Some field and tree

I have more energy than 90% of people. This is because of my regular exercise and activity, foods that I eat, and mindset that I have.

Maybe by sharing what I do, it can help you.

First off, I will discuss the regular exercise I do.  I play basketball often, usually two times a week, and for 2-3 hours each time.  I probably burn 1500 calories during those times.  When you are burning calories like that, you end up not caring about saving 50 or 100 calories here or there.  Always think big picture is my first tip.

As well, I sometimes do sets of pushups, or run around and stretch, or something else that uses some solid energy.  I haven’t had a downtime of regular exercise in many years.

On to the second concept, which is the foods I eat.  I don’t eat or drink stupid foods. I drink water and eat actual foods that have nutritional value.  I eat fruits or bread and sandwiches and salads.  I cook stuff or eat spaghetti.  I don’t drink soda or alcohol or eat foods with partially hydrogenated oils or things of this nature.  I eat ice cream and muffins and other good stuff, but for example, the ice cream would be one that just has milk, cream, eggs, and sugar as its ingredients, and nothing more.  You have to look at ingredients of foods.

The third part is your mindset.  You have to have a determined mindset to stay high energy.  If you lose your determination or motivation, your body will soon follow.  A solid metabolism only exists in a person who is active in habits and in thoughts.

This post wasn’t to brag that I’m super duper, but just to share how I keep up my energy that many have mentioned they have noticed.

I wrote this post in about 8 minutes because I had the interest in doing it.  That is how you should do things in life.  You either do them fast or not at all.  You may notice that sometimes you leave something 10% done, and then you don’t want to return to it for days or weeks or months.  Gotta attack it right from the get-go and finish at the same time if possible.

Thanks for reading folks.

Image from Flickr

There are people out there who have no focus until they write a 5-item list of things they want to do during that day.  There are others who like to keep cooked cabbage with them all day long to munch on.  Some need to have the dishes washed at night so they feel a certain way the next morning.  Do you have something of this type?

Make A List Of Your Quirks That Help You

Some quirks remain from when you were young and did these same things, and they stuck with you for a long time.  Some of them have been acquired from others that you have met, and some came from random habits you picked up along the way.  The important thing is that there are certain items out that energize you, and it would be fruitful for you to continue to do them, regardless of how the outside world would perceive them.

Walking Around For 15 Minutes At Lunch Time

Let’s say you have a habit of walking around for 15 minutes before you eat lunch that gives you peace and energy for your day.  It is a time where you can walk, get your thoughts settled, and think about how you are going to go swimming or do whatever activity is coming up in a couple of days.  Let’s say you are in an office and you are the only person who walks around the office area at this time.  Obviously the ‘peer pressure’ is to then not do this, as no one else is doing it, so then you feel out of place.  However, winners always feel out of place, and winners maintain their status by doing those things that they know help them the most, regardless of the reaction from others.

Doodling On A Blank Paper At Night

Maybe you have found that your thoughts settle best when you take out a blank piece of paper at night and write and draw all over it.  To some people, this sounds stupid.  Remember that you don’t have to show people what they might consider stupid, and then you can show them the success that they consider smart with the advantages you got from doing your personally important task, and then you win on both counts.  I think there is a quote that says something like “go with the flow when with others, and do as you do on your own”.

Deleting Files

Going back to the title, I wanted to bring up a wacky example.  Maybe you get a lot of focus or clear thinking when you delete files from your computer.  Maybe you delete some new application setup files or some text files you’re not using, or so on, and this gives you the feeling of cleanliness that leads you to do better in your other activities.  If this is the case, you need to delete files on an almost regular basis.  In this example, this is your way to get an edge, and so you want to make sure you maintain this habit that enables your edge.  Delete files at a certain time every couple of days, or set some sort of schedule for it.

Keep Doing That Thing

You know what provides you with energy and clear thought every time you do it, and this activity or set of activities needs to be a high priority in your life.  It could be listening to a certain song or set of songs, or calling a set of four friends each day, or reading the same six pages of a book you have each few days.  As long as it leads you to do bigger and better things, it is okay to perform a repetitive action or habit.

It is not always about what you are doing right now, but what you get done within a reasonable period of time.  If it takes you thirty minutes to do some regular task you have to do, but instead takes you ten minutes to do it after you have done five minutes of stretching or talking to a certain friend or whatnot, remember that you are creating time with your special activity.  This extra time is probably of much use to you, or it can be sold for a reasonable price on eBay.

I have recently read a good chunk of the book The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement by Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell.  Of many messages I came across in it, one underlying theme was that narcissism is not beneficial for the people around the narcissist.  The narcissist uses people around them for energy, or as fuel, and so the others are left dried out when the narcissist is done with them.  There was more to it, but this is a concept worth discussing.

How Does Narcissism Relate?

Narcissism is “An exceptional interest in and admiration for yourself”, according to the quick definition from WordWeb, which I recommend that you download and use.  According to what I got from this book, you can tell that you are a definition narcissist if you are sucking the energy off of people around you just to maintain your habits.  Therefore, if you had a worry about this, see if you are providing those around you with an uplifting presence or a decrease in energy/concern/effort.  You can probably assess this quickly.  If you energize those around you, you are not likely to be a narcissist, or at least not likely to be labeled one.  If you use others mainly for your own benefit, well, you can see what that could mean.

Narcissism Starts with ‘N’ Just Like Negative

The reason that narcissism has a negative connotation, while self-esteem has a positive connotation, is that narcissism doesn’t have a positive long-term component to it.  What I got from various sections of this book is that the use of people as fuel is the main problem.  It ignores the people who are the source of that fuel.

Sometimes It Is Better To Improve Within Before Looking Outward

Is it better to conversate where you try to absorb some of someone else’s energy or goodness, or to not conversate at all?  Sometimes you really would do well to have the conversation, because you can be in an occasional slump and desire some feedback and empathy.  On the other hand, if this is a regular trend, it is probably better to not have the same type of conversation with the same person.  You want to be in the habit of being an uplifting or energizing presence, in general, to those who you come in contact with.  This will keep you fulfilled.

Taking The Energy Of Others Will Get You Poor Labels

Although they are somewhat separate concepts, regarding narcissism and energizing others, I see them as quite connected.  On a related note, I see many terms that people use that indirectly mean something like “energy absorber”.  A lot of the words we use to describe people as bad in some way are meant to say that their actions brought us down.  Words like “annoying”, “creepy”, “frustrating”, “stupid”, “ignorant”, “disappointing”, and so on are often used to basically say that a person was not thinking about us or providing energy to us, and was more concerned with their own satisfaction.

Energizing A Few People Trumps Doing Little For Many

Returning to the question mentioned in the title, you want to check your energy levels in relation to those you come in contact with.  It is much better to have 5 people who you always energize and get fulfillment from, than 50 people you contact with and draw energy from whenever you get the chance.  This is one of those examples of “don’t stretch yourself thin”.  It is better to be connected with person A and B, who you have very mutually beneficial relations with, than to be connected with persons A B C D E F G and H, and not have the willpower or enthusiasm to give much to any.

Many Mutual Partners Of This Type Are Already Benefiting

On the Earth right now, there are many people who have one specific person who is their mutually beneficial person of choice, and so anyone outside of that partnership doesn’t see how much each person benefits from the relationship.  It is like there are deals going on that only the two people involved in the deal know about.  If you feel like one person suits you best as your energizing partner, then that is the way to go, and there is nothing wrong with not having 30 people at that same relational level to you.  On the flip side, make sure to not take that person, or two people for example if there are two, for granted, as I discussed in a recent article.

Do you generally energize those you come into contact with?  Would you do better to reduce the number of people you try to directly empower through your presence?  Let me know your thoughts in relation to these concepts, and/or regarding narcissism, in the comments.

You don’t know how much energy you have until you set a deadline to achieve a result. Suddenly your mind starts thinking pro-actively about how you can possibly get things done by that deadline. Thoughts jump into your mind about how you can become more efficient and how you can muster the motivation to take the task to completion. This is a swift change in thoughts from the minute before you make the deadline. If you have a goal you haven’t been getting anywhere on, set a time and date for when you want to complete it.

Don’t Do This If You Are Not Ready

The deadline only works if you already have a goal and an inclination to speed up its completion in some way. You can’t randomly put a 10-day deadline to do something you weren’t already doing, and that you aren’t really interested in, and expect it to finish itself. That will only cause you to be angry that you made a deadline in the first place, because you made it for no reason, and then failed to meet it. On the other hand, if you were reading a chapter every couple days, and set a deadline to instead finish the book in 10 days, it would be worth it.

What Does A Deadline Do?

A deadline provides you with a sense of urgency, but more than that, it constricts the time span your brain allows for planning to completion, forcing it to figure out a more intensive way to complete it earlier than you normally would. A deadline is only as useful as your self-discipline in maintaining it. Self-inflicted deadlines are a real opportunity to amaze yourself. No one else has to know about the deadline, and you can end up getting a large amount of joy from being true to yourself, and also getting the task or project done. Then, you might just pass that happy attitude on to others without them even knowing you set and completed a goal.

If You Planned 8 Days To Complete It, Make It 4

I’m pretty sure it was something I read by Tim Ferris that talked about taking whatever goal you have, and halving the time you planned to take to meet that goal. This matches the point earlier about constriction of allotted time. Just like the fact that an unorganized person given a large garage tends to fill the garage, regardless of its size, an undisciplined person that sets the time to complete their goal as something uncertain or very long, it might take three months to do what could be done in one solid weekend. Sometimes we see in hindsight that we could have worked hard for three days, taken twenty days off, and still gotten as much done as we did in the last twenty-three days. You have the ability to make hindsight your foresight, and set an early deadline, and then use the spare time that follows like it is free time that you have created out of thin air.

Tests Are Deadlines In Disguise

Medical schools, or many other types, have a test each year for students to pass to continue forward. These tests are at certain times, creating deadlines forcing students to have a certain amount of knowledge by that point. The urgency is created and the willing learn large amounts to prepare. Setting a deadline for yourself is like creating a classroom environment in your mind. In fact, I would assume that you would have as much success with self-imposed deadlines as you had or currently have with class deadlines and exams. We tend to be consistent in how we behave, unless we put in enough effort to change one or more of our habits.

Let’s say you’re an electrician who just finished three private jobs, fixing electrical problems at customer houses, which you acquired through word-of-mouth advertising, and you recognize that you have built up some productive momentum that is not common for you.  This is the situation in which you want to preserve the momentum for as long as possible.

Productive Time Is Worth Much More

The time you pass through while in the state of productive momentum is worth much more than your regular time where no trend of success is currently in place.  From a return-on-investment standpoint, you would want to maintain the majority of your time in a state of momentum, but this may not be readily doable by you with certain time commitments that you have which would get in the way.

Switch Mindset To Preserve Momentum

Regardless, there are times when you are in control, and have notched up a series of successes in a row.  The minute you detect this, switch into what I will call “preservation mode”.  Toss off any lower-relevance activities and continue to put effort into what brought you the successes.  Forget about other people or tasks, unless they were involved in the successes, and leverage your positive energy into more production.

Vocabulary Learning Example

If you have been trying to learn vocabulary words, for a lengthy period of time, and now just studied and learned words for forty minutes straight, you can do nothing better than to keep going.  If you need a five-minute break there, take it, but make sure your mind is planning to head right back into the memorization/learning that got you feeling productive already.  Your prioritization of continuing to study now is many times more valuable because of the future time you are saving.

Feed The Momentum And It Feeds You Success

In a state of momentum, you are energetic, positive from earlier successes, somewhat invincible in your mind, and have a brain that is completely warmed up for any work that immediately follows in the same activity.  All these advantages fade away quickly if you make the decision to postpone further effort.  Next time, you would have to start again from scratch, and might not have the interest to do so, resulting in discontinuation of the activity that brought you a feeling of success.  Feed the momentum and it will propel you toward your goal.

If you don’t see the impact you are able to have on many people, that is a choice you are making to cover up your eyes.  The opportunity is right there for you to influence or bring change to multitudes of people, directly or indirectly.  Once you accept that you can have a large impact, and then implement action to make that impact, you are able to cause a positive or negative effect.  I would implore you to head for the positive direction, because although having a negative influence still includes your presence as a leader being validated, it can end up leading other people down the wrong path.

Your Effort Can Have A Widespread Impact

A recent example of where my actions caused quite a bit of action to follow is with my 100 Ways To Show Boldness article, which was inspired by Luciano’s eBook talking about this post.  It got spread around quite a bit, and then my friend Mike King from Learn This, who had seen it, followed it up with his own(and then another), and challenged some other writers to make their own.  This was followed by Arswino and Dragos creating their own lists, which got spread around through various sites.  I am not taking any credit for their work, as they are the ones who created their own posts, but I am pointing out the intrinsic value of putting time in on your own terms, as you can then feel that your time that you put in alone then caused a chain of events to occur that might not have occurred had you not done so.  It brings more value to what you are doing.

Sometimes You Should Focus Only On Your Own Thoughts

When I was writing the article/post, I only had focus on it, and was using JDarkRoom as I tend to do now to have my monitor be a full screen of black with the text from writing in green.  For that hour or two while I was writing and creating the list, I wasn’t thinking about impact or effect.  I was writing as though the rest of the world wasn’t there.  This is where your largest impact can come into play.  Those items you do in your own mental world are the best ones you can transmit to others.  The whole point of avoiding distractions during creation of writing or audio or video or brainstorming is that we want to work internally.  There is plenty of time later to be part of the group, but your impact comes from preparing or putting in effort before you meet up or communicate with the group.

A Shortage Of Supporters Is Not A Bad Sign

When you see yourself doing something where you feel you are the only one doing it, you just might be on the right track to a special position.  When you feel like you are doing something similar to what you have seen, you can take a look to see if there is something more individual that you could do.  Creating music is more fulfilling, and has a larger impact upon completion, when you do it from scratch, as opposed to building off of someone else’s work, as you will continually be settling for a compromise between your creation methods and their work that you are building off of.

Be Watchful Of The Direction Of Your Influence

In another example, I am an administrator in a 200-300 person online community, and a goal I have there is to have a positive impact on the members of the community.  This impact is almost tangible.  Being in a position of authority, and doing a good thing can result in ten people doing that same good thing.  When Oprah recommends a book, she can recommend one with no substance, or recommend one with educational value or a solid message inside of it.  Because of her strong presence, either book would be read, but the potential is there for her to have an impact on the knowledge of many of her viewers.

To start off making the point about this concept, I have included the following picture I took while running through a park/mountain trail:

The message I want to send here is that you have much ability to adjust your mental environment.  Searching on Google Earth to find a local running/hiking trail could be the key method of ecotherapy you need to get back to an active/creative mind.

When you run in a place like that in the morning, the benefits are substantial.  However, as you notice, there are very few people that make use of these resources.  In some cities with 50000 people, you might see 10 people during your time running on a local park trail.

Some of the benefits:

• time in nature
• time away from technology and stress
• heart strengthening
• it leaves your mind free to think, and in fact motivated to think
• you see people along the way
• the scenery keeps changing as you keep running/jogging

There is a quote that says you have everything you need right where you are.  This is also true with respect to natural resources.  There is some area local to you where you can head to in the morning to clear your thoughts.

In the book Ecotherapy, which I reviewed here a while back, and discussed further here, Elizabeth R. Messer Diehl had these points to make in her essay entitled “Gardens That Heal”:

” The plants themselves offer a wide range of physiological and psychic benefits.  Exposure to plants, mostly likely in tandem with other factors, stimulates cognitive and physical functioning, improves disposition, alleviates depression and loneliness, increases self-esteem, and helps disease recovery.”

“It has also been demonstrated that certain scents[from flowers and plants] stimulate bodily organs to release neurochemicals that help eliminate pain, induce sleep, and create a sense of well-being.”

As is clearly noticeable from these descriptions, the experience has value that is beyond our ability to recreate in a non-natural setting.

I took video of my view while running but it is somewhat choppy.  If you are interested in having me add it to the end of this post, let me know in a comment.  Here are more pictures I took while on the trail:

Park Trail Running View

You might like to discount the effect you have on those around you in a social situation, but the impact you can have is stupendous.  You get hundreds of opportunities during the day to showcase your social confidence and ability, but don’t need to utilize all of them, although that could make for a tentative goal.  As you are passing through your day, pick out one or two instances, and take your presence to a higher level by pushing positively against others.

One part of the equation is that you need to pick and choose where you showcase your abilities.  If you go into the day planning to be the star of each activity that you perform, you are likely to not excel in any of them.  You want to “file” your energy for certain times or events where you can go beyond your past experiences.  It is important that you push beyond where you have gone in past experiences each day.  It doesn’t have to be in the same activity, or with the same person, but as long as some new step is conquered, you will be able to sleep well.

Avoid going into situations thinking that your presence is negligible.  This is not the case, as each person in an activity causes an effect on the whole group.  Even the person in the corner of the room is noticed by all, and his response is just as relevant as the one from the person giving a speech.  When we have a split-second thought about the person in the corner, everyone else is also having a split-second thought about that person.  As Steve Pavlina once said in one of his podcasts, our consciences are connected.

Remind yourself regularly that when you head into a situation, your presence is a large part of it.  We all are a part of each activity.

If you aren’t currently in a state of powerful activity, unless you are in a period of relaxation, you might want to ask yourself why.  You have the opportunity right now to do something that jump-starts your day.  This could be contacting someone you are afraid to contact, setting a public goal that you are worried you can successfully reach, or taking a financial risk.  If you are in a passive state, or any sort of state that represents a slight amount of boredom, I would say there is a problem in place, but at the same time, there is no problem at all.  You can turn it around in one minute.

Excuses/Reasons And The Questions That Negate Them

When I tell you about taking a risk, setting a goal, or contacting a person you are afraid to contact, there is certainly a person, goal, or risk that comes to your mind.  We all have certain items we put off because we:

• are not ready yet
• are not at the right position to take the risk
• don’t have the block of time for it to occur
• would look out of place
• have failed in that category before
• don’t know the right people
• don’t have the right qualifications

These are all thoughts we have based on fear.  Here are questions that cancel out each of these causes of fear:

• When will you be ready?  Will you be ready tomorrow, next week, or in 20 years?
• When will you be at the right position?  Are you on a quick path to where you will be there?
• When are you going to schedule that block in?  Do you even plan to?
• When will you fit in with others who aren’t taking a risk, when you are taking a risk?
• How long will you let a past failure limit your current day?
• How do you think you are going to meet the right people?
• Do you think it is really your qualifications that is holding you back?

Speak More Earnestly To Assist In Reducing Fear

If you catch yourself in a situation where you even think about telling someone else that you are bored or not doing great, instead tell them that you are afraid.  This might not be as appealing, or seem as commonplace, but at least you will be telling them the truth.  Tell them you are afraid to take action or the next step on something you want to be doing.  Tell them you are holding yourself back from action, and will regret it later.  This will help you realize your problem sooner, as you won’t be covering it up with an excuse or perfunctory phrase, and the other person might want to help you work through the issue as well.

At this point in time, you may have one or more interests that range from socially acceptable to quite atypical.  Regardless of where they fit on that scale, there is a high likelihood that these interests will change over time, and some of them will fade away.  Interests don’t last forever.  You can’t expect your passion for something to remain waiting for you months or years into the future.  At that time, your priorities may be so different that pursuing that interest would make no sense.

Passion Is The Engine

With this knowledge in mind, can you see any interests of yours that are not being harnessed?  Passion is worth so much more than experience, wealth, and power, because it is the generating force of all of them.  Your desire to put energy in a certain activity is not something to take lightly, because the only thing separating another person from completing a same task of that type is that their desire isn’t there.  There are loads of people that wish they had a desire for a certain item/position.

Example: A Desire To Perform Statistical Analysis

Let’s say you are a site-owner.  For the last couple of days, you have had an urge to perform a statistical analysis on 30 sites of a certain type, in order to then report it to the public on your site.  You have a very short window of time with which to perform this analysis, because after a couple of weeks, your desire may be gone due to changed priorities, someone else performing it already, the newness of the idea fading, etc.  Statistical analysis of others sites might be cool to you today, but it might become something you couldn’t be paid to do in a couple of weeks.

That Which Is Not Acted Upon Fades Away With Time

You have to start seeing new ideas and building desires as ticking clocks.  From the minute you get the feeling that you are able to pursue an interest, your mind starts a subconscious clock, and if you pass a certain elapsed time on that clock, your mind then treats the item as though it couldn’t have been that relevant, or you would have taken action on it.

Process The Truth Of Postponement

A related note about this returns to the common theme of not lying to yourself, or understanding ways in which you are deceiving yourself.  Know that when you postpone a passion, with this information about how it will disappear over time, you are throwing it into a trash can.  Don’t let yourself think you are saving it completely intact for a future occasion, because doing so will get it cancelled.  It is beneficial to stick with reality, so that you don’t have to make up self-rationalizations to feel like you didn’t make a mistake.