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Beware of energy drainers and their disempowering impact

Writer's picture: James RuleJames Rule

We interact on a daily basis with people and engage in activities that have the power to raise our energy (the energy charger) or reduce our energy (the energy drainer).

Prolonged exposure to energy drainers will have a dramatically disempowering impact that we need to guard against if we wish to avoid the ripple affect of those interactions negatively impacting our mindset, energy and associated productivity.

In my opinion the core areas where most of us engage in a daily wrestle between spending time with our chargers or our drainers are:

Friendships

Intimate relationships

Family relationships

Social media (how we utilise and interact on various platforms)

News consumption

The litmus test is simply to ask ourselves how we feel when engaging in activities or with people in each of these core areas. If the experience has enhanced our mood and raised our energy, they are the chargers and we should naturally focus on doing more of that activity or interacting more often with that individual. Conversely if we tend to finish the activity or leave the interaction feeling somewhat flat and down, they are the drainers and we need to limit our exposure.

Several months ago at the start of the first national lockdown, I decided to take a break from consuming news in all forms of digital and print media. This was a big step as on the one hand it felt very irresponsible to allow myself to become ignorant of the latest news. On the other I recognised that the news content was so overwhelmingly negative that each time I consumed it, it was draining me of my energy and positivity.

I purged myself of the daily habit of cycling through news websites, listening to news on the radio and watching it on TV. After the initial cold turkey of breaking the addiction I confess I didn’t miss it, particularly the plethora of disturbing and unsettling stories.

The recent presidential election in America led me to break the self imposed media ban and re enter the world of regular daily media consumption. This time I was very conscious of monitoring the impact. I enjoyed the intellectual stimulus of being fully informed during a major global event. I was, however, also acutely aware of how quickly the raft of negativity displayed in a range of news stories (election related and other topics) affected my mindset and mood.

The old adage of bad news sells really holds true. The media supply to us what we demonstrate by our behaviours that we want. If they post negative or harrowing stories and we click on it they will give us more. If they publish them in the newspapers and we buy them then they will give us more of the same. This is not a blog designed as a rant against the media. I am using the news as a personal example of an energy drainer.

I am once again stepping back from daily news consumption because of the draining affect it has on me.

I wanted to raise the question that if you conducted an audit of the core areas highlighted above, what activities or relationships do you need to address to remove or reduce the energy drainers from your life?

I appreciate it is far easier to reduce media consumption or limit time on social media than it is to address drainers in your intimate or family relationships.

In the current climate there is one area nearly all of my clients have been seeking support on. That is enhancing their level of resilience and maintaining an empowering mindset.

One of the most effective strategies to meet this desire is to maximise the energy chargers and minimise the energy drainers within our daily lives. At the very least even if we cannot remove the activity or the relationship in its entirety from our lives, we can at least limit our exposure and replace with more time with energy charging relationships or activities.

I encourage you to conduct that audit. Be ruthless and take action. Maximise the chargers, minimise or remove the drainers and experience the positive impact on your mindset, your resilience and your productivity in both your personal and professional life.



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