Everything boils down to energy management
From the food we eat to the drugs we take - it's all related.
Energy is the essence of our greatest triumphs and our weakest moments. Almost everything we do is in some form a way to manage our energy levels, and these actions are simultaneously a result of our energy levels. We drink caffeine in the morning to raise our energy levels enough to get through the day. We take sleep aids at night to bring down our energy levels enough to sleep. We do horrible shit to our bodies in order to get our energy to match some external requirement. Cocaine to get the party started and keep the party going. Alcohol to make our wired minds forget trauma we’ve endured.
Energy influences your outcomes
A lot of this is subconscious and often under the guise of social behavior. But think about your own life for a second. Your lowest moments of full-fledged depression were when you didn’t have enough energy to even make it out of bed. And some of your highest moments were when you were laughing, excited, dancing, i.e. all activities that had the external requirement of higher energy.
Additionally, think about the times you’ve made excuses and negotiated with the procrastinator inside you for not doing what you need to do.
“I’m too tired to get a workout in”
“I’m so wired that I’m going to tackle 100 menial tasks that barely make a difference in the trajectory of my life”
“I’ll work on my thesis after this empanada, I’m just way too sluggish right now”
First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.
- Epictetus
Chances are that you already know what it is that you need to do to change your life, become 1% better, and achieve that self-actualization that we crave deep in our bones. Had our energy states actually been in the optimal zone for the tasks that we needed to do, we would’ve raised the probability of actually doing them and not disappointing Epictetus.
One of the remarkable implications of achieving this optimality is that your genius manifests itself when your energy matches a certain frequency. Your best work occurs under the correct energy states - not too high, and not too low. Where time disappears and you are absolutely dialed into the Matrix. I know many of you are familiar with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s work on Flow states, but for those who aren’t, you would be absolutely shocked at how fast you can create or learn things by tapping into Flow state (which again, boils down to energy management). This is often times a significant factor in who wins and who loses in life. Some examples:
Financially
With high energy, you’re more likely to perform action creatively, iterate, fail, readjust and relentlessly pursue your business or career goals
With low energy, you’re more likely to watch financially free people on TV instead
Physically
With high energy, you put the work in to have a banger of a body that breeds confidence and garners respect. That healthy body also feeds energy back into the system (this is key)
With low energy, you’re sedentary. This makes you even more low energy as time passes
Relationships
With high energy, you feel good enough to go out and start conversations with strangers, build a social circle, and up the odds that you’ll have meaningful relationships
With low energy, you chill at home, swipe on Tinder a few times, and end the night watching porn to get enough dopamine to make it through another day
The insanely powerful effects of feedback loops
We touched on this briefly, but perhaps the most important aspect of energy is the feedback response back to the system. We typically think of actions with respect to our systems as negative feedback loops. You perform actions that require high energy (like work tasks) which brings the system down to lower levels (you feel tired after a day of work). You do low energy actions — like rest —which eventually brings the system back to higher levels (you feel energetic after a proper nap). This balance (high -> low, low -> high) is extremely important to be aware of. Awareness of your energy and the actions that preceded it is paramount to understanding how to control it.
There’s a 2nd class of actions that can be both powerful or devastating, and we refer to these as positive feedback loop actions. The high -> higher and low -> lower class of actions. Think about how powerful this can be; a task that requires high energy, that somehow feeds energy back into the system and gets you higher? One example of this is the post-exercise (high energy activity) high that results from the endorphin release. On the other end of the spectrum, you have the devastating low energy activities that somehow birth even lower energy. For example, have you ever overslept to the point where you don’t feel alert and energetic in the morning? Rather, you feel sluggish and somehow still sleepy even though you’ve put in a 10 hour sleep bender? Low energy positive feedback loop actions need to be avoided at all costs because they take days to recover from.
Energy management will save your life
By now, you can see that energy applies to every single thing in life. Your energy levels influence your actions, which influence your outcomes. Over enough time, enough action in Flow-to-high energy states virtually guarantees you a fulfilling, successful life.
Ultimately, managing your energy properly allows you to LIVE. And there is nothing more beautiful than that.
So, what do we do with this information? It’s pretty obvious by this point that you need to extend the amount of time you spend in high energy states, and lower the amount of time you spend in low energy states.
I will be completely honest with you; the modern world makes this is incredibly difficult to do. We get older, we gain the baggage of responsibility. Responsibility demands a slice of our energy. The things we do to supposedly relax and build our energy back up, often do the opposite. Our war is a dopamine and serotonin war, with your energy being the casualty.
The long term advice is a lifestyle change. But you should know that it’s absolutely paramount to get this right. Without getting too political, I think we can all agree that what we learned over the last 1.5 years is the government gives 0 fucks about your wellbeing, the wealth gap is only getting larger, and there’s going to be a point in time in the future where things are going to be even more painful unless you find yourself on the other side. Living optimally is no longer an option; it’s a choice that you have to make. And proper energy management is a key pillar of living optimally.
The bad thing is nobody is coming to save you. The good thing is you can fucking do this. You have to get this right and get your energy reserves past the threshold where performing the right actions becomes effortless. And you will.
Actionable take-home work
I’ll leave you with actionable advice for TODAY.
In a nutshell: purposefully schedule your life around your natural energy cycles.
In detail:
Figure out what’s important to you. Whether that’s financial freedom, a girl that loves you, getting in the best shape of your life. Break these goals down into actionable systems.
Figure out what your energy peaks and energy valleys are. Our circadian rhythms are remarkably consistent, but you’ll likely need a journal of this where you write about how you feel at specific time intervals in the day. Do this for a few days, and you will begin to accurately predict how your body feels HOURS beforehand. It’s almost magical
Schedule the things that are important to you (that you discovered in step 1) for your energy peaks and schedule the things that are not important to you (but just as necessary) for your energy valleys
This is the short-term actionable advice. But really, the end goal is to be able to extend the peaks and shorten the valleys. If you can optimize your biology, living life becomes effortless. Doing both of these has absolutely transformed my life.
If there’s enough interest on the topic, I will write about exactly how to do that. Until then, I hope this found you at the right time in your life and helps you on your path.