Plan to Spend Your Energy Wisely
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
~ The Serenity Prayer
Most of us are not short of courage or of wisdom. We are brave and wise beyond our years, and always have been. We have fought hard to change what and where we can, and we use our wisdom and street smarts every day to survive and to thrive.
The serenity and acceptance part of Reinhold Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer, however, is often harder to come by for us.
One of our biggest struggles is accepting that there are some things – some people, some events, some disappointments – that we cannot change. We couldn’t change them then and we can’t change them now. All that happens when we try to change what is not ours to change is that we exhaust ourselves, both physically and emotionally. We get more disappointed and more disillusioned. More frustrated and more frayed. It doesn’t get us anywhere useful or good.
When we waste our energy on things that do not serve us and do not give us a good return on our investment, we are sending ourselves into an energy deficit (also known as Burnout). It is important that we learn to spend our time and energy wisely – not just now, as the year is nearing its end, but always. We need to think carefully about the things that we cannot change and become aware of where we are wasting our time and energy.
We need to recognize the things over which we have no influence or control; identify them and try to move towards acceptance. And by acceptance, I mean coming to terms with the fact that there is nothing we can do about it/them.
We don’t need to like what we can’t change, but we can accept that we can’t change it/them.
Because when we accept that there are some things that we have no influence or control over, and that we cannot change, then we can spend our time and energy more productively on those things that we do have influence or control over.
Like ourselves; the choices we make, the paths we take, the goals we reach.
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Tags: boundaries | burnout | energy | exhausted | others-centred. | saying no | time management
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