Episode 110: Identify & Track Your Energy Drivers

Have you ever thought about the fact that everything you do in your life is a data point? How many times you brush your teeth each week.... how many times you floss...

Everything you do in your life is actually a metric that determines and predicts the outcomes of your regular actions

Numbers my friends go beyond your Instagram Followers.

In this week's episode, we're going to be exploring what it means to track your life and how you can begin to create and identify your energy drivers which will help propel you into a lifestyle you want and most importantly shape your mindset for consistency.

Follow along with this week's materials and take what we talk about to the next level with the Energy Driver & Habit Tracker Spreadsheet that shows you real-time data, graphs, and charts that help you identify the days you're on fire, best days of the week, and how to best manage your daily routines actions.

Ready to launch your podcast? Learn How to Create, Produce, & Publish Your Podcast, Create Binge-Worthy Content, and Turn Your Listeners into Buyers inside my brand new course, Pretty Simple Podcast™

---

• TRANSCRIPT

  Have you ever thought about the fact that everything you do in your life is a data point? How many times you brush your teeth each week? How many times you floss? The number of times you vacuum the living room? Or how often you're cleaning that coffee cup of yours? Everything you do in your life is actually a metric that determines and predicts the outcomes of your regular actions. Numbers, my friends, go beyond your Instagram followers. In this week's episode, we're going to be exploring what it means to track your life and how you can create and identify your energy drivers, which will help propel you into a lifestyle you want, and most importantly, shape your mindset for consistency. I'm Sarah Steckler. Let's get into it. Welcome to the Mindful Productivity podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Steckler, and this is the place to be to live a more mindful and productive life. If you're ready to turn daily chaos into calm and start your days with intention, then get ready to join me as we dive deep into mindful living and personal productivity. It's time to connect with your true self so you can live the life you want to live.

  And it all starts Now. Welcome back to the show, you guys. This is episode 110. And if If this is your first time listening to the show, welcome to the podcast. There are so many episodes behind this one that are going to help you live that mindfully productive life and really get the right things done in your life and your business. So make sure to go back to the beginning and Binge your way through so you don't miss out on any of this amazing content. So this week, what are we talking about? Well, I know that I really want to keep things light-hearted and forward momentum moving. I am needing that energy in my life right now. It's been a few weeks being in quarantine, and I really need to get myself off of the couch and doing things that make me feel more productive and that really help my mental health. So before we get into today's podcast, we have a lot to talk about. I do want to say that I've been seeing this thing go around the Internet where it's basically this post that someone made and it says something like, if you're not using this time to be productive, then you've You never...

  Then you just never had the discipline or something like that, right? And then there's this other post that takes that post and crosses that out. And then it's like, this is a pandemic. You don't need to be productive. And so I actually have thoughts on that I want to share. So first of all, I totally agree that you don't have to be doing any one specific thing during this time. You shouldn't feel pressure to do more or to, again, like I said in a couple of episodes ago, to do more projects, take on more things, to burn yourself out just because you may be at home, just because you may have more time. There is still a worldwide low-level trauma response we're all going through right now at different levels as we navigate through all of this. And what So crazy is that at some point this podcast episode is going to be an archive. It's going to be back hundreds of episodes as we continue this podcast. And someday we're going to look back on this and be like, we got through it. Maybe the world is going to look different. Maybe it's not.

  But we will get through it. So today I want to talk about this, but I want to also just hit on this thing I've been seeing about productivity. And here's the thing. Stuff that you read online, sometimes you're going to see stuff and you're like, that resonates with me Because I guarantee you there are people, because I was one of them, that read that original post and was like, Oh, yeah. Hell, yeah. I do need more discipline. And I didn't take it as like, Oh, I feel pressure or I feel judged now. And here's why. When you're going through something or when you're reading something online, depending on what stage of life you're in, depending on what you're going through, you're either going to see things in a tiny little pretty box on Instagram that are totally going to resonate with you or they're totally going to piss you off, or maybe it's somewhere in between and you're like, whatever. That post that you see has only as much control over you as you allow it to have, right? So when you see stuff, you can totally You can spend your energy calling it out, saying, no, that's not right.

  That doesn't resonate with me, and that's fine. Or you can keep scrolling and be like, you know what? That didn't motivate me. I'm going to go find stuff that does. So just a little reminder that you are on the receiving end of things as well. There's shitty things people say online, but ultimately, take your power back. If something's annoying to you online, that message Not only, probably was just created by another human just like you who had an opinion that is subjective, and it doesn't have to impact you as heavily as maybe something does in the initial reaction to it. I hope that makes sense. A little tough love there, but I think you'll get where I'm coming from, because when I have been in low lows in my life, like when I went through trauma experiences, when I've lost loved ones, sometimes I see these positivity quotes and I'm like, that's a bunch of bullshit. That is not okay. And that's because I was in a place of my life where that didn't apply to me. But now I look back and I even see some of those posts and I'm like, oh, they do apply to me.

  So there's that weird line between something being lightwashing and going over people's human experiences. And then there's also our responsibility to think about how we want to receive it. So I just wanted to put that out there as a perspective shift, a paradigm shift, because ultimately you get to decide what bugs you and what doesn't to some extent, right? So today on this episode, I want to be talking just about that, about taking your power back, about what it means to identify your energy drivers and why these are so powerful, okay? And as I talk about these, we're going to be following along with something I created called the Energy Driver and Habit Tracker. Spreadsheets. So if this is something that you want to implement and you want to see this data in real time as you identify your energy drivers, you want to see it over the month and for the whole year, then you can head on over to sarahsteckler.com/energy, and you can grab that spreadsheet and you can start using it right away. So let's talk about the difference between energy drivers and habits. Now, essentially, if you look at what they are and the action behind them, they're pretty much the same thing.

  But here's why energy drivers are so much more powerful, because when you think about identifying the four pillars of your energy drivers, which we go into in this spreadsheet, you are identifying what drives your energy. And when you do that, it's not just a habit that you're just doing for the sake of doing it. It's an energy driver. And then that becomes a choice. Because when you then say, I am choosing not to take action on this one specific energy driver, right? Maybe it's going to bed at a certain time to ensure you get enough sleep. Then what you're basically telling yourself in that moment is, I am choosing to not fuel that energy driver. I am choosing to negate that need that I have. And so that changes everything, at least for me, that changes everything, because when I think about habits, I'm just like, I don't want to check it off. I don't care. I don't care if it doesn't show up on my little bullet journal wheel that I have. But if it's an energy driver, then you start to see how that impacts everything, how that impacts your mental health, how that impacts your physical well-being, how that impacts your mind set.

  So let's talk a little bit about energy drivers. But before we do, I have one quick question for you. Have you ever noticed how some podcasts sound like this? While other ones sound a lot more like this, if you've been thinking about creating your own podcast or improving the one that you already have, and you want step by step tutorials that not only show you the tech behind running, producing, managing, and creating a consistent podcast, but you also want to know how to create binge-worthy content and turn your listeners into buyers and raving fans, then you're definitely going to want to go check out my newest course called Pretty Simple Podcast. Inside this course, I'm going to be walking you through everything that you need to know to produce a high-quality podcast that's not only going to help you build your brand and connect with your community, but that's also going to impact the way that you can run and scale your business. You guys, I've been running the Mindful Productivity podcast since 2018, and it has completely transformed the way that I'm able to show up in my business, the money that I'm able to bring in every month.

  And it's connected me to all of you and so many other amazing listeners that have become coaching clients and students of mine and so much more. So if this is something that you're interested in, go check out the course. It's at sarahsteckler.com/prettysimplepodcast. And if you are listening to this episode at the time, at the week that this is coming out, you're definitely going to want to go check it out because as always, there's an amazing presale price going on right now. One thing that's really, really impactful about identifying your energy drivers and then tracking them is that, like I said in the beginning of the podcast, you're tracking a metric. You're now tracking a piece of data. And when you do that, it's helpful because sometimes we can get too into the emotional side of our brain and we forget to realize what are the actions that we're taking that are actually leading to the feeling that we're feeling. Because a lot of times, and I don't always like to admit this, but a lot of times I'm more in control of how I feel emotionally by the actions I'm taking or not taking, then I'm leading myself to believe, right?

  It's easy math in a lot of ways. You think about how maybe you're in a bad mood or your energy is low, and it's really easy to blame it on external circumstances or blame it on just like, I don't know. I'm just like, things are going my way. And then if you really ask yourself, well, how much water have you had today? How much sleep did you get? Did you have some greens today? Did you move your body? Basic, basic stuff. We all know this. This isn't some magic revelation. But when we ask ourselves these questions and when we're able to look at these data points, then we can find that we do have more control and that we can see that we have the opportunity to switch our day and gain back our energy and again, produce these energy driving actions. If I open up my energy driver and have a tracker, and I notice that the past four days, I did not hit my 100 ounces of water. And what's so cool about this tracker, too, is that it's not just a quick yes or no, did you do it? There's also an almost did it.

  So there's also a section that's going to graph out for you whether or not you completed something, and then even if you tried or attempted it. And then that's going to show you real time data that's going to give you an idea of not only how often you're doing things, but it's also going to show you when you're on fire with certain tasks and what your best days of the week are. So if I know that I am drinking water consistently, and maybe for whatever reason, my routine has been different on Wednesdays or maybe, let me put it this way, let's say, Mondays and Tuesdays. That's usually when I take the bulk of my coaching calls or I schedule calls with my students in my courses or do journal focus sessions or any of those things that I do. Those days tend to be a little bit more mentally intensive because I'm on Zoom calls with students all day. And because of that, my routine is different. Because of that, I don't always make the movement I need as much of a priority as I do on other days when maybe there's a little less structure and I'm more apt to go on an extra walk or take Bella outside a few more times.

  And so when I look at that information on my energy driver and have a tracker spreadsheet, for example, then I can see, oh, look, on Mondays and Tuesdays, those are the days, right? And I'm looking at this data. Those are days where I'm not meeting my movement. In fact, some of those days, not every single week, but sometimes on Mondays and Tuesdays, I'm not doing any movement at all other than walking to my office and then going to bed. And that's interesting because the rest of the days of the week, I seem to be doing well with movement. You look at this data at a glance and then suddenly you go, oh, what else is also interesting? When When I don't move my body as much, I notice, right? And there's a note section here, I notice that my mood is a little lower, or I notice that I reported being a little bit more frustrated during that week. Or maybe you notice how some energy driver habits affect other ones, right? Like, for example, if you don't hit that eight hours of sleep or whatever you're trying to get, you might notice that it's harder to make that green smoothie in the morning, or it's harder to get that walk in because you're tired, or maybe you're trying to compensate for that lack of energy, or you just don't have the mindset available to you that you might if you did get a full night's sleep.

  So again, this is really baseline stuff, but there's something so powerful about coming back to it. I think right now a lot of us are looking for and hoping for these magic solutions. What do I have to do to get my life back on track? Or what do I have to do to get back more energy? And to be honest, too, a lot of us are going to just be drained as the world turns right now, right? Because there's a lot going on, a lot more that we have to think about than we normally didn't. But that doesn't mean that we can't control our daily actions and we can't come back to the simplicity of things. Because when you come back to the simplicity of your daily actions, then you really get to see how little it really takes to transform your day. I'll give you an example. So to be honest, the first couple of weeks of quarantine, I ate like shit. I mean, I I didn't really have a solid meal. I just grazed throughout the day. I just like, walking in the kitchen and open the fridge. And it was really annoying not only to myself, but also every time I get up and walk into the kitchen, my cat, Dublin, comes in there screaming at me because she thinks I'm going to get her some food or something.

  So I had to deal with that. My point is, I finally decided enough was enough. And the other day I was like, I'm going to get up when my alarm goes off. And I'm going to make a green smoothie. And I threw some frozen mango in there, some kale, a banana. I had some orange juice, some other things. Threw it in there. And I had that thing and my body was like, yes, girl, yes. Where have you been? This is what we need. And I felt so good. Have you ever felt that? Have you ever been eating poorly, eating a bunch of junk or processed food? And then all of a sudden you give your body what it needs, some fresh fruit, enough water, enough sleep, and you feel like you've transformed your life. That is how I felt. That is how powerful energy drivers are. So think about that. That's my little reminder for you this week, is that you don't have to be this productivity master right now. You don't have to do more. What you actually need to do, probably, is to actually just do less, but do it more consistently and more effectively.

  I have a feeling that a lot of us, in fact, I'm going to just wager millions of us, are feeling even worse because we already feel overwhelmed or anxious or sad or whatever we're feeling right now with everything. And then because of that, there's a trickle down. Because of that, then we don't drink enough water. Because of that, right? Think about it, when you're feeling low or depressed or any of those things, you typically don't go, Oh, you know what I need? I need to take care care of myself. That's not necessarily most of our responses. We can learn and train ourselves to do that. We can learn how to really create effective self-care for ourselves. But most of the time, if you're already feeling low, then you're going to also do things that keep you on that plane, right? And if you're feeling low and you're like, I don't care. I just don't have any energy. Oh, look, I'm going to eat this box of cookies. Then that box of cookies also, and this is just an example, is going to keep you feeling low. So what we can do right now is reach not far.

  It doesn't have to be a huge jump, but we can just reach outside of our comfort zone just a little bit and reach for things. And I'm not just... Food is a classic example, but I'm talking about all kinds of things. Reach for things that help us along. Reach for things that do drive our energy. Okay? Another great example. Just even doing something like reading five pages a day out of a book. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. You don't have to read 50 or 100 pages a day to feel happier, to feel some level of structure or productivity during your day. And you also are totally allowed to have days where you don't do anything. But I know for me that if I don't have some structure, if I don't have some goal that I'm working towards or some baseline level of needs that I'm holding myself accountable to, then I tend to spiral out into this really low level, shittier version of myself. I'm mootier, I don't have as much patience, I tend to lose my empathy, and I'm not as engaged of a wife or a friend. And so I know that it's totally acceptable and totally needed and nourishing to have those days where I do nothing, but only to an extent, right?

  I was having a conversation with my husband, And he is stuck right now. He is stuck overseas and not able to really go much of anywhere. And he was like, the first few weeks of this were honestly pretty okay. I was playing video games. It was great. But now I would give anything to get up and have to go to work. And I think a lot of us feel that way. We would give anything for structure. And if that's you, okay, no matter where you you're at, no matter what stage in life you're at, if you're like, you know what? I know. I know that structure right now and just even making sure I'm doing these five things or whatever every day would make me feel better, then why not give yourself a little push? Why not create the discipline around that? Discipline is not a bad thing. Discipline is a incredible tool for your self-care, because a lot of times we think that self-care, I'm We're going on this big tangent rant today. Hope you're ready. Buckle up. A lot of times, I think we think that self-care is only the good feeling things.

  It's only the things that make us feel good while we're doing them in the moment. But I argue that that is just one. That is just one core element of self-care. And it's usually those little beneficial ones, right? Like, yeah, drinking water does feel good. Taking a bath feel good. Journaling, for the most part, great. But those things are not the deep rooted self care that actually get you some of the bigger results you need, right? Like the healing stuff you need to do. A lot of that stuff, a lot of that self care, a lot of that discipline is stuff that you're not going to want to do in the moment. I'll be honest. There are some of my energy drivers that I don't want to do necessarily. And I don't like, I force myself through things in a painful way. But I know that more often than not, especially right now, as I'm getting back into things, there are definitely days where I don't feel like getting out of bed sometimes. I just want to throw in the towel for the day, or I just want to cancel all my calls for the day.

  But I know that that's not going to serve me, right? So I do get up. So I do make myself go on a walk, okay? And there's probably a better phrase than make myself. But I really think about discipline as my partner Partner in crime. Discipline equals structure. And discipline is what really gets me to stay consistent with taking care of myself. Because when I have discipline and structure around basic things, right? You're brushing and flossing your teeth, you have discipline around that, right? Those are your non-negotiable things, right? You're not going to not take care of yourself or not take a shower forever because you just don't feel like it. At some point, you stink. Let's do So these are just examples. But this also applies to different areas of your business, right? Right now, running my business, there are definitely days where I'm like, I don't feel like working. And I definitely have been taking more time off. I've been giving myself more breaks. I've been working less hours, less chunks of time at a time. But there are still things that I have to do. There are always things, no matter what you're doing, even if you're working on the biggest passion project of your life, there are going to be There are going to be elements of it that you don't like.

  There are going to be elements of it that you don't want to do. Even as you're working towards becoming the best version of yourself, improving your health, improving your mindset, there's going to be times when that feels like the easiest thing you've ever done in your life. Like you're going down a rainbow slide with guacamole in your hand. Man, I really miss chipotle, and all this stuff. But more often than not, you're not going to feel that way. More often than not, you're going to feel the resistance. And the resistance and the discipline are not negatives. Prove me wrong. Prove me wrong. I'd love to have a conversation about it. Because truly, when you're working around and observing the resistance, in fact, the more Let me just back up a minute here. The minute you do feel resistance about doing something or creating a daily discipline in your life, my challenge to you is to take a minute and observe that resistance. And as you're observing it, as you're going, why? What's behind that? Okay, there's that. What's behind that? Okay, there's that. What's behind that? What you're going to find is that that resistance doesn't actually exist.

  It's just a rule or it's a mindset that you didn't know about yet about yourself. And as soon as you call it out, you go, Oh, there is no resistance. Oh, I can do this. Oh, I want to do this. You can go from, I don't want to do this. I shouldn't have to do this. No one should pressure me to do this. You can go from that to, I'm choosing to do this because this is going to make me feel better today. So when you think about what your energy drivers are, what are the things that you need to do that will give you energy, that will be joy-fueling, life-giving, sleep? Maybe there's creativity, right? There's creative things that you can do, creative energy drivers, right? Like in your business. Maybe that's podcasting, maybe that's blogging, Creating a journal, whatever it is. Think about those things right now and make time for those things. Make time for those things and create micro steps and micro actions. And pro tip here, if you can make your daily, one of your daily energy drivers, like the time it takes for you to do it or sink into it, like going to sleep or whatever.

  If you can make that 5 to 10 minutes or less, you're really going to be on cloud nine. You're really going to be killing it. I mean, even less than that, right? Because The less time you have to do something, the more likely you're going to do it and be efficient with it. It's like I tell my clients sometimes. I've worked with quite a few clients that are like, one of their micro goals is decluttering or something. And I'm like, okay. And they're like, I just don't have hours to do it. I'm like, why do you need hours to do it? Just give yourself five minutes. After our call, do it. Go do it for five minutes. And they're like, that's not enough time. And I'm like, I know. But you're going to do it. You're going to do it for five minutes. And what ends up happening? Hey, I did that for five minutes. It ended up being 15 minutes. And I ended up getting way more done in that 15 minutes span than I thought I could. If you're thinking about your business and you're wanting to do something or you're wanting to show up more, you're wanting to go live on Instagram, you don't have to have some mini course you're doing on your Instagram Live.

  You don't have to go live for an hour. Just go live for three minutes. If you're thinking about doing something in your life right now and you're hesitant and you're facing resistance, break it down, make it smaller. Whether that's the time limit, whether that's the effort or the energy you're putting into it, right? If you really need to start exercising, you don't have to do a full workout online. There's some amazing workouts online on YouTube right now. Oh, man, there's so many good ones. And I look at some of them and they're like 20 minutes. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, I don't know if I can do 20 minutes of that. That looks intense. So you know what I sometimes do? I don't do it at all. But that's a mistake, because all you have to do is turn that on and just tell So I'm going to do the first three minutes today, the first three minutes. And maybe you only do two minutes and you can't breathe. You still took action. That's still a win. That's still a huge win. So today, think about your energy drivers. I know we talked I got a lot.

  I went all over the place. Think about what those are. Break them down, make them less than five minutes. And if there's something you want to do right now, but you haven't done it yet, and there's resistance, and you think that discipline is evil and it's the antithesis of self It's not. Again, come on Instagram. Come at me. If you disagree with me, let's have a conversation. I love debates. You might prove me wrong. I don't know. Identifying your energy drivers is going to change your life. And that is where you take back your life, you guys. That is where we all take back our lives right now. We look inward. You can spend so much time looking outward and being upset about what you can't change and what's happening in the world. Or you can look inward. You can look at your internal locus of control and you can go, I got this. This next hour, I got this. Today, I'm going to show up for myself. Showing up for yourself is powerful. Taking care of yourself will take care of the world right now. So let's do it. We're all in this together.

  Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of the podcast. I'm so glad you're here. If you enjoy the show, I always love it when you guys leave reviews on Apple podcast over on iTunes. Lets me know that you're enjoying it, helps other people find the show. And I always, always, always love it. When you come on over to Instagram, I'm at mindfulproductivityblog and tag me. Tag me, let me know you're listening to the show. Send me a DM. And I would love to see you guys in my new course, Pretty Simple Podcast. So if you're thinking about creating a podcast, you don't know where to get started, you're looking for confidence, you're wanting that help, then come join. I'd love to see you there. All right, guys. Have a beautiful week. Here we go. One more week down. Let's get after it.