Do you have enough energy to create the life you want? Energy is the critical, invisible force that creates your vitality and aliveness.

Without it, you drag through life, tired, stressed, and drained. With it, you feel good, enjoy yourself, and have the fuel to create what you want in life.

When it comes to energy, more is definitely better and you can create more energy with a few simple steps.

Your Energy Account

Think of your energy like a bank account. Your thoughts, activities, actions, and interactions all have the potential to increase or decrease the balance in your account.

Withdrawing energy lowers the balance; depositing energy raises the balance. To keep your energy account high (which is what you want) minimize your withdrawals and maximize your deposits.

It sounds so simple but how can you actually do this?

How Do You Keep the Balance High?

Here are two keys to increasing the balance in your energy account.

1) Drop the drains.

We use energy all day long. That’s what energy is for. However, some things drain too much of our life energy.

You might be drained by your job, certain family members, technology, time pressures, negative self-talk, negativity in others, or world problems.

What drains you is unique to you. A job, a person, or a task you find draining might not be draining for someone else.

Do less of what drains you. This may seem obvious yet it has been a breakthrough idea for some of my clients. Somehow they hadn’t thought of stopping or doing less of what drained them. When they did – surprise! – they had a lot more energy.

2) Do what lights you up.

What lights you up is what energizes and enlivens you, what you love, what you’re passionate about. By their very nature, your “lights” are deposits to your energy account. The more you do what lights you up, the more energy you’ll have.

Like energy drains, lights are specific to each individual. What lights you up could actually drain someone else and vice versa.

People are lit up about many things: a walk on the beach, visiting an art museum, playing with a pet, listening to music, talking with friends. This list could go on forever.

The key is to identity what lights YOU up and what drains YOU. Then do more of the former and less of the latter.

An Example

I’ve been working on a project the last month or so, a project that was taking more time than I thought it would or “should.”

I began to pressure myself to get the darn thing done. I started working more and playing less. This drained much energy out of my account without replenishing it so the balance kept getting lower and I kept feeling worse.

By the time I realized what was happening, my energy was very low. This “low balance alert” told me I needed to stop the energy drains and do more of what lights me up before I hit NSF (non-sufficient funds) in my energy account!

For me that meant allowing myself to slow down, working less on the project, and taking at least two hours every day to do something that lit me up.

The first day on my new plan, I worked only a couple of hours on my project. I then took a top-down drive in my convertible on a summery day, went to lunch at an elegant restaurant with a book I was interested in, and spent time visiting with friends. Throughout the day, I kept reminding myself it was okay to slow down and take it easy.

By the evening I was on an energy high, feeling happy, calm, and more myself. Just one day of less drain and more lights made a huge difference! I’ll continue to make this a priority until my energy account is filled up.

In Your Life

If you’d like to increase the balance in your energy account, here are a few suggestions.

1) Assess your energy account. What’s your balance?

If you’re overflowing with positive energy, congratulations! Keep doing what you’re doing as it’s working for you.

If your balance is not as high as you’d like, try the steps below.

If your energy is depleted or draining rapidly as mine was, make restoring your energy your number one priority. Use the steps below to boost your energy as quickly as possible.

2) Notice what drains you.

Ask yourself “What is draining me?” and get curious about the answer.

Give yourself permission to and be creative about how to decrease your energy drains.

3) Give yourself permission to and do more of what lights you up.

If you don’t yet know what lights you up — or would like to know more — ask yourself on a regular basis, “What lights me up?” or “Does this light me up?”

Create a list of what makes you feel alive, sparkly, passionate, energized, soothed, and nurtured. Spend some time every day doing something from that list.

The more you do what lights you up and the less you do what drains you, the higher your energy balance.

Paraphrasing Mark Twain, “What is a woman without energy? Nothing – nothing at all.” Raise your energy balance and make you and your life something – something wonderful.

Enjoy!

Certain pressures are part and parcel of the modern materialistic civilization. Perhaps you can not avoid them. But there are certain types of situations, which can be managed without pressure. By mishandling those situations, and many times with imaginary fears, you build a fence around you and lock yourself within the fence, throw the key of the lock somewhere, and blame others for your plight! You lose your peace of mind and blame others for it. Remember the fox that says grapes are sour, when it is unable to get at its height!

Meditation is supposed to bring peace to your agitated mind. But your authentic question is how to do meditation? Your each day is filled with many a stressful activities, one after another!

Take a beautiful example. Have you seen the lotus in a pond? Where it is born? In the depths of the pond, where there is nothing but slush and mud. Where does it grow and ultimately bloom? In the very same pond. Do you see mud on its petals? Not even a grain. Not even a drop of pond water can sustain on it. With whom does it maintain the contact? With the glorious, sparkling sun high above, with the sunrise, its petals open. With the sunset, its petals close. It has nothing to do with any other disturbance in any other part of the pond or the world!

Its existence is for the sun. Its concentration is for the sun! That is the way of meditation for the lotus!

Meditation is what it gives you. You know, mind by itself has no existence as such. It is a complicated group of thoughts. Some thoughts are good. Some thoughts are bad. Each thought emits vibration, positive or negative. When the power of the negative thoughts is more, you have stress.

At such a time, you take recourse to meditation, its first hammers quietly the power of the negative vibrations. Those vibrations lose their destructive power and accept the domain of the positive vibrations. You become more and more peaceful.

The very same negative emotions are responsible for various types of diseases, mental as well as physical. Remember, diseases are first born in the mind. After some time, they find expression in the physical body.

Now, you can find a rare agreement between the spiritualists and the scientists all over the world. Meditation helps to tackle effectively the problems of physical and well as mental levels. The individual, who does meditation regularly, will not have stress at all!

Listening, often overlooked, is a vital aspect of the human communication process. While speaking is often practiced and emphasized by many, the art of listening isn’t one on which we find people spending much effort. In actuality, listening is easy and can be improved by following just a few simple steps.

Being a good listener means that everything you hear comes directly from the speaker and not from your interpretation of their words. This means that, as the speaker is talking, you are listening to the words as they are being spoken instead of trying to guess the point that the speaker is trying to make. People are often guilty of jumping to conclusions when they do this and, in doing so, they disrupt their listening ability. When jumping to conclusions, the person often doesn’t hear the speaker’s message because it is blocked out by his or her own assumptions. Good listeners absorb all of the information while the words are being spoken and avoid thinking ahead and forming their own conclusions.

Giving the speaker your undivided attention is probably one of the most important tips to good communication. Concentrate on the speaker’s words and avoid tuning out their message. When speaking on the phone, many people engage in other activities such as reading newspapers, checking email and other activities that can distract from the conversation. Many listeners zone out during face-to-face situations by either thinking about their response to the speaker or by daydreaming about something completely unrelated to the subject.

When you allow yourself to be distracted, your listening skills are not what they need to be. Missing a critical point of the speaker’s presentation can be the result of just a small amount of distraction. If you can focus your attention completely on the speaker, you will hear all that is being said. In addition, you can ensure that you are being a good listener and are taking in all of the pertinent information.

One technique of being a better listener involves creating mental images of the speaker’s words. This is a way of visualization that allows you to really comprehend the words you are hearing. These visualization skills can enhance the way that people process information. By using these mental images, you will help yourself by retaining the information you have just heard. This enhanced and improved comprehension makes you a better listener.

Taking care to note your body language can be another way to be a good listener. You will offend your listener if you engage in body language that lets the speaker feel that he or she is not being listened to. Behaviors such as avoiding eye contact, crossing your arms or wincing can send a message to a speaker that you are not really listening to them. These types of body language or mannerisms can result in the conversation being cut short because the speaker does not feel you are interested in what they are saying.

You can also consider asking questions that relate to the speaker’s statements. This technique can also help you to become a better listener. Remember to ask questions without allowing your questions to interfere with your listening ability. If you find yourself focusing on one of the speaker’s key points and spending the rest of the conversation trying to think of a question that addresses that point, you will miss a lot of information. Instead, try asking your questions immediately when you think of them. This way, you can have your question answered in the context of the speaker’s presentation without having it affect your listening abilities. When you ask questions as part of listening, it allows the speaker to recognize that his or her presentation is being followed and that you are interested in learning more about the topic.

If you practice your listening skills, you will be well on your way to becoming a better listener. Try making a conscientious effort to use your listening skills each time you speak to someone or participate in a presentation. Remain completely focused on the conversation or presentation and try not to guess what the speaker is going to say. Create mental images of the words being spoken and ask valid questions to confirm what you have just heard. Each time you have the opportunity to listen, try to work on these important listening skills.

While listening is not as widely practiced as speaking in the art of conversation, it is just as important. When you are an excellent listener, you will not only ensure that you are receiving information but will assure the speaker that you care about the information being presented and that you understand their message.