The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal

by Jim Loehr

Although most of us spend little or no time systematically training in any of these dimensions, we are expected to perform at our best for eight, ten and even twelve hours a day.

the need for recovery is often viewed as evidence of weakness rather than as an integral aspect of sustained performance.

We, too, must learn to live our own lives as a series of sprints—fully engaging for periods of time, and then fully disengaging and seeking renewal before jumping back into the fray to face whatever challenges confront us.

To build capacity, we must push beyond our normal limits, training in the same systematic way that elite athletes do.

The limiting factor in building any “muscle” is that many of us back off at the slightest hint of discomfort.

To meet increased demand in our lives, we must learn to systematically build and strengthen muscles wherever our capacity is insufficient.

Change is difficult. We are creatures of habit. Most of what we do is automatic and nonconscious. What we did yesterday is what we are likely to do today. The problem with most efforts at change is that conscious effort can’t be sustained over the long haul. Will and discipline are far more limited resources than most of us realize. If you have to think about something each time you do it, the likelihood is that you won’t keep doing it for very long. The status quo has a magnetic pull on us.

In contrast to will and discipline, which require pushing yourself to a particular behavior, a ritual pulls at you.

Look at any part of your life in which you are consistently effective and you will find that certain habits help make that possible.

Most of us spend more time reacting to immediate crises and responding to the expectations of others than we do making considered choices guided by a clear sense of what matters most.

We regularly underestimate the consequences of our energy management choices,

Performance is grounded in the skillful management of energy.

Energy is simply the capacity to do work.

We move from light sleep, when brain activity is intense and dreaming occurs, to deeper sleep, when the brain is more quiescent and the deepest restoration takes place. This rhythm is called the “basic rest-activity cycle” (BRAC). In the 1970s, further research showed that a version of the same 90-to 120-minute cycles—ultradian rhythms (ultra dies, “many times a day”)—operates in our waking lives.

Time is a finite resource and we all place infinite demands on it.

The inexorable advances in technology—meant to help us stay more connected—often serve instead to keep us from ever fully disconnecting.

Intermittently disengaging is what allows us to passionately reengage.

We grow at all levels by expending energy beyond our normal limits, and then recovering.

Expanding capacity requires a willingness to endure short-term discomfort in the service of long-term reward.

“The best moments [in our lives] usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”

In reality, physical energy is the fundamental source of fuel, even if our work is almost completely sedentary.