In 2019, we’re exploring our energy. How it affects us physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. We’ve hooked up with a series of experts who will set an experiment every month to help us discover a new way of managing our energy.
For July & August we’ve been exploring an issue faced by millions of us every day, the problem of too little time. Working with the super knowledgeable James Wallman, a cultural commentator, trend forecaster, and the international bestselling author of Stuffocation and Time and How To Spend It.
His latest book, Time and How To Spend It: 7 rules for richer, happier days, released in the UK in April 2019, became a no. 1 bestseller within weeks of release will be the basis for our latest Energy Experiment over the last two months. James set us a challenge for the months of July & August built around his 7 rules for richer, happier days. These 7 rules create an acronym; a checklist to use when we select our experiences called STORIES.
Each week we took on a different challenge from STORIES to see the impact it had for us and what shifts they created in our energy.
It all started with week 1 and S for Story… where we were tasked to “go on a journey”, a pilgrimage of some sort. It needed to have challenges and obstacles in the way for us to overcome too.
So, we threw ourselves in and sold a workshop to a Client that we hadn’t designed yet. And what a brilliant challenge this was… the energy we got from delivering the workshop, seeing the positive impact it has on the clients, but then also noticing how energised we felt for pushing ourselves to do something completely new was amazing… truly invigorating stuff.
Week 2 was all about T for Transformation… We had to head towards a new goal. So we picked up the frying pan and learnt how to cook pad thai! Learning some tips and tricks along the way (hotter the pan the better), which gave us some good energy for getting more experimental in the kitchen in the future…
Week 3 and we we’re getting Outside & Offline, with a personal fave of ours, wild swimming! We’re huge fans of this here and it never fails to give us a boost of energy and a real glow of good feeling. One to keep up for sure
Week 4 challenged us to create a new Relationship or re-kindle an old one. This was one of those moments when the thinking about it is harder than the doing it.
“Picking up the phone to an old mate felt great, and meeting them in the pub for a chat after a few years was even better… so much to catch-up on and such a great energy afterwards”.
Week 5 and it was time to add a bit of Intensity, so we pulled on our waling boots and climbed a mountain (well a bug hill).
“a bit like swimming this one, never fails to make you feel great. Appreciating nature and taking in the world we live in gives me a real energy boost... loved it”
By week 6 we had to go and do something Extraordinary… something we’ve never done before.
“where better to go for an extraordinary adventure than to Bangalore to deliver a workshop. Awe inspiring doesn’t cut it. Amazing people, food, scenery… and a mini car crash thrown in too (everyone was OK) made this a truly extraordinary week – I came him full of energy and ready to get out there again”
Last up was week 7 and this was about adding a bit of Status & significance to our week by do something selfless. We all found that the act of doing things for others gave us a god energy, and a story to tell… and the warm glow of selflessness is a feeling we all agreed we’d like to experience more of.
All in all, a great experiment and some huge learning about how our energy is impacted. Our biggest learning by far has been that whilst the level of energy we got from each task differed, the overall concept of thinking about the ‘STORIES’ and what you’re doing with your time to create stories was a hugely powerful learning for us.
It meant that whichever of the weeks tasks we were focused on, we got something from it that not only gave us energy, but when we shared this with other people, they felt the energy too… And that’s just a great feeling as it reminds you that you’ve put your time that day or week to good use.
A huge thanks to @jameswallman for putting this plan together for us.
We’ve loved how getting more out of our time has helped us to feel more energised and helped us to do more with our energy. You can find out more about James’ work and books on www.jameswallman.com or www.timeandhowtospendit.com and you can buy his latest book here: http://po.st/timeandhow2spend It’s awesome…
Big love
The Upping Your Elvis Team
