That being said, I intend to honor your soul by giving you the wisdom you deserve as you read this article and learn about 9 of the most awesome strategies I’ve discovered for living a more energized life. Let’s start by defining what it means to live a more energized life. I attended an incredible and life transformational program in January called ULTIMATUM. It was led by a wizardly man named Donny Epstein, who I feel defined energy best as, “Energy is the context to all content.” Every single thought, feeling, action, concept, idea, emotion, and decision we make is influenced by the amount of energy we show up with. Energy is the unit for all creation. We need it for our body to run it’s autonomous functions along with the voluntary decisions we make. Emotion is a code-word for energy in motion. Passion inspires us, and anger can make us breakthrough or break down. We need energy to formulate higher order thoughts and concepts. We get fueled with energy when we have a soul connection with another, feel connected to our calling and purpose, and when we focus on gratitude. Energy is the unit for life. We can look at the energy we show up as in three simple ways that I also learned from Donny Epstein. Imagine there’s three levels of energy: poor, neutral and rich. When we’re showing up as energy poor, we may come up with excuses of why we can’t do this — we may be losing money, our health may be declining, or our relationship may be falling apart. There’s not enough energy available to even sustain what we have. Everything feels like it’s falling apart. We are focused on survival. Then there’s an upgrade to energy neutral, where we generally maintain a baseline status quo. There’s no real progress, no real changes…and if any, just small ones that feel comfortable, as opposed to more radical and energizing upgrades to our lives. Energy neutral is okay, comfortable, and even good. Then we zoom into energy rich where abundance is our state. This is when we can sustain rapid changes with progress, growth, and creation of new and greater levels of living. Inspiration, victory, love, joy, passion, and excitement are all states of energy richness. Sustainable and even exponential growth become the norm for energy rich. Thus concludes my brief summary of what energy is. Right now, I intend to give you 9 practical strategies to live a more energized life. This may be going from states of energy neutral to energy rich, and even energy poor to neutral, to rich. Are you ready to embrace a greater version of you? It starts with…
1. Oxygenating your body
Without oxygen, our physical body can not function. To put it simply, without it: we die. A trend that has been going on for far too long is that many of us aren’t receiving enough oxygen daily to sustain a great quality of life. When we sit and hunch over to work on our computer screens, we maintain a posture that makes it difficult to breathe deeply to nourish our cells with oxygen. Here’s a spectacular solution: Use the 1-4-2 breathing method daily. I first learned about this method through a Tony Robbins program. I noticed the power of how vibrant I began to feel after implementing this simple deep breathing exercise throughout my days.
2. Drinking natural spring water
Tap water is flooded with arsenic, aluminum, fluoride, prescription, and over-the-counter drugs. Dr. Mercola has written a spectacular article educating the public about it. Most of us are chronically dehydrated. Much of this dehydration has to do with the quality of water we’re drinking. Did you know that nearly 40% of bottled water is actually tap water? As for the water that may truly be natural spring water that’s in a plastic bottle, there are chemicals leaking into the water from the plastic, especially when the bottle is heated through sun exposure and exposed to light (florescent lights in grocery stores). My recommendation is to exchange your old water supply (if it was tap water in plastic bottles) to natural spring water. You can have fun and find a local natural spring. You’ll basically get the purest, most natural, mineral-rich water for free nearby. Otherwise there are spring water delivery services through which you can get water delivered to you in glass jugs. I personally use Mountain Valley Spring Water and have been very happy with the quality of the water, as well as their customer service.
3. Creating a results-focused plan
When we start with a results-focused plan with clarity, we allow our resourcefulness to focus on everything that will help us accomplish our goal best. Tony Robbins has developed an outstanding strategy called the RPM plan: results-focused, purpose-driven, massive action plan. An RPM plan starts with knowing the result you want. Clarity is power. When we make a clear decision on what it is we want, our reticular activating system supports us in subconsciously guiding our focus on everything that’s relevant to getting what we want. When we know what we want, we can consciously use why we want it (the purpose) as emotional fuel to give us the courageousness, audacity, boldness, and perseverance to fuel us through any obstacles in order to achieve what we want no matter what. Viktor Frankl, the famous Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust surviving author of “Man’s Search For Meaning” has said, “Those who have a ‘why’ to live can bear with almost any ‘how’.” The last part of the RPM plan is MASSIVE ACTION. Knowing what we want first allows us to take more strategic and results-focused actions, as opposed to blindly being activity-driven without knowing what we’re really after.
4. Belly laughing with great company
When was the last time you cracked up so hard that you spit your drink out of your mouth? Aren’t those the greatest laughs? Maybe not the spitting out your drink part, but the deep belly laughs from the hilariousness of the moment. Laughter is one of the most underrated medicines in the world, where the side effects benefit your health and those who you share the laughs with. If you want to experience how energizing it can be to laugh, next time you’re feeling sluggish start a laughing contest with a friend. Begin with fake laughing as hard and loud as you can. Eventually, you won’t help but realize how silly and funny it is and you’ll start to really build up the laughter. Sooner than you know it, you’ll be belly laughing. More likely than not, you’ll also feel fueled with energy. Laughter releases endorphins that make us feel high, increases bonding with others, stimulates our organs, and improves our immune system, as well as our mood. Add belly laughter into your daily rituals and you’ll live a more energized and enriched life.
5. Upgrading your nervous system
Our nervous system is what sends messages from our brain to every single cell, tissue, muscle, and organ in our body. It’s what processes information from our outside and inside world. It’s what allows us to feel, see, taste, hear, and smell. When there’s disconnection in our nervous system, there’s a disconnection in our full expression of life. The nervous system is like the software for ourselves. In a day and age where we have more information flying at us faster and in greater quantity than ever, we are more susceptible to feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and fearful. One of the greatest things we can do today is upgrade our nervous system. I previously shared my story on Lifehack about how I overcame anxiety by upgrading my nervous system. To upgrade your nervous system effectively, I recommend going through the wizardly man I introduced earlier in this article, Donny Epstein. He’s trained many practitioners around the world in a phenomenal healing modality that allows us to remove interference in our nervous system, using our tension (stored potential energy) as fuel to upgrade our lives.
6. Planting and gardening
The foods you eat out of your garden are most likely significantly more nutrient-rich than foods you’ll find at a grocery store. Also, you can trust the quality of the foods from your garden, along with picking them off when they’re most ripe. Planting and gardening our food also adds a spiritual aspect with our relationship to food, as we see the life process happen and we participate with it. One of the easiest ways we can get involved with planting and gardening at the comfort of inside our home is to grow sunflower seed sprouts. If you have a garden available or patio space for pots, you can plant greens like kale, arugula, butter lettuce, and collard greens. You can also plant herbs like parsley, cilantro, mint, basil, and oregano for a variety of energy rich foods. Amongst the nutritional and spiritual benefits of planting and gardening, we are also outside and more exposed to the sun which is our greatest source of Vitamin D. This vitamin is one of the most vital ones for our overall health and well-being, and one that most of us are deficient in.
7. Group sports and exercise
Exercise is crucial to growing more fit and sustaining an outstanding quality of life. Group sports is one of the best ways to get healthy exercise for ourselves. We are challenged physically and mentally with the joy of competition, as well as the greater strategies and communication we incorporate to win the game. Also, group sports and exercise situations are generally more fun and engaging, as we are with other peers and are held accountable for how we play and train. If you’re ready to have a more physically and mentally energized life through group exercise, check out Spartan Race. They are famous for the camaraderie and teamwork that’s built in their epic obstacle course events.
8. Having accountability partners for goals
One of the greatest success strategies that people have used for many years is incorporating the power of accountability partners. According to a study done by Forbes magazine, people who shared their goals with others had over a 25% chance of achieving their goal as opposed to the group who didn’t share their life goals. A key thing to do when choosing accountability partners is to choose someone who you know is dedicated to living an extraordinary life. When you have your partner, make a commitment with one another to show up fully and honestly, as well as inspire and challenge each other to show up with even more vibrancy, passion, and courageousness. One effective strategy for encouraging each other to thrive more in your life results is to create rewards for achievement of goals. This may be enjoying a movie, going out to a cool party, or having some raw chocolate. Another effective strategy that tends to kick all of our butts into action is to use pain to drive us through stakes, double-dog dares, or the classic bet. It’s part of Tim Ferris’s worldly-known D.S.S.S. Meta-learning technique that he’s used to become world-class in a number of areas of life. Some examples include donating money to charities you strongly abhor, doing something very embarrassing, and doing a favor for the other person. Whatever strategy you tend to use often, having accountability partners for goals is a key part of living an energized life.
9. Expressing Gratitude
Gratitude is medicine, it really is. Dr. Masaru Emoto studied how emotion affected the molecule structure of water. What’s most interesting is seeing the beautiful crystalline features of when water is blessed with love and gratitude. Consider the effects of what emotions does to water into a bigger perspective. Since our bodies are made of over 70% water, imagine how powerfully emotions affect our health knowing with this information in mind. It’s been proven that emotions turn on and off certain gene expression. Combine this with the knowledge of how emotions have affected water with Dr. Emoto’s research and you can imagine the wonderful benefits that feeling and expressing gratitude regularly can have on your body, mind, and life. Gratitude is one of the most energizing emotions we have available in our range of emotions. One of the fastest ways we can feel gratitude is to use questions to direct our focus. For instance, what are you grateful for right now? Are you grateful for being alive? For the food you have to eat? For your family and friends? For your career? The Universe? Try the experiment on focusing, feeling, and expressing gratitude to yourself and others for 15 minutes every morning and evening. You’ll see just how quickly you’ll have a more energized life. There you have it. That’s 9 awesome strategies for living a more energized life. Implementing even one of these strategies has the potential to make enormous changes in your health and life. If you’re dedicated to a legendary life, I challenge you to focus on all 9 of these strategies every day for the next 30 days. I also challenge you to invite 5 people to join you on this challenge and hold you accountable. Cheers to being energy rich! Featured photo credit: terrordesigners via terrordesigners.com
