What have you been up? Have you not been in touch with your loved ones? The most common reason is “I have been so busy”. Being busy is everyone’s reality, including you (I am pretty sure about this). I therefore try not use being busy as a reason not to get things accomplished.
It was really a lack of awareness of the need to increase your capacity to bring to life the various ideas that you are most interested in. Up until now, I really could not figure out how to add more to “my plate”. What usually happens, is that the urgent activities displace the important but not urgent activities. I say important as they relate to living out my mission.
What really happened, you may be asking? For a long time, I was torn between continuing to write mostly on personal leadership matters on a regular basis and launching a coaching and training program for entrepreneurs. This entrepreneur coaching & training idea had been one of my projects list for about 18 months. In my mind, I had to choose between this or the other. Why? – because I thought I lacked the capacity to combine both activities.
I am in an amazing Mastermind group and we are currently reading and studying John C Maxwell’s latest book – No Limits: Blow The Cap Off Your Capacity. In preparing and facilitating this mastermind group session, I realized that I could enlarge my capacity to take up and be more. To ensure we are on the same page, capacity in this context means more than one thing. According to John, we do have many capacities which we can increase, and I will share one with you today – Your Energy Capacity.
Energy Capacity is your Ability to Push on Physically. This is where you already believe that because you are doing so much, you cannot take on more. You limit yourself thinking in this manner – scarcity thinking. I was unconsciously also thinking in that manner when I asked myself the question – Why was I trying to limit myself? I subsequently realized I needed to adopt an abundance mind -set.
The focus should be on energy and on not time. Time is fixed, and you cannot increase that capacity, but you can increase your energy capacity. People who reach their capacity do not sit back and wait for things to happen to them. They go out and make things happen. This takes energy, a sense of purpose and focus. You are able to focus your energy on the 3 R’s used for prioritizing what and where you put your energy into:
- Requirement – What you have to do
- Return – What you do well
- Reward – What you love to do
You can also maximize your energy, by asking yourself the following questions:
- When are you fully charged? And what fully charges you?
- What wears you down?
- How accessible are your energy pluses -i.e. Who and what are those around you that can help boost your energy when you need it?
- When do you need to be full of energy?
- Where is the space for things you need but haven’t planned? This was big for me, because I realized I had not put in enough margin in my life. It is interesting that the more margin you put in your life, the more energetic you become!
How can you increase your energy capacity to take up more?