How to Protect Your Energy

Technology has made it to where we’re connected with each other 24/7.

That’s created a culture of always being available to everyone.

What’s challenging is that we don’t even have the option to opt out of the game.

If we shut off our notifications and detox for a few days, we still aren’t taking ourselves completely away from it.

That’s because when we come back online, there’s going to be a long line of people that have been waiting for us to get back to them.

Because we’re so overwhelmed with the expectations to always be available, people have reactions when we aren’t.

They can get angry, take it personally, have their feelings hurt, and create false mental stories about why we aren’t quickly responding.

This is a problem.

We need to disconnect and take time for ourselves.

Something I’ve been battling with recently.

Guilt for not being there.

It’s the only way to shut off the noise and let our minds slow down, so we can hear our inner voice and protect our energy.

So what do we do?

We have to change our mindset.

We have to stop caring what other people think and do what’s best for us when needed.

Otherwise, when we take time to disconnect, we won’t get anything out of it because we’ll be stressed the whole time that we’re not getting back to people.

4 ways to protect your bandwidth:

1. Create an innercircle.
   It’s wise to prioritise your response time to certain people. Your partner? Respond ASAP. Someone that hits you up every couple of weeks when they need something? Give it a few days, or don’t respond at all.
2. Retrain your relationships.
   Start slowly putting gaps into how long it takes you to respond. People will get used to the longer periods as you increase them. Before you know it, you are considered one of those people who “takes a few days.”
3. Let the system break.
   You can’t be available for everyone all the time. We are connected to too many people these days to always be responsive. Do what you can and let go of the rest. The sooner you accept this, the better.
4. Their expectation, their problem. It isn’t your problem that someone else decided they need you to respond immediately. You didn’t set the expectation. They did. So it’s their problem when it isn’t met. Not yours.

Taking that period away makes a world of difference for you and everyone around you.

Give it a try sometime and let me know your biggest takeaways.