1. Energize

1. Play

Seriousness is overrated. If you want to achieve more without ruining your life, approach your work with a sense of play.

You can incorporate play into your life by:

1. Approach things with a sense of adventure. When you step into the right ‘play personality’, every day abounds with opportunities to see life as a game, filled with surprises and side quests.
2. find the fun. Remember Mary Poppins: there’s an element of fun in every task, even if it isn’t always obvious. Try asking yourself what this would look like if it were fun, and then build your projects around the answer. 3.
3. Lower the stakes. Failures are only failures when you think they are – and not every problem need be approached with such a straight face. So what would it mean to approach your work with less seriousness and more sincerity?

2. Power

‘Power but it doesn’t have to be scary. When we say the second energiser is power, we don’t mean exerting control over others. Here, we simply mean feeling empowered to take your job, life and future into your own hands.

How to increase your sense of power:

1. Confidence. Confidence isn’t fixed, but very malleable. So why not try ‘flipping the confidence switch’ – and playing the role of someone who’s already filled with self-belief?

2. Level up your skills. Ask: if I were completely new to this task, what would this look like? And how can I start teaching others even though I’m not an expert yet?

3. Take ownership, even in moments when you don’t have as much control as you’d like. Remember, if you can’t choose what you work on, you can still choose how you work on it. The outcome isn’t always in your hands. But the process, and certainly your mindset, often is.

3. People

Life is more fun with friends around. That’s why our third energiser is people. There are some people who naturally uplift our energy – the trick is finding them.

1. Become a team player. Try treating the people you’re working with as comrades rather than competitors.
2. Building connections with people is also about lending them a hand. This cuts both ways; not only do we too rarely help others, we also too rarely ask for help. So try asking: what can I do to brighten someone else’s day?
3. If you think you’ve communicated too much, you probably haven’t communicated enough. Is there a piece of information you’re hoarding that might just make someone else’s week?

2. Unblock: emotional blockers

1. Uncertainty: Seek clarity

We get procrastination wrong. Often, we approach it by treating the symptoms rather than the underlying causes, which relate to our mood: if you feel bad, you achieve less. So the unblock method is about establishing what’s really blocking your good mood – and finding a way to eliminate it.

1. Why? The solution to uncertainty? To gain clarity about what you’re actually doing. That involves asking why? and then using this to figure out your ‘how’.
2. What? That means an alternative approach to goal-setting. Forget SMART goals. What you need are goals that feel NICE (nearterm, input-based, controllable and energizing).
3. When? If you don’t know when you’re going to do something, chances are you won’t do it. One solution is to use implementation intentions – where your common daily habits become triggers for the things you intend to work on (e.g. if I brush my teeth, then I’ll stretch my hamstring).

2. Fear: Find courage

Our second emotional blocker is even thornier: fear. If you’ve ever put off applying for a daunting job or asking someone you like on a date, you’ve encountered this particular monster. The solution isn’t to get rid of fear, though – instead, it’s to develop the courage to face up to it. That courage comes from three sources.

1. Understand your fear. Ask: why have I not started on that task or project yet? What am I afraid of? Where does this fear come from?
2. Reduce your fear. Our fears are often blown out of proportion. ask these questions to prevent yourself from catastrophizing: will this matter in 10 mins/ weeks or years?
3. Overcome your fear. If you’re scared of what others think, remind yourself that most people are not, in fact, thinking about you. We’re a self-conscious species, but we’re not usually a judgemental one.

3. Inertia: Get started

When you’re doing nothing, it’s easy to carry on doing nothing. And when you’re working, it’s much easier to carry on working. But there are some simple ways to battle through.

1. Look for the frictions: what obstacles are preventing you from starting? And how can you get rid of them?
2. The best antidote to doing nothing is simply to do something. You can take action by first defining your next step and then tracking your progress, so you’re surrounded by tangible evidence that you’re moving towards your goals.  
3. Create systems that can help you support yourself long-term. Above all, cut yourself some slack and celebrate the small wins.

3. Sustain

1. Conserve

The greatest cause of burnout isn’t exhaustion. It’s low mood. If you can make yourself feel better, you won’t just achieve more – you’ll last longer, too. Our first kind of burnout arises from overexertion. The solution: do less.

1. Stop yourself from overcommitting. Limit the list of projects you’re working on and get comfortable with saying ‘no’. ask: if I had to pick only one project to put all my energy into, what would that be?
2. Resist distraction. ask: can I uninstall social media apps on my phone so that I can access them only through my web browser? How can I correct course and restart if/when I get distracted?
3. Find moments in your working day to do nothing. ask: am I treating breaks as a special event rather than a necessity? And what could I do to take more of them?

2. Rest

Depletion burnouts result from not giving yourself enough time or space to truly recharge. The solution: understand how to rest in a way that energizes you.

1. Feeling calm. Or rather, CALM. Find an activity or project that makes you feel Competent, Autonomous, Liberated and Mellow.

2. spend time in and with nature. Even a tiny amount of greenery can be transformative. Take a walk, even if it’s short. And try bringing nature indoors – whether that’s a new house plant or just the soundtrack of some birds chirping.

3. Not all rest needs to be so strategic, however. Sometimes, the most energizing thing you can do is to do nothing at all. By doing less today, you’ll feel better tomorrow.

3. Align

Misalignment burnouts arise when we spend time on goals that don’t match up with our sense of self. Overcoming misalignment is a lifelong task; one that requires us to continually work out what really matters to us, and change our behavior accordingly.

1. Long-term: Try envisioning yourself on your deathbed. Morbid as it sounds, this is the best way to give you a clearer view of what you want from your life right now.

2. Medium-term: Reflect on what accomplishments you’d want to be celebrating in 1 year. Ask: what does it mean for my actions this week?

3. Short-term: Because the good news is, you can take a step to alignment right now. What are 3 actions today that might take you a little step closer to the life you want in a year?