In the last post I talked to you about the first pillar of success, TIME. If you haven’t yet read that, I encourage you to catch up there first.

The next pillar I want to talk about is energy, because we all have a limited amount of energy that we can put into each day. And for some of us, energy is completely drained when we do certain things and we become really energised when we do other things. 

Do you know if you’re an introvert or if you’re an extrovert?

If you’re an introvert you probably gain more energy and recharge yourself and your body by spending time on your own. If you’re an extrovert, other people probably give you lots of energy and being in an environment where there’s lots of people and lots of noise, really gets you fired up. And they work in opposition to each other. An introvert doesn’t want to spend lots of time in a really busy, chaotic place, because that will just completely drain them and vice versa. Do you know which one you are? And do you know what your energy levels are like and where you get them from?

Let’s talk about how much sleep you need. 

Are you getting enough sleep? Because sleep is something that can really easily make a big difference and a big change to your energy levels.

If you’re getting enough sleep, then you will find that you have more energy to sustain throughout the day. And if you’re not getting enough sleep, then you definitely notice it.

I’ve talked previous about how I used to work in commercial radio and I was a breakfast radio announcer, so sleep in those days to me became so incredibly important because I only had a certain amount of time before the alarm would go off and I had to get up and I had to be on when I got to work. So I had to learn really quickly how many hours of sleep I needed and how to fit them into the 24 hour span in the lead up to being at work that next morning.

I encourage you to think about how much sleep you need for yourself and whether or not you’re getting that sleep? 

The best hints and tips I can give for you is that now, as an adult with three children and three small children, if I want to give myself a sleep in (which I know is completely unrealistic and in my world, it just doesn’t exist) I reverse engineer it. If I want to give myself a sleep in, I go to bed an hour early, and then I get an extra hour of sleep and then that’s my sleep in!

I encourage you to do some research, trial different numbers, different hours. Most people operate around the seven or eight hour mark, but you might be one of these lucky people like my husband, who can completely function on six hours of sleep and sometimes five and a half. I need eight hours of sleep and I have friends who need 10. 

How much sleep do you need to make sure that you have the right energy levels to be able to put into your day?

When it comes to what you’re eating and your food, do you know what foods give you great energy and give you energy to be able to get through all of the busy things that you’ve got to do in your day? 

Again, that’s something that if you don’t think about it and you are not organised and prepared, it can be just something that’s swept by the wayside and you end up grabbing whatever’s there and whatever’s easy and convenient, but it has a lot to do with your energy levels. So I encourage you to again, along with your sleep, do some research into what foods give you energy that you need. And hopefully that energy can be sustained.

In the next post, we’ll move on to talking about the final pillar of success, MONEY.