There is a lot of talk about energy today and understandably so. We have more demands on our personal energy than at any other time in history and I’m not talking about the kind of energy that we used to spend "plowing the field".

I’m talking about the vital energy (likened to the energy of a battery) that we spend processing information, staring at a computer screen for hours on end, communicating, contemplating, worrying, planning etc. This energy is in short supply, and a lack of it causes what you’ll soon come to know as the downward trend.

Discover how to reverse the downward trend. Download the Performance Lifestyle Manifesto.

On most people’s minds is how they can increase this "vital" energy. Don’t you feel that way? I do. Matter of fact, it was the need to manage my energy better for peak performance, to accomplish my goals in a more powerful way and improve my quality of life, that inspired the development of the Performance Lifestyle System.

For years, given the level at which I was performing, I was draining my vital energy in a big way and it was really hampering my attitude and success. Not only was I not looking or feeling the way I wanted, or performing at the level I wanted to maintain, my quality of life was going downhill because I always felt tired.

At one point I blamed it on "not getting enough protein", but how wrong I was. I was overlooking the fundamental idea of energy management.

But I didn’t want just to increase my energy a little I wanted what I later termed "breakthrough energy". Now you may think that’s just a great sounding spin on the idea of increasing energy, but it’s not. Breakthrough energy is the energy you get when you take a step or two back so that you can take many more forward in a position of strength.

Think about the last time you made a major stride forward in your body, with a business or life goal; I would venture to say if was after a sustained recuperative period where you were seriously recharged and rejuvenated. Well, it’s that kind of energy that I wanted to take advantage of on a more consistent basis, not merely once in a while after the opportunity to vacation, to achieve breakthough success in my body, business and life; which leads me to the main point of this post:

What we learn about in terms of "increasing energy” usually falls into tactical categories which are valuable, but miss the main point of energy management. To achieve breakthrough energy, you must have a lifestyle strategy or plan that works to regenerate the energy you need on a consistent basis.

Here’s what I mean. 

1) Getting more sleep or taking a nap are important ideas to understand, though they’re value is diminished if your lifestyle is burning you out, significantly out of balance to begin with and overspent.  What should be an enjoyable experience can actually become an uncomfortable experience.

2) Stimulation. There is no greater delusion in the world than thinking you are gaining energy when you’re actually losing it, especially when the method for stimulating yourself is not even health promoting such as when you consume commercial solutions for increasing energy like Red Bull. I suppose it has it’s time and place, but it’s not a method to depend on, more than every once in a while when the absolute need arises. 

3) Being more efficient. Energy allocation is one of the greatest skills you can learn. Especially today, we simply can’t spend our energy "all over the map". If we do, sleep and rest can’t even do their job! A great discipline yes, but you can’t allocate energy you don’t have. The less you have the more you spend.

4) Positive thinking is an important element of energy management, because negative energy is associated with a poor attitude and a poor outlook and that can dampen anyone’s spirit and success; but it’s just plain hard to be positive when you’re on a downward energy trend. Positivity takes energy!

5) Working with  the bodies’ energy center’s to increase energy flow (Chakra’s)… and other less practical, methods of energy management (not to diminish their value or the value of their practitioners), are useful practices as well. But I say “less practical”, only because energy management as we teach in the Performance Lifestyle System has to be something that anybody can do, anytime independently, and it has to be easy to grasp. Methods that fit this category have a degree of mysticism involved and require a great deal more understanding to be applicable to most people. It is my belief that there are many more “tier 1” answers that people overlook that should be put in play first, before “relying” on the less practical.

6) There are many others. Matter of fact, Jon Gordon Author of Energy Addict, will give you 101 Physical, Mental, and Spiritual Ways to Energize Your Life. Virtually all lifestyle factors can be discussed in the context of energy management.

So What’s Missing?

What’s missing is a lifestyle “strategy” that promotes energy balance as the basis to health and high performance. A lifestyle strategy is different for everyone, but nonetheless there are essential skills that make it possible. Athletes and other healthy high achieving people know and live by these skills, because their very success depends on it!

For example, when you learn how to "periodize" your week the quality of your life is going to change in a big Way. If you want to know how to achieve breakthrough energy, you want to learn this key to success.

This is just one of the skills you’ll learn when you take the 7 Steps to Look, Feel and Perform Better, In a Lifestyle that Works for You! - See The Driver’s Manual of the Performance Lifestyle.