SDH 406: Managing Your Energy with a 9-5 and Building Your Business on the Side

Hello hello my She Did It Her Way listeners! I hope you’re having an amazing day. I think if 2020 has taught us anything it is that literally ANYTHING is possible and that means you are making your ultimate leap. 

If you’ve been listening to the podcast for some time then you know I’m all about building your business and validating it while working full-time. I strongly advise against quitting, and then figuring it out. While it does prove to be successful in some cases, majority of the time it doesn’t always go well. When you go from having 1-2 hours a day to work on your business a few days a week to a new found schedule of having all the time in the world your brain may freak out and wonder, “What do I do with all my time?”

Well today on the podcast I’m going to dive into how to manage your energy (and time) while working a full-time job and building your business on the side. If you can learn these time and energy management principles while working your full-time job then it is going to help set you up for even greater success with managing your calendar when you go full-time. 

In today’s podcast episode I’m diving into...

• How time and energy are different
• Why energy can be more important than time 
• What is energy fuel?
• What zaps your energy and how to protect yourself
• Change your thoughts to change your energy

Time and energy are two very different things. 

You can spend an hour doing something you love and feel energized afterwards and you can spend 30 minutes doing something that doesn’t feel expansive and drains your energy. This is why people choose to outsource things in their life and business. For example, if you don’t like to cook you may decide to sign up for a meal delivery service. If you don’t like to clean and cause arguments between you and your spouse...you may opt to invest in a cleaning service. That is what happened between my husband and I. I enjoy organizing not necessarily cleaning and when it started to zap my energy, let alone become a topic that we often go into disagreements about we decided to invest in a cleaning company and split the bill because it was worth it to not expend time and energy on disagreements and my time and energy on actual cleaning. In business it may look like outsourcing podcast production to someone to free up your time and energy. People and friends you hang out with can either give you energy or zap your energy. If you don’t have the energy to do what you want and what needs to get done, then you’re left depleted. It is very important to become aware of what zaps your energy and what gives you energy so you can protect yourself.

Why energy can be more important than time. 

If you have the energy but no time, you’ll find the time because you’re inspired to do so. But if you have the time but no energy, you’ll be stuck and sluggish. 

What is energy fuel?

Energy fuel is the type of energy that fuels your actions.

I believe that we have an infinite reservoir of energy and that we have to cultivate it. 

Energy fuel is part how we physically feel and part influenced by the thoughts that we think.

Energy can be caused by the thoughts that we think. Energy fuel can be heavy, light, inspiring, excited, determined, resistant. 

If you assume something is going to be long, hard and strenuous, that will affect the energy that will fuel you into action (or potentially no action at all). 

If you think that starting your email list is going to be overwhelming and complicated, then when it comes time to sit down to start building your email list you will resist it because in your mind you’ve already made it out to be overwhelming. So there for, the energy you’re using as fuel is heavy, resistant and draining. 

However though, if you change the way you approach the situation and view starting your email list as something exciting and experimental, you’re going to channel fuel that is more inspiring, more light, vs heavy. 

If you find yourself in your full-time job thinking, “Ahhh I have to pump out a month’s worth of Instagram’s post tonight and I’m not sure how I’m going to get it done and I need to get 50 more people in my Facebook group and ahhh….” You can imagine the type of energy fuel that is being used caused by the thoughts you’re thinking and the energy you’re fueling your actions with. It is very rushing and overwhelming. 

Versus if you think “Okay, tonight I need to create 12 captions for Instagram and I can’t wait to share my knowledge and test it out! I also want to connect with 50 people who I know I can help and serve,” you’ll feel light and inspired to take action. 

You need to find the reason and inspiration to give yourself to either get out of bed in the morning before your full-time job or to be disciplined to put in the hours after work. You need to fuel your actions with energy that is going to inspire you. 

What zaps your energy:

There are many things that can zap your energy. Here is the short list:

• Your thoughts, specifically ones that don’t serve you, like ones that tell you that question your ability to have anything you want, that make you second guess your worth, ones that cause you to spin out in overwhelm. 
• Thoughts that reinforce the story that you never have enough time. 
• Keeping a mental to-do list.
• Resisting unwanted emotions and not actually surrendering to feel them
• Eating processed foods, sugar, alcohol. 
• Negative people
• Speaking and thinking negatively of others
• Being angry
• Content switching (moving in and out of tasks)

Change your thoughts to change your energy:

Next time you’re getting ready to do something and find yourself feeling resistant and heavy, I want you to bring into awareness the thought you are thinking and the energy associated with it. 

Example: Let’s say you want to start getting up 90 minutes earlier in the morning to work on your business. You set the alarm for 5AM (instead of 6:30 AM)...I want you to be aware of your thoughts and energy when you set the alarm. Are you dreading getting up in the morning or excited? If dreading, why? If excited, why are you excited? Unpack it right there. 

Another example: Let’s say you’ve got 4 pieces of content to create and you’re kind of feeling like you’re pressed for time and thinking, “I have no idea how I’m going to get this all done with work.” You’ve got your full-time job that is quite demanding right now. You want to catch yourself as soon as you can when you start to have a thought that causes you to feel heavy, or in this can possible rushed. And ask yourself how you can change your thoughts. You can shift that thought to, “I’m so excited to create these 4 pieces of content and because I’m so excited to create them it won’t take a ton of time at all.”

I often find that when I’m dreading something, one of the reasons is because I think it is going to take much longer than it actually will. 

Imagine you have 100 units of energy everyday and if you can eliminate the things that zap your energy and don’t need to do and change the way you think so that that thoughts you think change, you can tap into infinite energy and as much energy as you want. 

This is why it is so important to do work and build a business you love and believe in. One that has a strong why because you will lean on that during your journey as a business owner to cultivate inspiration and energy you need to continue moving forward. 

I hope you enjoyed today’s podcast episode and until next time, keep doing it your way!