The things we stick with on the long-term are the things that, while they may be challenging, unpleasant, tedious at times, we enjoy more than we don’t. They are the things that energise us more than they drain us.
To achieve anything meaningful in life we need to push past hurdles. Any game worth playing will most likely entail difficulties. To succeed, we need to push through them. But how do we know that we’re playing the right game on the first place?
We often deal with projects, habits and people that don’t make us happy. How do we know if they’re worth persevering with?
Knowing what energises us and aligning our life as much as possible with that can help us make better decisions and live happier and more meaningful lives.
How to do a Personal Energy Audit
The energy audit model is a simple but powerful tool that we could use to gain some insights on this.
Step 1: Make a list of your energisers and drainers
Divide a piece of paper in two vertical halves. On the left hand side list all the things that energise you and on the right hand side all the things that drain you. You can organise these into categories. I like using habits, projects, relationships (concrete people, type of people), activities (work and leisure), thought patterns, values and places. The tool is more powerful if you devise your own categories and look for those that are meaningful to you and representative of both your current life and your future priorities.
Step 2: Eliminate or convert drainers
Then examine each item in the drainers section of your list with the following questions:
Why does this drain me? Why do I do it? What do I get out of it?
How could I remove it from the list or convert it into something that energises me?
Step 3: Amplify energisers
Then examine the things that energise you with the following questions:
Why does this energise me? How can I bring more of this into my life?
Step 4: Identify the 80/20 elements
Look through each category and highlight the items that have the biggest impact on your energy. Why do they affect you the way they do? Getting to the bottom of this can be extremely powerful in revealing the constraining narratives that we live in, which is the first step to transcending them. You can use the Five Whys model to dig into this and get to the real root causes.
Applying the model to individual projects
You can also apply the energy audit to individual projects, relationships, or circumstances. I’ve used it to examine individual projects and identify the type of work patterns that energise me and those that drain me.
There’s little point in winning the game if we’re not playing the right game. Understanding how circumstances impact us and why they impact us the way they do deepens our self-knowledge and helps us make more meaningful decisions for ourselves. The Personal Energy Audit is a simple tool you can use on both macro and micro levels to help you align your life with the things that bring you flow.
P.S. Thank you to Rich Litvin for introducing the concept of Energy Audit to me.