[This is one of a series of 30-Day Experiments to do this year instead of New Year’s resolutions.]
At the heart of the Ripple Revolution model is an energized YOU. But energizing your life can seem easier said than done.
Want to make energizing your life feel both doable and manageable? Yer in luck, buddy! Because that’s what this experiment is all about.
A simple approach to getting clarity on energizing your life is something I call maximizing the Gain-to-Drain Ratio (I wrote a post about how to energize your life about a year ago describing this idea that is a good place to start). It boils down to bringing more of what energizes you into your life and eliminating or reducing what drains it.
Your 30-Day Experiment: Do an ongoing Personal Energy Audit and track the energy gains and energy drains in your life.
For 30 days, pay attention to what energizes you and what drains your energy. As you get a better feel for what the specific sources of gain and drain are in your life, you will be better equipped to take specific action to tip the balance toward the gain.
Think of the experiment in terms of three components:
1. Do a preliminary Personal Energy Audit
Go through the different areas of your life (see how to energize your life for a list of categories) and take stock of the Gain and the Drain. Don’t worry about making any changes just yet. You’re just trying to get a more accurate picture of where and in what direction that energy is flowing.
Some questions to help you recognize the Gains and Drains include:
Gain
- What leaves me feeling energized?
- What is fun?
- What leaves me feeling confident?
- What leaves me feeling good about myself?
- What leaves me feeling competent?
- What feels fulfilling?
- What leaves me feeling joyful?
- What leaves me feeling more grounded?
Drain
- What leaves me feeling drained?
- What depletes my energy?
- What saps my confidence?
- What is boring?
- What leaves me feeling sad/angry/irritated/etc.?
- What leaves me feeling incompetent?
- What leaves me feeling ungrounded and frayed?
2. Do a daily Gain & Drain Check
For the duration of the experiment, pay attention every day to what gives you energy and what depletes it. What preserves your energy and what saps it?
Remind yourself first thing in the morning to pay attention. Maybe put a sticky note on the bathroom mirror, and another one on your dashboard for your morning commute. Add a reminder in your calendar. The goal is to keep this close enough to the surface that you pay attention to it every day.
At the end of each do, try doing an end-of-day review. Make it easy on yourself. Just jot down a laundry list of all the gains and drains you can think of. It shouldn’t take more than five minutes or so.
3. Shift the balance
The goal of this experiment isn’t just a better understanding of your energy Gains and Drains, of course. It’s to start shifting the balance towards what energizes you, away from what drains you.
You’ll probably notice that some of this happens automatically. As you see how things effect you, you might automatically start making other choices. That’s a great first step, but there is much more positive change to be had.
The advantage of breaking it down into specific Gains and Drains is that you can get specific about what to do with each of those things. How can you do more of something that energizes you? How can you eliminate or reduce what drains you? (The insights gained in the Solutionist and Solution Mind Map experiments would come in handy here.)
After you do the initial Personal Energy Audit, scan through the list of Gains and Drains and start exploring ways of bringing more of what energizes you into the picture and giving what depletes you the ol’ heave ho.
If you decide to take this 30-Day Experiment on, keep us posted here on how it goes!
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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst TM
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Hey Curt,
Good post. In the spirit of ‘New Year’ sort your self out gubbins I’ve decided to document a series of personal experiments.
As I go along I’ll be sure to bear in mind this sort of advice about gains and drains to rate each of my attempts at trying new things.
I still haven’t picked the first experiment so if you have any tips for things I could try out (probably for 30 days at a time) then let me know!
Cheers again for the tips.
Rob
Fight Emptiness
Rob recently posted..Guinea piggin’
Hi Rob. Excellent! Would love to hear how they unfold for you. Be sure to stop by and share how things are going with them from time to time.
This was one of a series of twelve 30-Day Experiments (when I read your comment, I realized that I hadn’t inserted a link to the main page listing them – I’m doing that now). You can find the list here:
https://ripplerevolution.com/bridge/make-your-life-a-learning-lab-twelve-30-day-experiments-for-the-new-year/
Any of those resonate? Any others come to mind that hit the spot for you?
Great idea! I’m going to do it and see what I learn. This is something that I think we tend to ignore and don’t realize how significant the effects can be.
Just for clarification, should the second list be labelled “Drains”? They are both labelled “Gains”, but that doesn’t really seem to apply to the second list. Or maybe I missed something in the article – that happens sometimes! Thanks!
Haha! Oops. No, you’re not missing anything, Joyce – other than the fact that I apparently need a better editor. 😉 Thanks for catching that. I’ve changed it now.
Glad to hear you’re going to take a crack at it! Would love to hear how that goes for you.
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