Fill Your Energy Tank

When we’re fully present and able to acknowledge our accomplishments, we fuel ourselves to do the next thing.

When my children were little, I always talked to them about filling their “Love Tank” when they were feeling grouchy and unhappy. I would say things like, “It sounds like your love tank is running low. What can we do to fill your tank?”

Things like hugs, playing together or even just having a snack together would usually fill their love tank.

Entrepreneurs Have Tanks, Too

As entrepreneurs, we have our own energy tanks. We have to keep them filled. We know when our energy tanks are running low: we’ll feel stuck, we’ll feel low and unmotivated.

Sound familiar?

Try these actions to fill your energy tank if it’s feeling low.

Take a Good Look Around: One thing that can fill an energy tank is to look at and really taking in what we’ve accomplished. This can mean making a list of all the good stuff you’ve gotten done in the past week, month or three months. Whatever time period you want. Not just looking at what you did, but acknowledging why it’s a big deal. Look at what was great about it.

The fact that you wrote a blog article every week for the past five weeks might be great because it means that you made a commitment and you stuck to it. Or, because even when you were feeling unclear, you sat down and wrote a blog post and that led you to greater clarity about what you were doing.

As you make your list, really take in the sense of pride and completion. I call this Harvesting the Energy of your accomplishments. To me this feels like water falling on fertile soil that soaks it up.

I make this a regular practice for my clients. In fact, I periodically go through their list with them and help them deepen the process. It’s amazing how often I hear them downplaying something they’ve done, describing something really big in a very offhand way. I LOVE backing them up to really stand in the power of what they’ve done.

Take a Break: Another way to fill your energy tank is to take a break. Just let yourself really relax, even if it’s for 10 minutes. Often we think thoughts like, “I don’t have time to take a break!” But think of how much further you can go when you’re running on energy versus running on fumes!

We may think we don’t have time to stop at the gas station, but not stopping takes so much more time! Wouldn’t you rather spend 10 minutes refilling your tank than a couple hours waiting for AAA?

Make Room for Playtime: Even spending 15 minutes on the phone with a good friend who just makes you laugh counts as playtime. Put on music and dance around the house. Go on vacation, or just go for a day at the spa; whatever feels like “play” to you can give you a really, really good charge.

You know it’s important to stay energized and motivated when it comes to your business. How do you fill your energy tank? Leave a comment in the area below to chime in.