The Energy Cookies of Life

Suppose that each morning when you awoke you were given “energy cookies” or packets of energy to use as you see fit. You could take this energy and exercise, go to work, and use it to play or even to hug your kids. You could expend the energy in any activity but when it was used up, it was totally gone for that day. If this were so, would you live your life differently, would you make different decisions as to how to spend your day? Each and every day we involve ourselves in the routine of life… we rise, eat, brush our teeth, shower and head out to start our day. One of the benefits of having a routine is so we don’t really have to think about what we need to do, we just proceed on autopilot and it saves time and energy. But other choices as to how to spend our day do require a certain amount of energy….the conversations we engage in, the relationships we keep, the food we put in our body that’s used for fuel, the activities that nourish our spirit; the time we spend investing in our future by career training or learning, being of service to others, the amount of rest we get, exercise, and even our state of mind. Everything we do requires energy. Some activities can drain our energy faster and deplete us. Many energy drains we are not even aware of, they have become an ingrained habit. Relationships that are toxic, gossiping about others, watching negative media coverage, being in a career that doesn’t make us happy, worrying, addictive behaviors for ourselves or others, dishonesty, and every other choice in-between can drain us emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually. So if you knew you had a very limited amount of “energy cookies” to use, could you or would you eliminate the negative behavior? On the other end of the spectrum, positive choices would reinforce the energy that you have been allotted. Imagine listening to music, doing something creative, hugging someone, feeling love, being in a beautiful place, feeling wonderful after a hard days work of doing something you thrive in, eating healthy, or even laughing could all work to reinforce your energy or even provide more. Positive actions would be an investment in having more energy in the future. So let’s look at an example. Suppose you have 100 energy cookies to spend today. You must allocate how they will be spent. Assume that 10 cookies goes to maintaining your appearance, grooming, maintaining your living arrangements and doing chores that are necessary. Another 30 cookies might go to working your career. Most people spend at least a third of their day working or making a living so since almost a third of the energy cookies goes to this topic, it’s important to work in a career that feeds you and doesn’t deplete you! Imagine 50 cookies going towards your relationships with your family and friends. Once again, this is a weighty topic and requires that you manage it well, setting boundaries and making sure that each relationship is an equal give and take, except when it comes to your children. Parenting requires unselfishness and keeping your cool in the midst of chaos. Setting boundaries is so important and boundaries can vary between relationships. Enforcing these boundaries can sometimes mean alienating a friend but each one of us does need to protect ourselves from energy drains. Enforcing boundaries can also prevent future problems, stop emotional hurts and stop draining your energy. So now we’ve already spent 90 of our energy cookies for the day. That only leaves 10 cookies to spend on fun, health and wellness, investing for the future, spirituality, entertainment, and any hobbies, etc. This is where the real challenge comes in. Since you can now see where we only get so few energy cookies to do with what we want, what if we make poor choices and end up spending them by fighting with someone that isn’t going to change no matter what we say or do, gossiping or judging a person, drinking too much or other addictive behaviors, worrying about something we cannot change, or being around people that drain us? It’s just not worth it to lose our energy to these poor choices. Even listening to someone else’s “poor me” attitude can bring you down. If there is any way to increase or preserve our energy cookies, then that would be by taking care of ourselves in every way: physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Reinforcing positive habits will help keep more energy cookies available. So the next time you think about how you will spend your day, prioritize what is really important to you, think of the energy cookies you have been given for the day and eliminate the activities that do not serve you. If you do this every day for thirty days (new habits usually take thirty days) then you will see an improvement in your life.