How to Recharge, Re-energize, and Reclaim Your Life

Do you ever feel like you’re running on empty? If you answered yes, you’re not alone.

More than half of American workers feel overworked and overwhelmed from too much to do and not enough time to do it.  The pressure of constant demands wears us out quickly. In today’s working world, we’re always on. To make it through our days, we crank ourselves up on caffeine, drag ourselves through another 8-10 hours at work, and power through a brutal commute, only to spend another sleepless night wondering how we’re going to do it all again tomorrow, or if something important slipped through the cracks. We use our weekends to catch up, and we forgo vacations because we’re too busy. We’re too worn out to have any fun or to think about the life we really want to live.

Powering Through Doesn’t Work

Even though we’re running on empty, we work crazy hours without much thought for the toll it’s taking.  Jena McGregor, in a Sept.  1, 2016, Washington Post article titled, “Stop Touting the Crazy Hours You Work. It Helps No One,” says “… research, time and time again, shows the problems with overwork– on people’s health, on turnover, on absenteeism, on productivity. Studies have shown that after about 50 hours a week, productivity actually decreases, and it plummets after 55 hours, leaving no detectable difference between those who work 56 hours and those who work 70–or 130 … . Still the expectation of crazy hours is strong enough that one researcher found some men pretend to work an 80-hour work week, even when they don’t.”

What is it that drives us to want to be superman or superwoman, even when it isn’t doing any good?

It was never more obvious how engrained the “power through” mentality is in our culture than when Hillary Clinton almost fainted at a September 11 memorial event.  Her campaign staff didn’t disclose she had pneumonia because they expected her to just “power through it.” What the former Secretary of State really needed was to rest and take care of herself.

High Performance Requires Energy

When we work ourselves to death, expending more energy than we have, our gas tank gets depleted.  We all know that when we run out of gas, we won’t make it to our destination.  When our energy is low, it negatively impacts our focus, our creativity, and our ability to perform. Not only does our productivity wane, but so does our passion. Passion is fueled by energy. It’s a key ingredient for living a full, satisfying life.

Renew Your Energy to Reclaim Your Life

If you want to be a high performer, you will need to find the energy to get things done. Having enough energy requires the discipline to stop running on empty, to say no to “powering through” when you just don’t have it in you, and to be willing to renew your energy before it runs out.

Believe it or not, one way to renew your energy is to take some time out for having fun. New York Times columnist David Brooks, in his May 24, 2016, article “Why Is Clinton Disliked?” put it eloquently when he asked, “Can you tell me what Hillary Clinton does for fun?” He says she’s known for her vocation, her accomplishments, and her job performance, but “Clinton’s unpopularity is akin to the unpopularity of a workaholic. Workaholism is a form of emotional self-estrangement. Workaholics are so consumed by their professional activities that their feelings don’t inform their most fundamental decisions. The professional role comes to dominate the personality and encroaches on the normal intimacies of the soul. … Maybe it’s doubly important that people with fulfilling vocations develop, and be seen to develop, sanctuaries outside them:  in play, solitude, family, faith, hobbies and leisure. … Even successful lives need these sanctuaries – in order to be a real person instead of just a productive one.”

How can you find the energy to develop those important sanctuaries outside of yourself, to reclaim the life you want instead of running on empty, powering through, or being a boring workaholic?

• Assess how you spend your energy and, more importantly, how you want to spend it.
• Stop doing what drains you.
• Think about what kind of a life you want to live–one where you are running on empty and feeling worn out, or one that has you energized, passionate, and fully engaged in living–and begin to create it.

Maybe it’s time for those of us who feel like we’re working too hard to take a look at what we expect and accept. Do we want a leader who is so exhausted that he or she can’t even think straight? Or do we want someone who is alert, focused, whole, balanced, able to make good decisions, rested, and “on it” to lead us? Do we want to be fully engaged at work, at home, and as the leaders of our own lives? Maybe it’s time to stop trying to be superman or superwoman and instead, determine how to live the productive, passionate lives we want. Maybe instead of powering through, we begin to take care of ourselves by “powering up” as well.