BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Seven Ways To Boost Your Personal Energy During Work

Forbes Human Resources Council
POST WRITTEN BY
Anne Iversen

Have you ever felt like taking a nap in the afternoon during your workday because you’re low on physical and mental energy? Instead of “sleeping on the job,” you might have opted for an afternoon cup of coffee or visited the water cooler for chatter with colleagues to help get you through the day and fight off sluggishness and low mental energy.

But is more caffeine or chitchat truly the best remedy to elevate your energy level so that you can perform at your very best late in the day? Wouldn’t it be more ideal to have an abundance of energy at your disposal to help you prosper from the time you commence your workday all the way until bedtime? Better yet, wouldn’t you like to be an energetic inspiration for those you deal with on a daily basis?

What many of us who have studied and practiced mindfulness know is that there’s a more successful way to help you attain robust internal and external energy than artificial means. But before we proceed with giving you some ideas that can change your life and relationships, we need to understand a few fundamentals about personal energy.

To start, let us understand that we all experience swings of happiness and bumps in energy levels. If we get a promotion or receive a gift, we feel a sense of exuberance. This is great, but the problem is that we can quickly shift our moods back to our set point, causing us to again feel down with low energy.

For some, they cherish that energy high, so they’re always looking to purchase or obtain another fleeting sense of happiness — perhaps it’s a new car, a trip, a night out on the town or even that extra cup of coffee. Chasing these goods won’t improve your daily energy level. But here’s what will: When you transform your inner landscape so that your thoughts, outlook and actions advance along the positive scale, you acquire greater energy. This can be done by training yourself and applying a mindfulness platform that you can do in the office.

With mindfulness, people can raise their baseline happiness level to take advantage of their brain’s ability to change. This activity of altering the current state of our minds by modifying behavior is known as neuroplasticity.

By teaching ourselves to think about being in the present and enjoying the moment, we can learn how to take responsibility to enjoy a new sense of our own happiness. Conversely, stress and anxiety can arise when we turn our backs on enjoying the present moment and start to worry about the past, the future or activities that we need to accomplish. These are all low-energy drivers that place heavy burdens on our minds and weigh us down. This mental game is challenging and draining, but employing a mindfulness game plan can help us avoid this inner and outer imbalance.

Having this understanding, let’s take a look at seven ways that you can shape your own personal journey toward securing greater energy so that you can alter your health, boost your energy and improve your achievements in business and in life.

1. Build peaceful physical surroundings in the office to nourish your inner energy. Clean up your mess — if there’s clutter around you, there’s confusion in your head, which can lead to jumbled thoughts. Replace mess with plants, fresh flowers and lighting to clean, brighten and renew your energy and reflect your better self.

2. Work with gratitude. Each day, write down 10 reasons why you’re grateful on that specific day. Gratitude is the highest level of energy, whereas worry, anxiety and drama are all low energy. Gratefulness is often the antidote to anxiety and worry.

3. Practice kindness. Start your own personal meditation practice to focus on your heart. This may allow you to connect to your inner voice, improve compassion and enhance your ability for kindness, all of which can open up your creativity and enhance your abundance mindset.

4. Be aware of your inner voice. What do you tell yourself? What words come out of your mouth? Do you nourish the air around you, or do you pollute it with bad words, negativity and moodiness? Practice high energy by keeping your thoughts positive and intentions pure.

5. At work, before calling a meeting, set your intention with meeting participants. Determine what you’re going to accomplish and what you want to give. Write it down on the agenda, and start the meeting by repeating it to ensure that the intended outcome will be met. We call this “beginning with the end in mind.” All this helps set the stage for high energy and positive flow at meetings.

6. During meetings, keep all attendees on track. Negativity, gossip, chatter and drama can all drain energy, influence others and distract them to knock you off your intended outcome. One negative person can lower and reset the energy of the entire team. Be an inspirational force and a leader by helping others to focus on the agenda and maintain a positive climate during the discussion.

7. Take the lead, and encourage meetings to start with a moment of silence to help all participants land, refocus and prepare. Silence has many benefits, one of which is a recharge of personal energy.

Having and running on poor energy is a chronic issue that many of us experience or witness in others, and can get worse with greater responsibility and age. There are several other remedies to help you improve your energy, such as diet, sleep and exercise, but what we’re talking about here are a few simple mental adjustments that you can make during your workday and life in general — all of which may provide a big boost in helping you achieve higher levels of energy and ultimately greater success. With this corporate mindfulness plan in place, you’ll have a vital asset in guiding you toward the career that you’ve always desired and the life that you truly deserve.

Forbes Human Resources Council is an invitation-only organization for HR executives across all industries. Do I qualify?