Habitual Energy

Hey, thanks for joining me. Great to be here with you. And I really appreciate that you're joining me for this. On this wonderful day, I don't even know what kind of day it is, I just know that it's a great day, regardless of what the weather might be like, where you are, and whatever is going on, it's really a great day to me. Because I'm alive, and we have the opportunity to share and learn. And there's so much opportunity for learning and growing; that is the part that makes life so much better. Whatever it is that's going on, you know, I've said this before, and I'm sure you know that, you know, we can't change other people, but we can change ourselves. And we have a great deal of control really over who we are and how we behave, how we perceive things. And really, that's one of the core concepts of life is recognizing that, you know, it's our perception of life, that really has such a big impact on how we live it, whether we enjoy it or not. And so there's all kinds of things that we can do, about our perception, and then how we experience life.

So today, I wanted to talk about this reality, certainly, as parents, I know everybody's experienced this, some time or other maybe too many times. You know, at some point in the day, at least towards the end of the day, if not sooner, you're running out of energy. You got a day where you just oh, man, by the end of the day, you're just exhausted maybe and sometimes it's extreme. Right. Truly, truly rundown, just running on fumes, as we say. And it's not great, is it right? We don't like that feeling. I mean, sometimes there's the satisfaction of a job well done. We've done a lot of good work or something. And so we enjoy that. But what if we could accomplish that and still have energy leftover? Wouldn't that be nice? Well, I can't speak for every single situation in life, but certainly we can learn to increase our energy levels and and also conserve energy. And that might not mean what you think it means. To me... well, okay, if we back up a second jumping into energy here. You know, they say scientists will tell us that energy, as we know, it cannot be created or destroyed, it is merely transferred or transformed, and moved from one form to another one place to another. It's just a constant exchange of energy through life. In fact, energy plants, if you think about it, they don't really create energy per se, they take energy of one form and change it into energy of another form, right? hydro electricity, taking the energy, the power of water, and turning it into electrical energy that we can use and turn that into sound energy for listening to podcasts, whatever it may be, right. So it's really just a transformation process and a transition process.

So, energy as parents, and I want to look at that and see. There's, for me, I've had experiences that have really highlighted the importance of energy, as I do some of what I've already described in terms of getting to the end of the day, or sometimes the middle of the day, and just being like, oh, man, I need energy, I seem to be out of energy. What was going on here, the importance of it from that perspective, but also the importance of energy in terms of my, my time with my family, my wife and my kids. And before I go too much deeper into this, one of the things I think is important to highlight and recognize is, you know, without getting too much deeper into that sort of theory of energy and all that kind of stuff, I just want to say there are different ... I think we have different types of energy, and I don't like separating my life too much into compartments, but I think it's helpful to recognize if there's not different types of energy than just the different areas of life that we use in need energy. For example, we have physical energy and that's usually the first one that we all notice uh, am I feel physically tired? You know, walking becomes difficult or picking things up. You know, you come home at the end of the day to your kids and you want to pick them up, but you're feeling tired. You've just picking up your young toddlers feels difficult if you don't have enough energy, right.

There's also you know, we have emotional energy and you may have heard some talk about that, or maybe you've heard a lot of talk about emotional energy and how we use our emotions and you know, the idea of the Energy Tank, right? If you expend too much emotion, then you don't have the energy to process emotions later. And learning to balance that and keep that in, in flow. We also have mental energy, right, the energy of our mind, processing and thinking through. And then there's also spiritual energy, and how we're dealing with that in processing that. The basic idea that I want to touch on and I'm not going to go, I don't have time to go into all of the aspects of generating energy and how we can conserve energy, as it were, in other words, make the most of what we have. And not from the perspective that I don't want to look at conservation from the perspective that, you know, oh, there's a limited amount of energy, and you really got to save it up and save it for the good things. No, no, no, what I mean, is just maintaining a certain level of energy as we go through the day from one activity to the next. And so we're going to talk about transitions as a part of the conversation. So here's another thing, right, I talked about, you know, coming home at the end of the day, and being feeling out of energy, feeling tired. Another thing I've noticed that highlighted the importance of energy for me, is, I have noticed, and especially more recently, as I've been working on develops, developing some habits, around how I use my energy and how I bring energy to situations. I've noticed, there are some times where there's a very clear impact of my energy on other people. Now, in a general sense, I think you may have experienced this where you might be sitting in a space, a room, any kind of room might be at someone's living room and somebody walks in, and their energy is just very different from what's going on in the room. Either they are like way happy. And you know, the room was kind of meh, not so excited, but then this person comes in, they're all excited and happy and, and everyone else starts to pick up. Generally speaking, when somebody happy comes in the room, we tend to our mood gets lifted up, our energy comes up. And so, same thing if you're in a waiting in line at the store, and some energetic person just starts talking to people and sharing their, their bubbly energy. Waiting in line becomes fun, you might interact with them and pick up better mood that way.

And the reverse also happens, right? You've had people come into a room with you or in your presence, I'm sure at some point in life where they're down they're feeling negative whatever's going on in their life, you don't even need to know what it is right? You just, you can see it sometimes. And even if you can't see it, you feel it. And it just starts to drag you down a bit. And sometimes it's really hard to resist that and to maintain your own position, right. So I've seen this now with my family. And as I've been learning to build these habits I I've noticed how when I come to situations with specific intention on how I want to be present, it really changes the way conversations and activities go with my family. One of the great examples is dinner time, we work very hard to come together for dinner. As a family, we've always done that. And as some of our kids are getting a bit older, they have more activities and their little more freedom, driving and so on. That can be more difficult to get all six of us together for meals, but we still do it as much as we can. And that's been a really great thing. But again, that's the kind of situation where, okay, now you bring six people together towards the end of the day, where they've been able to school or at work doing whatever it is, and we all come back together. And you don't know what you're gonna get right? With six different people all coming in from different places, energetically, emotionally, mentally, physically, all in different places. And you put them all around the table together. What happens? Well, it's different every day and that's,

well let's just say that's what makes life fun and interesting. But I've noticed that I can be intentional in setting the mood and any one person if they are ... if they learn to be intentionally learn to be gained some skills in this area can start to influence the way things go. You don't have control over people. But you can set a bar for example, that the minimum level that you're not willing to go below And if you're able to hold that, in the presence of others who are kind of slipping below that energy level that you want, then you can actually kind of keep things up a little bit and stop it from spiraling into complete misery, fighting and chaos and people leaving the table. Of course, that's never happened in our home. Okay, yes, it has. So let's talk a little bit about this idea of energy. And, and how we do that now. One of the, one of the greatest examples, or one of the greatest tools, sorry, that I have learned recently, that it does a lot of things for us. And what it is, is basically, looking at how you transition from one moment to the next one activity to the next. And, and how you do that can really do a couple of amazing things for you. First of all, it can help you conserve energy, it can help you maintain your levels, and it can help you in terms of how you come into new situations. It also is a great tool for helping you to become aware of the different types of energy. So for example, when you come home from work now, I don't know what what kind of work you're doing. But assuming that you, you go out to work, and you come home, at the end of your work day, you may be feeling tired. Maybe this is every day, or maybe it's only some days, but you're coming home from work and you feel tired. And your kids are full of energy. And to you that what's the right word for that? I don't know. But it's a bit, it's kind of a threat to your well being as it were, because you're feeling drained. And then they've got this high energy, and you don't want to let them down. You don't want to get angry. But sometimes we do. Because that's what happens when we're low energy, we lose a bit of control over our thought processes and our emotional responses. And so we want to try to be good dads, good parents and meet our kids needs where they are. But a lot of us, a lot of people struggle with this coming home from being out of the house at work, and then transitioning into the house. And here's one of the keys, right.

So we don't usually think of that as a transition. When was the last time you thought about that? I know some people you may have heard of this, because some people do talk about things like you know, just taking a moment in the car, sit in the car, and or on the way home somewhere, just stop, let go of your workday and get ready for your home day. And that's a great start. Because it allows you a moment to really just think about stopping the processes that are going on in your head from work, whether it's clients, or bosses, or the details of your job that are just swirling around in your mind. It gives you a moment to just pause. Recognize that that's what's happening in your head or in your heart. And recognize what's happening in your body in terms of tension, or what you're feeling and, and try to let that go. Release that now. I really sat through prayer and conversation with God and also through things like listening to music, or just shifting my attention to something else. But one way or another, you want to learn to let go of that. And a very simple and generally effective way of doing that is simply to close your eyes and relax. And just think about release just say release or let go of whatever has been going on. Just spend a minute that's all it takes really, it's just a minute to begin to just say okay, release that. Let that go. Let that go. And then shift your attention now look to what's coming next and say to yourself, how do I want to move into this next moment? What kind of energy do I want to bring? What attitude, what mood and feelings do I want to bring? What thoughts do I want to have? Thoughts drive everything else. So it's it's a better place to start but it's taking that moment now to say okay, very specifically and deliberately say okay, now I'm - let's stick with this example coming home from work - I'd let go of can I okay relaxed, but the tension out of my body let go of the thoughts of work. Now. What thoughts and feelings and energy do I want to bring in to my family as I walk into the house?

And there's a couple of things to note there. Part of it is, what do you want to bring? What do you want to feel? What do you want to be thinking and feeling as you come in? The other side of that is, and going a little bit deeper with it is to say, Well, what do I want my family to experience? What do I want them to get out of me coming home. And that might be something that you want to look at down the road. Because you need, ... that requires energy. And if you're struggling with this transition, thinking about them, and how you can serve them might, you know, in the beginning, it might feel just like another energy drain. So it's really amazingly effective even just to stop and think about what you want to bring in how do you want to think and feel as you walk in the house, because even if you're not specifically planning for what they might get out of your presence, just being very specific and intentional about who you want to be and how you want to feel, will hugely improve the experience of coming home. Because you, you've switched, right, now you've done a transition, you've let go of work stress. And now you're focused on the fact that you are coming home, and you don't want to be grumpy, angry, stressed out by clients, or bosses or whatever, employees. And so you've already shifted your own energy. And so just walking into the house like that, will significantly change that experience for everybody for the better. So one of the other things I said was, this transition process can also help you recognize the different kinds of energy. And I want to touch on that, because it can be really important. In a lot of situations, I have found this and I'm helping my kids to, to begin to recognize the difference. Because I mean, I think as most of you know, if you've been following this podcast, we were,... we've been recovering from a collision. And so there's a lot of stuff going on. And what has been helpful is to recognize what's happening in our different energy tanks. So very often, I'm tired, and I want to sleep, or rest in some way. And yet, the truth is, I don't need to lie down. I feel like lying down because that's my automatic response, Oh, I feel tired, I'm gonna lie down or find a way to rest. And yet for me lately, the tiredness that I'm feeling is not physical. Because I haven't been overly physically active, I keep moving, and I do stuff. And you know, so I'm not sedentary, I'm not like getting worn down that way. But the tiredness is more mental, emotional. And also right now lately, like spiritually as well. But that is important to recognize, because lying down, what happens is, my body gets more rest. And in some ways, I feel a little bit reenergized. And yet, when I get up, I still feel ugh ! I still feel that anxiety or stress or that fatigue. Like I don't feel it really any better. Except that I feel like I could go for a walk around the block, but I don't really want to. So I'm trying to by laying down when I'm emotionally or mentally exhausted. I'm not dealing with the real issue, I need to find a way to deal with the emotional energy or my mental energy, right? When you break it down, I think it becomes obvious the importance of that. So learning to see what are the different kinds of energies. So if you have a very physical job, for example, and you're doing physical stuff, you got a busy day, you may be physically tired. I have had days, ... because when I was a contractor doing renovations and things that happened a lot, I was physically tired. So when I came home, I didn't have the energy to go running and playing hockey and things like that with my kids.

Instead, I was I had energy to think and for emotional presence. But physically I was pretty tired. My body was actually drained and it needed physical rest. And that's, that can be challenging, and depending on the age of your kids and their interests in life, knowing that can be very important. Right and how do you deal with that? And that's something that we have to talk about another time, but how do you learn to compensate for these different energies and where they're in need of one energy but you have a different kind of energy to give it And how do you fit those things together? Actually, you know what, I'm going to share an example. I think I've talked a little bit about this in the recent past, but it's not quite the same thing. But it sort of translates. Soon after, right after the collision I was, I had to stay in a I was stuck in a hospital bed, because half my body was broken, and I'm in the house, not able to really walk or do anything, because my left side was broken. And I wanted to help my wife, I could hear her struggling, but I couldn't go to the dining room, to the kitchen and help physically. And so what I did was I, you know, I just felt bad for myself and bad for her and been miserable. But I thought, well, what can I What can I do? How can I help and I thought, well, I've got a lot of emotional and mental energy, physically I'm restricted. So I invited the kids to me, and we played on the bed, and they was a folding, folding beds. And so they would play with the buttons, folding up and down and paint my toenails. And we would talk about things and so on. And that was one way of compensating them because they recognize that. Now the same thing we can do in other scenarios, right? Where if we, sometimes I'll talk to my kids that you know what this is where I'm at right now. Either I am mentally exhausted, I can't think about this, I can't help you with your homework, because my brain is just exhausted, I can't, or my mind is exhausted, I can't do this. But I could go out and shoot some hoops or something like that. And often, if the kids understand where you're at, I found that they're, they're generally willing to try to work with that, because if they want you your attention, your time, your energy, generally, they'll take what they can get, which, which kind of sounds bad, but I mean, this is this is working with reality here. And, and being honest with them and yourself.

So recognizing what your energy issues are, and where you're at, allows you to inform them and to work with them and to come up with a way to go through this together. And hopefully, it's just a temporary thing. Or maybe it's just a matter of saying you know, what, not now. And that's okay. If it's you know, later tonight, I'll get to rest a little bit later tonight, I can get back to you, or I need to go and do something for me, that will increase my emotional energy that will give me some mental break, so that I can kind of regroup. And then I'll come back to you and do that. And I've, I've had done this a lot with my kids, especially in the last few years. And so they are generally willing to accept that I mean, when they're really young, they don't always understand. But the more we communicate with them about this, the more they're willing to accept these things. Kids are remarkably adaptable and resilient. That's a good thing. Because, man we're not, we're not awesome parents, like none of us knows what we're doing right to begin with. So we need kids to be resilient and adaptable, as we learn to go through these things.

Okay, and so one of the ways that we can learn about ourselves and our energy and what is the energy which energy tank is low, which ones are high? One simple way to do that, again, this is something we get spend a lot of time exploring, certainly, especially in a one to one coaching scenario. But as a general tool, a really helpful tool that I've found is imagine doing different things. So for example, right now, I get together on some Tuesdays, I'll get together with a group of guys who, playing ball hockey in a school gym. And even though I generally there's a part of there's a degree to which I'm kind of tired and and lacking energy. I know that physically I can do that. When I think about going to play ball hockey, I get kind of excited and like, Oh, this is cool. Yeah, I look forward to doing that. And I'll spend an hour and a half playing with these guys. And we go all in and we just burn up all kinds of physical energy. And that's fine. I have the energy. Even though in other areas, I've been feeling drained. So that just imagining that thinking about the ball hockey kind of perks me up and goes, Yeah, I can do that. That would be great. If I think about having to walk somebody through an emotional struggle, and I go, Oh, okay. Then I feel like I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to get myself ready for this. Because that's going to ... I don't feel like I have a lot of reserves there. It's the same thing I can go through looking at the spiritual and the mental energies and emotional it's all if you think about a scenario that would require different skills of yours a different energy really see how you feel about that and how you your body and your mind and your your heart react to that. That can give you some really good clues as to what's going on in terms of these different energy tanks, as it were, you know, is this a physical thing? Is it a mental or emotional or spiritual thing that is kind of holding you down or that you're feeling tired in? Because, again, you have to know. Otherwise, you're going to try and fix their own problem. Like when you're emotionally tired, lying down, doesn't help your emotions so much. But what does?

So spend a moment asking yourself, well, what are the things that really lift me up emotionally? No, so okay, I talked about playing ball hockey, well, that does a couple of things. For me physically, it's good. It burns energy, and it kind of, but it also, hanging out with these guys kind of lifts me up socially. So that's an emotional, uplifting, doesn't require a lot of thinking. It does. I mean, if you're, if you're going to try and play well, you got to be aware of what's going on in the game. But I don't find that mentally draining. So it's also emotionally uplifting. When I think of things, oh, here's a, here's a great example. For me if I'm scrolling through Tik Tok or something, and I see somebody because in my either my feed or in my, the people that I'm following, have some some artists who are doing clay work, they're doing pottery, and it's all handwork it's all flat work. They, they don't really use the wheel. some do and some don't. Anyway, when one of these videos comes on, something just shifts in me like, oh, yeah, the beauty of that is, it's just so uplifting, I, I, it changes the energy in my body, I mean, even just describing it to you now, it's just like, oh, wow, it excites my body and lifts up my energy. And I want to go and do that. Same thing with woodworkers there's a couple of woodworkers on my feet. And, and seeing some of the work that they do, and just the beauty of the craftsmanship and like, Oh, that's beautiful, I love to see that. And the thought of doing it is energizing, even if I'm feeling tired, and so I've been working on reorganizing my garage, so that I can actually start doing some of these things. Because for me to go into the, into the shop and, and do a bit of woodworking or do a bit of handwork with clay. It builds up my energy spiritually and emotionally, it will impact both of those. Similarly with music I'm fortunate with that, because music is something that requires almost nothing. My phone has every I have access to every song every written ever written pretty much, right. So I can just take a moment I could put in my earbuds and I can go for a walk or go sit in the corner somewhere and just play some of my favorite music and whatever it is that I feel like playing at that point, I can play that music and that's uplifting to me, it energizes me and it settles me. And it gives me again, it may be spiritual, emotional energy to to, to get back into the game with my family or whatever it is that I need to do in life. So music is a great one because it's so easy and simple, doesn't require any tools or any particular space.

So, again, just getting back to you as well. So think about what are the things for you, that will bring you energy. What are the things that when you think about it, it gets you kind of excited and you, and you want to do it and you want to be involved in it? Again, you know we ... a lot of us have heard things about introverts and extroverts, right? So introverts are people who energize alone, more, they build up their energy when they have time alone. Extroverts build up energy by being out with people socializing and, and feeding on the energy of other people and allowing that to lift them up. When you get a bunch of extroverts together. They're all lifting each other up. And they come out of it feeling feeling better and energized and ready to take on the world as it were. Right. So there's, there's all kinds of things. A walk in nature or gardening. My wife loves gardening, playing with the plants in the dirt. She really enjoys that and she's got a whole thing going on with, with her understanding of plants that I don't know. And I mean, I like gardens and I like being in gardens. But it doesn't do quite the same thing for me that it does for her. So, so look through that. Consider that and write these things down. And then you need to look at of course, how can you start to fit these things into your life in different ways, and it might take some creativity to really see how you can fit that in. But again, you know, without knowing the details of your life, right now, I can't sort of say anything specific. But there's always a way. There's always a way to fit these things in if you really are determined to do it. There's a way to fit it in. It might not be the big ideal plan right away, maybe it's something that you need to start small and just introduce little bits of it. You know, something else that just hit me and I don't, I don't know why, but, you know, dartboard. My wife got me a dartboard, I guess was last Christmas. And that's a neat thing, right? If you if you like that kind of thing. That's it's something you can just go out like it's it's hanging in the garage, and I've made space for it. The garage is a complete mess. But I've got a runway up to the dartboard and put the dartboard up on the on the wall, kind of runway up to it. So I can just go in any evening or whenever, and just throw some darts. And that to me is also relaxing. It's mentally energizing, because it's an ironic thing it takes focus to, to throw darts well, but I find it relaxing, and mentally energizing. I don't know, I can't explain that. But I just know it works. So that's what matters, right? Look at your own life and see what works for you. Right, don't, don't get hung up on some theory that somebody told you some idea that, Oh, it should be this that no. You know what? Find out what works for you. And do that, find a way to fit it into your life and you need if you need help with that, I'm glad to help you with it. That's something we can work out through coaching as well. So that's how to bring energy in your life, how to convert energy in your life to bring you to the place where you want to be.

So let me just go back briefly here. The importance of energy with with my family. And again, this is something that I'm learning and working on is how to how to maintain energy level. And it requires two things, at least two habits that I'm working on right now, primarily one is, is generating that energy, in other words, transforming it from something else into what I need. Which includes food, right? I mean, there's a whole long thing we can do on you know, eating the right food and getting physical activity. This is all necessary, because all ... my goodness, being healthy. And getting enough sleep are two things that will transform so much in our lives. Okay. But those are the key, I don't have time to get into all of that right now. But what I was trying to say is that, we looked at these two things, one is the generating energy, right through whatever activities are energizing for you. And the other is this transition process, right? Really, for me, this has been huge. Learning to transition from one thing to the next. And starting with the bigger things, right, coming home from work. Moving from work mode to to family mode. But you can do this many times throughout the day, sometimes at work, you have a lot of transitions. And in order to kind of maintain your, your energy levels at work, transitioning from one activity at work to another can be very helpful.

So but even when I'm at home, right now, all the time, technically, but when I'm moving from doing my my work, my talks and so on coaching etc, to, to interacting with family and this can happen on and off through the day. Because I'm working at home, then again, it's a matter of saying okay, pause, release that let go of what I was doing. How do I want to interact with this person, my child or my wife has come to me with something. I literally do this now. I see them walking up to my desk and and then I'll just finish the sentence or whatever I'm doing. If I'm reading something or working on something. I'll stop. And I'll often just close my eyes for a few seconds. And say I'm just saying okay, let that go. Now be present for my wife. What is What does she need? And how can I help her Just turning them to her physically and mentally, emotionally, okay? begins to change those interactions dramatically. I used to get annoyed all the time, every time I was interrupted, I would get annoyed and I had been through a long growth process. Let's change that. But this transitions is one of the biggest things. Because I don't let ... I don't forget and, and just drop everything that I was doing, I'm intentionally putting my work or whatever it was on hold. pause for a moment so that now I can look to my wife or my child, and interact with them in a positive way. And then I can come back to my work because I instead of just, my mind is getting annoyed, and feeling like, oh, it's all gone. Now I've lost my thoughts. I have actually deliberately paused my thoughts. So they're not lost, and they can pick up, it's easier to pick up where I left off. Amazing thing, I love it.

And you can do this throughout your day, all kinds of ways. But even then, what if, in the evenings, most of my evenings are spent with family, so, but it might be a transition from dinner to helping somebody with homework or driving kids, places. When we, when I get in the car, I want to? I'm trying to get in the habit of saying okay, well, I'm driving this child to this event. What do I want to do in the car? How do I want to be, is there things we can talk about? And being thoughtful and intentional about the time in the car, because actually, for some of my kids, that's really a special time. And it's an opportunity to connect, even if we don't talk and that again, that's that's sometimes that's the choice. So looking at those things, and again, start simple start with the big things. If this is a whole new thing to you, then absolutely, just start with the bigger transitions, kind of the big obvious things, and start to build that habit and ways of, of moving from one activity to the next. Don't be hard on yourself. Mostly, it's gonna take time to build habits. There are ways to shortcut that. But that's not today's conversation. But it's okay, if you can't, if it takes time, that's all right. It doesn't matter that you don't get it done in a week that you don't have a new habit, even in a month necessarily, depending on what you're working on. The great thing is that you're growing, you're learning, you're getting better. Look, none of us are perfect parents, right? We know that. But the best thing that you can do is to be working on getting better. And it's not even just in parenting. But as you become a better parent, you're becoming a better person. Because the best parent for your kids is the best you. Right? Think about that, oh, let that sink in. Because this is part of that idea that you have what it takes, guys especially, men, dads, you have what it takes to be the best dad for your kids. That best dad is the best you. Look, I can't be anybody else. It sounds obvious, I know. But how much time did I spend thinking I needed to be someone else and trying to be something that I wasn't and I didn't even always realize that that's what I was doing. But they're my kids. I mean, they came from me and my wife, so and we raised them, they this is all they know. And just naturally speaking, I have to believe that me being the best Kevin Allen Williams that that I can be, will give them the best dad that they could ever have. Right to get that. So the same will be true for you, being the best you will give your kids the best dad they could possibly have. That's exciting because you can be the best you and working on that is the best thing you can do. So don't worry about time. Don't stress yourself. Just take the steps and work in that direction.

Okay, this has been really transformative for me these things and there's there's more. There's a lot more and with coaching clients, we go deeper into it and we walk through a whole series of steps. And actually, if you want to dive into some of this some more, I would highly recommend Brendon Burchard book, High Performance Habits. And that's where I get a lot of these ideas is is from his work. A lot of great studies going into that. So, again, thanks. It's great to be with you again and I appreciate it and look forward to hearing from you. Feel free to reach out through social media or on the website you can get in contact or email checking out podcast comments and things like that I hope you have a fantastic week and really looking forward to sharing again next week bye for now