effective and productive for coming back into the next 25 minutes segment or sequence. So in the next 25 minutes segment, you can work on the same thing if you didn't finish it, or you can switch gears. And a lot of folks like to do Pomodoro Technique, focus flows of two hours. So you get four sessions of 25 minute work. Five minute break. I have tried this especially on something that I've been putting off for procrastinating and it's amazing. Now for me, for example, in my job where I lead a large team, I tend to have meetings all the time all day. So it's hard for me to block out a full two hours. But I'll do it even for 125 minute increment or one hour. And it's still super effective. So give that a try if you are having a problem focusing on something.
And then the other thing is to turn off the notifications on your phone. I know we've heard this but I've gone in and I have literally turned off all notifications except for text messages from a few folks in case there were emergency and emergency. And the distraction that causes
is it's been studied, it's real. The amount of time it takes your brain to pick back up and get back going on the thing you were working on after one little distraction comes in because of the chemical reaction that causes in our body is so interesting. There's a book called in distractible,
you can just Google it. The author's name is escaping my mind right now. In distractible where he talks about all the science behind this and how turning off the notifications on your phone just permanently. And then having delivered time set into to go open your phone and go look at what you need to see from an energy draining perspective is a complete game changer. So check that out. All right, those are kind of the end of the list of tips that I wanted to cover. So you have an assignment with this episode that I'm excited about. Let's recap though just a few of the most important things that we just covered. So this is all about learning about you being super mindful about not overdoing it when your energy is drained. Take a break for yourself. By the way, one thing I forgot to mention is what I've learned through paying close attention and tracking my energy is that I am pretty useless after 8:30pm. And that's just a normal part of like my best and happiest life. It's just based on the cycles that my body runs on. So I generally get eight hours of sleep. And I've set boundaries and yeah, am I busy? Yeah, I mean, I have a very busy job that involves stress and difficult conversations and leading a large team. I have two kids, you know I have all of the things that create business I have this business in addition to that I am a busy person, but I have finally figured out how to live my best life and set the boundaries and get the sleep and maintain the consistent healthy habits. It feels amazing. And even with all of that I'm useless when 830 rolls around. So I have set a boundary and a rule with my family that after 830 I don't do anything hard. I don't I don't do anything hard. So if my kids want some time with me, they can absolutely
Come and snuggle up with me on my bed and we can watch a show anything like that, that's totally fine. But if they're asking me to help with homework, if they're asked me to buy something, I swear my 10 year old asks me to buy something every day at like 9pm wants to come in and look at Amazon to buy something. And every time I say What time is it, and he looks at o'clock, and he rolls his eyes, oh, it's past 830. But it's been life changing for me to take care of myself in that way. 830 is, it's sort of me time, it doesn't have to be only about me, I'm happy to spend time with my family. During that time, I just, I can't do anything that requires energy that requires thinking, or hard conversations or energy. And I've been doing it long enough now that my family understands it. And the boundary is actually starting to work, which is amazing. So learning that about yourself is it's it's awesome. I've just I'm so excited about it. And I just respect it. And it's funny, like we joke about it, a lot of my good friends know about it, like they know that if 830 or nine is rolling around and I'm out and I'm away from my bed, I start to like really set boundaries and say, let's wrap this up, I got to go home,
my bed and take care of myself. Now, if you are like, over on the extreme side of extrovert on your spectrum, that might sound horrible to you, which is totally fine. Like you don't have to do that this is all about learning about you. If you're more on the extroverted end of the spectrum, you're probably getting energized by being with people, you know, at that hour. So I don't want you to think that I'm saying this has to be done. This is for me what works for me. So what is your equivalent of that, that can change your life as it relates to your energy. All right. So what I want you to do for your homework is pay very close attention this week. And I will give you if you go to the show notes of this episode of Free Energy tracker, it's just a Google Doc. It's an Excel, it's very basic, it's not pretty or anything like that. But it just gives you the fields to track for seven days, I think it is in there. And just learn about yourself. Just watch yourself in a typical week where it's a work week and a weekend and track the energy and see what's going on with you and see what proactive changes you can make in your life related to that. Right and you're going to this is eventually going to lead you to setting yourself up for success by being proactive about protecting your energy. And I'm so excited for you about it. Alright,
that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. As always, you can check out my website women's best life University. If you're interested in working one on one with me, you can find out how to do that there. If you are a leader at any sort of company, you know who is interested in taking a group of ladies at your company through this program I will do I've grouped packages for corporations so you can just message me you can find me on Instagram at Katy Blommer and messaged me there I would love to do that for you. As a group within your company or your organization I would love to work with you one on one if you want to go deeper on this stuff and have a higher level of accountability. I've done this with multiple women and every single one of them who took my survey said it they would describe it as life changing so lots of amazing life changing things going on promotions coming out of it all that sort of thing. So I would love to work with you in that way. If you're interested go to women's best life unit. Sorry women's best life university.com And you can contact me there or on Instagram so just let me know. As always continue to like subscribe comment that helps more people see the podcast and please let your friends and family know about it if you think they would benefit. Alright, I'm excited for you to learn how to protect your energy and let me know how it goes message me on Instagram and let me know. Thanks so much.
Thanks so much for listening to the working mom happiness method. If you liked what you heard, please be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with others who might benefit from listening for show notes or to enroll in the working mom happiness method coaching courses, visit www dot women's best life university.com
