My title is a little misleading, though I am one of those people that gets incredibly anxious when the fuel guage reads a quarter of a tank. The title is really meant to represent energy that I expend in certain areas of my life. There are so many parts of my life that are “consumers” of my energy and how do I refuel? It’s a question that I’m sure most of you reading this blog are wrestling with each and every day.

My ability to refuel is first predicated on my ability to prioritize imperatives within my life. For me it’s Faith, Family, Health and Community that are critical for me to maintain balance. There are many layers within each of those imperatives and the balance is everchanging based on the circumstance or environment in which I am operating. It is really easy to post these four imperatives on a blog, it’s extremely difficult to put it into practice with so many things demanding time and energy. To be honest, I suck so bad at maintaining balance that I work regularly with a therapist to help me find my way! The reality is we all over index in certain areas which causes us to burn out. What’s important is that we recognize and acknowledge we have put ourselves at a deficit. The critical next step is you have developed ways to replenish and refuel. My common practice is that I tend to put so much effort and identity into work that I have moments of burn out. It deeply affects my mood, my physical health and relationships. It’s taken me a long time to understand how I refuel. For me it’s through serving others, I know this sounds so counterintuitive when operating at a deficit but it all ties back to my first imperative of faith. Personally, I feel an abundance of gratitude, peace and encouragement when I can serve others. When I am able to do this, it resets my priorities, helps me understand truly how blessed I am and helps me reestablish one of my core leadership principals of putting people first.

Leadership takeaways:

1. Establish your personal imperatives and things that create opportunities for you to refuel.
2. Acknowledge the prioritization of your personal imperatives are going to be everchanging based on the environment.
3. Recognize when you have over indexed to the degree you are operating at a deficit and reset based on what refuels you personally.
4. If you struggle with 1, 2 or 3 seek the advice of a mentor or a therapist to help you, we all need help to do this thing call life.