Written by: Jody Kennett, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
It has been ingrained in us that we need physical exercise for health, but when the pandemic began, how many of us were prepared with the mental and emotional resources to have resiliency during a time of high stress, change, and crisis? How many of us have stress tolerance tools for everyday work conflict and overwhelm even without a pandemic? Yet we need to carry on with our careers, our businesses, and as leaders enduring and persisting through tough times. We can optimize ourselves for these challenging situations by implementing peak energy practices that will give us tools for our body, mind, emotions, and environment so we can be resilient and maintain peak performance.
How Optimizing Our Energy in Four Key Areas Leads to Peak Energy, Health, and Performance
First off, what is Peak Energy Performance and how is it different from high performance? Peak energy performance is a health practice that focuses on optimizing you with energy inputs in four key areas: body, mind, emotion, and environment. Most of us are operating on energy depletion and high energy output daily while also enduring the roll coaster of fluctuations in our physical, mental, and emotional state that happen naturally throughout the day as stress and challenges arise.
Yet very few people have tools to manage these energy drains or have any practice in place to navigate the stressors that derail them. Peak Energy Performance gives people their very own toolkit to refuel, recharge, and refresh with ‘energy inputs’ that will keep them at peak performance.
It hit me one day that a lot of high performance still has a feeling of higher demands, higher output, and high activity level; this is the very approach that is causing overwhelm, burnout, and stress-related illnesses. I decided a radically different mindset approach needed to be applied to performance and one that would not deplete and exhaust people, but one that would fix everything that is wrong with our current method of working, optimize people to feel great, and still lead them to peak performance.
However, it was not as simple as energy input because as I worked with entrepreneurs and leaders, I realized it was energy in multiple areas that was affecting their performance. Hence, I knew for someone to be at their peak, they would need to focus on their physical, mental, emotional, and environmental energy; these are the four pillars to having peak energy, health, and performance. There is a fifth factor to peak performance that we will leave for another day which is spiritual energy.
How Peak Energy Performance is Unique and Why it is Effective for Resiliency and Stress
Most performance methods and expectations focus on high output action and solely on the physical aspects that contribute to performance. These are very important and essential to delivering great results in our business and career. However, this approach is limited because if an athlete-focused only on the physical elements in their sport, no matter how great they are physically, they would never reach the podium without implementing strategies to optimize their mind or mental state. The same is true for each and everyone of you in the arena you are seeking peak performance whether it be as an entrepreneur, leader or somewhere else in your life.
Not to mention what I have seen as the biggest impact on performance over the last year or two which has been someone’s emotional state and their emotional resiliency. Peak Energy Performance differs from other health and performance approaches by incorporating the four elements that lead someone to their peak state: the energy of body, mind, emotion, and environment.
I am going to touch on the importance of environment to performance later on here, but just think about the global, political, and pandemic environment that has been affecting everyone and the importance of managing the negative effects of this to support wellbeing and productivity.
It is our mental, emotional, and physical state along with our environment that hugely impacts our ability to be resilient and manage stress. This holistic approach to high performance gives people tools in the four essential foundations to weather high work demands, stress, and change. It also brings in the much-needed balance of feminine to masculine energy in peak performance methods. Let’s take a look at the four foundational components to Peak Energy Performance and tips you can implement to be at your peak.
Peak Energy Foundational Pillar 1: Physical Health
We can literally create energy for ourselves by the choices we make in our day-to-day lifestyle. Vibrant physical energy comes from many sources that all work in concert together to give you peak energy and they include: adequate sleep, nutrition, exercise, gut health, hormone balance, and one of the most important factors which is keeping your nervous system out of the stress mode of fight and flight.
Did you know that stress is the cause of over 90% of illnesses today? It also, if left unattended, can develop into mental health challenges. Since there is so much we could cover here, I am going to focus on two tips for you:
It is crucial to get an adequate amount of sleep each night which is usually between 7-8 hours for most people and try to have both a consistent sleep and rise time daily along with a bedtime routine.
When you find yourself in a stress state of fight and flight, notice this immediately and do whatever you can to calm your body and mind. When you are in stress, the sympathetic nervous system is activated which pumps cortisol through your body causing many negative side effects including abdominal weight gain and fatigue. If our bodies stay in a stress state for prolonged periods of time that may lead to adrenal fatigue. We can activate the calming nervous system, called the Parasympathetic nervous system, with breathing exercises, time in nature, meditation, being near or around a water source such as the ocean, and using methods such as Heart Math.
One of the first steps in designing a peak energy, health, and performance plan for you is assessing all of the above physical elements that contribute to optimal energy levels.
Peak Energy Foundational Pillar 2: Peak Mind Health
Everyone from a student to parent to entrepreneurs and leaders needs peak energy for the mind. I understand that the concept of ‘energy’ for the mind may seem hard to grasp, yet do the simple process of thinking or talking about something negative versus focusing on something you love or something positive, and it produces a different energetic experience in all of us. What we think about holds energy and a thought is energy both in our bodies and then in how it is expressed in our life.
What this means is that we can alter our energy with what we choose to think about and focus on; this includes self-talk and beliefs. Therefore, if we want peak energy for our mind, we can begin with how or what we think, our thoughts, beliefs, and even the words we speak to ourselves through self-talk. Athletes, entrepreneurs, and leaders can literally change their performance with subtle mindset shifts.
This is one of the areas, I enjoy most as a coach because when I see someone shift from limiting beliefs, negativity, or disempowering self-talk to what will support the growth and outcomes they want, it is as if transformation happens instantly; this leads to positive and radical shifts in energy. These are the very energy inputs for our mind we need to have peak performance.
Peak Energy Foundational Pillar 3: Peak Emotional Health
I believe peak emotional energy and health is one of the greatest challenges many people have faced over the past year and half. To say we can all get to a peak emotional state and stay there is completely unrealistic so this foundational pillar to peak performance is more about being able to navigate our emotional energy, process it, and build emotional resiliency where we can bounce back from negative emotions at a healthy pace. It is not about ignoring, dimming, distracting, or minimizing our emotions; rather it is about acknowledging our emotions, allowing space for them, gaining insight from them, and moving through them with supports that help us to be resilient.
Here are a few peak energy tips to support you with your emotions:
Acknowledge and validate your emotions
Bottled-up emotions explode, Processed emotions progress you through them. Find your way to process emotions (journaling, counseling, talking to a friend…)
Sometimes behind an emotion is an unmet need or unexpressed feeling. Reflect and ask, ‘What is it this emotion needs?’ ‘If it had a voice, what would it say?’
Become self-aware as to what affects your emotions and what you need to be at your best emotional health (sleep, exercise, no alcohol, less news, less social media, removing yourself from toxic people or situations…)
Emotions hold energy and joy is a high-energy emotion. Give yourself moments, minutes, time with what brings you joy each day. Balance the low vibrational, energy-draining emotions with the energizing emotions. It is possible to feel grief and joy in the same day. Allow yourself both
Avoid allowing a negative emotional state to last more than a day or so and if it does, seek support right away. There are numerous traditional and alternative health practices that will heal emotional pain.
Peak Energy Foundational Pillar 4: Peak Environmental Energy
The environment you live, work and exist in day-to-day drastically influences your energy, health, and performance. Our environment includes everything from our home, to our workspace, our schedule, and what we expose ourselves to daily including news, social media, and our social interactions. We have the ability to optimize our environment to support peak energy, health, and performance. There will be a lot you can positively influence in your environment that is within your control. So how can you energize your environment for peak performance? Here are a few suggestions:
Create a home space that energizes you and if you work from home, design a workspace that uplifts you and energizes you
The environment you work in consists not only of where you work but the culture of where you work, who you work with, and even the culture of your geographic area. If any of the above environments are affecting your energy, do what you can to optimize them for what will energize you.
One thing I coach people on a lot is setting their day, week, and schedule up to where they feel organized, efficient, focused and productive. Energize you by optimizing the schedule of your day or week to suit your specific needs and demands. Set yourself up for success with a schedule that is tailored to what will support you to thrive.
This may be an unpopular tip to have peak energy in your environment, but assess what you are consuming in the news, on social media or from any other sources that you are exposed to daily. Are these draining your energy, causing negative emotional reactions, or wiring your brain to focus on negative events or comparisons? What effect are they having on you? You get to assess and choose what content and exposure you want to allow into your brain and body daily, so choose wisely. Make sure what is in your environment is supporting your physical, mental, and emotional health and energy.
Your environment matters and you can influence an environment that energizes rather than drains and exhausts you. Design a daily environment where you will be energized, thrive, and be able to perform at your peak.
Here you have learned the 4 core foundations to having peak energy performance and a few steps you can take to energize yourself in each area. So how do you now integrate this into your life, day, and health regime? Just as you would have an exercise routine, okay we all try anyways, you will want to create your own peak performance plan to practice daily.
I suggest you focus on one area that will have the greatest impact for you and create a few key behavior goals that will energize you and your day. As a peak performance coach, I recommend and support people to develop their very own customized peak performance plan to practice and implement.
One mindset shift for an entrepreneur can produce an innovative idea or 5 and 6 figure income increases. One physical peak energy change for a leader can transform their leadership and effectiveness. One peak energy infusion to your environment can positively impact one’s happiness. And one small emotional energy input will profoundly decrease stress levels while also improving and supporting all of our relationships.
What is the one peak energy performance shift that you will implement?
Do you want a peak energy performance plan? Would you like coaching to support you with your peak energy, health, and performance goals? Reach out and let’s start your customized peak energy performance plan.
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Read more from Jody!
Jody Kennett, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Jody Kennett elevates leaders with leadership, communication, and peak energy performance as an ICF-certified coach. She is impacting women in business globally and empowering them to own their power as a leader by combining women's leadership, confidence, and communication coaching. Her specialized training as a certified C-IQ (Conversational Intelligence) coach is transforming conversations, communication, and culture to foster positive relationships and a thriving workplace. As a co-author of The Winning Mindset book, she is inspiring and training people to master their inner-leader and mindset so they can have peak performance. She created Peak Energy 4 Performance to highlight the importance of energy input into not only our bodies, but also our mind, emotions, and environment. Jody is uniquely certified as a leadership, life, and health coach bringing 20 years of health and wellbeing expertise to energize leaders and entrepreneurs. She is the coach who will help you 'Lead Your Life', career, and business so you will, 'Lead it, Live it, and Love it!'.
