One of the key things that I work with a lot of business owners on is the concept of energy generation.
Energy generation is understanding that we can have a very conscious influence on our energy production from the cellular level, all the way up to our macro level in our business – or, our work output.
Ultimately, there are two sides to the energy generation work. One is what we could call Energy Stabalising, and one is Creative flow.
Energy stabilising is what’s called “structured,” or “bounded” work.
This gives us consistency, direction and stability.
Creative flow is unbounded work. This helps fuel creativity, innovation, connection and vibrancy. This helps us create the “new” and is “unbounded.”
Of course, the two link together.
As we create more structure, or intent, we can hold more energy for more complex tasks. As we lose structure, or intent, our capacity for handling higher levels of energy diminishes (or, we lose capacity for “holding” or “recovering from” creative energy).
When we don’t have ways of stabilising our energy, the higher levels of stimulus become more “excitatory” in nature, rather than directional, and can actually put us backward.
Again, while we are talking about the big picture here, similar concepts are reflected at smaller scales in biology:
“The appearance of new structures made possible a higher energy level of activity and more complex interactions with the environment.” – Dr. Ray Peat, PhD.
Starting Questions on Energy Stabalising
While this post has the potential to become something much bigger, that’s maybe for another time.
But at a time when the culture is going through massive structural upheaval, and many are losing behavioural structure and boundaries at the individual level, it’s likely something worth thinking about.
And, we now have an increased opportunity for energetic inputs or complexity.
Today, there are infinite opportunities for complexity.
We only need to jump onto social media, or other platforms, and we can overwhelm ourselves straight away.
In order to deal with more complexity and maintain energy, we need to maintain or increase behavioural structure.
Basically, as news cycles and societal stress escalates, there are three ways it can go:
- Increased structure and boundaries to deal with the new inputs. How are you setting up behavioural boundaries in your day?
- No change in structure, and increased inputs – this leads to excitatory behaviour, increased stress and likely sickness.
- No increase in inputs – this is to limit the increase in complexity (i.e. refrain from social media, news hype cycles, other highly complex information or stimulus webs)
So, if we are feeling overly tired, or lacking energy, some starting questions might be:
Do I have clear boundaries in place to help me deal with the increase in complexity that I’m now partaking in?
Is my day structured (time-wise, spatially) to help me deal with increased complexity?
Is the increase in complexity serving me? If I have yet to build the behavioural structures to deal with this load, maybe I can reduce my inputs for a bit?
Am I getting my energetic needs met in other areas that I can influence (food, sleep, light etc)?
For many of us, the potential fatigue, lethargy or lack of energy we might feel may not be due to the inability to generate the energy in the first place, but due to a lack of structure or intent in our days that means we become overwhelmed by the increased complexity of the environment.
In a way, the energy stabilising aspect of energy generation helps us create the capacity to deal with more complexity, cultivate more intent, and get more work done.
