#1. Reject the need to be right all the time. The person who needs to be right, ends up drained by fools.
#2. Say yes to activities where you make the most difference. Shoot to spend at least 70% of your time in meaningful activities. Do the stuff you hate early in the day.
#3. Make fewer commitments. Regret drains energy. Learn to say no, kindly and without defensiveness. The bad feeling you have when you don’t fulfill a commitment weakens your soul.
#4. Stop trying to change people. Accept your team and organization as they are. Acceptance isn’t approval or agreement. People change themselves.
Frustration over battles you can’t win drains energy. Help people improve, when they want to improve. The frustration you feel about them, drains their energy too.
#5. Surround yourself with people who aspire to be better. Look for people who know enough to know that they don’t know. Be one, too.
#6. Look forward to something. Anticipation is energy. Tap into the “I just want to get this done” energy. But, be sure there’s something positive on the other side of “just getting things done.”
#7. Don’t depend on people who are undependable.
#8. Notice small acts of kindness. Appreciate people who hold the door open, for example.
#9. Work within the framework of established authority. Only buck the system when you can make it better.
#10. Look up and breathe deep. Stop looking at the ground so much. People who look down are down. Looking up doesn’t solve problems, it improves outlook.
Bonus: Deal with negative emotion, even if you can’t solve negative issues. The way you feel about a thing change you, not the thing.
Where might leaders find energy today?
Which of these 10 ways to find energy today are most useful to you?
