Do you ever feel that you’re just not refreshed enough after sleep or even after a weekend to go back to work and get stuck in all over again?
Do you ever feel that the balance sheet of energy doesn’t balance because work depletes your reserves more than time away from work restores them?
Dou ever feel that a holiday from work just about gets you back to an even keel, rather than building up your reserves in advance of needing them at work?
If you answer yes to any or all of these questions, it may be that you aren’t yet aware of how best to build up all of your reserves.
Or maybe you’re filling one tank of energy to the brim but you’re unaware of the other tanks which need attention too.

I first met Frank, a CEO in a large corporate, when he was on the bottom rung of the corporate ladder beside me. He was ambitious and full of charisma and energy. Everyone who met him liked him and wanted to be his friend. The clients loved him, the team loved him, and management loved him. Before long, Frank was gone. Off to climb the ladder leaving us behind, and we and the clients missed him desperately.
Several years later I met up with Frank again at a Vet conference. He was now a CEO, exhausted, burnt out, and running on empty.
What could have happened to this vivacious, bubbly power bank I’d worked with only 8 years ago?
Well, Frank explained, it’s maths.
The energy, charisma and social interactions had depleted his battery to such a degree that he simply had nothing left to give. He had energised others to do a great job, actively charmed his way to the top, and spent vast amounts of time chatting in meetings and outside of meetings to such a degree that he was now a shadow of his former self.
And he was bewildered too. He had taken time off, worked out three times a week, gone on holidays with his family, eaten well, drunk very little, it just didn’t make sense.

I hear this story time and time again and I was that person too.
Now, with the benefit of hindsight and a lot of psychology training, I know that there’s more to regaining energy than going to the gym, going vegetarian, and going to bed for 8 hours a night.

The 5 energy tanks
Being aware of the 5 tanks means that we can gauge which one’s running low and which ones are nicely tanked up.
It’s also a way of ‘checking in’ with yourself to best choose how to refill each one in a way that works for you as an individual.

1. Our physical tank
   This is probably the one we’re most aware of and the one that gets the most attention. It relates to our physical health, our physical strength and our alertness.
   Exercise, eating well and sleep fill this tank up. Being sedentary, eating unhealthily, alcohol, vaping, poor sleep hygiene etc drain this tank very rapidly.
   Being non-judgmental, all of the above is our choice. Also, all work and no play makes Frank a dull CEO. But being aware and noticing are the skills of self-awareness we can use here.
2. Our mental tank
   This involves not only how much information we’ve taken in and how clever we are, but also how able to use that knowledge we are.
   When our mental tank is full, our focus, our ability to apply this knowledge under pressure in real time, and our ability to have pinpoint concentration despite interruptions and busyness around us are running at full throttle.
   It’s exhausting having to pay attention to our task when everybody around us is noisily going about fulfilling their tasks.
   Our mental tank can be topped up with CPD, study and clinical discussions.
   Our focus can be trained to be laser point sharp with simple meditations such as body scan and breath meditations or, even better, pinpoint concentration on nothingness meditations. All need to be done regularly.
3. Our Emotional tank
   How positive are you feeling? You might be full of physical energy and comfortable with your skill set at work today. And how’s your mood? Are you smiling? A bit meh? A bit down but not sure why?
   Our emotional tank gets ignored usually because we’re not sure what it is or where it’s located under the bonnet.
   If we remember, our Emotional Intelligence is made up of our self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills.
   Emotional batteries run on emotional intelligence and they give us the skills and energy to navigate pretty much any of life’s hurdles, challenges and catastrophes without losing the plot or becoming overwhelmed.
   The great thing about this battery is that it’s self-charging. In other words, the more we become aware of our emotions and the more we regulate our reactions to those emotions, the better we get at noticing and regulating. It becomes second nature to us.
   It may start out a bit time consuming and slow. But with a small time spent practicing, it takes no time and all and this massive skill becomes part of us.
4. Our spiritual tank
   Spirituality is not about religion. It’s about morals, kindness, self-compassion and relationships.
   Filling this tank up feeds into all the other tanks. You can never overfill this one. The surplus will help to fill the others and very importantly, it will spill out towards all those you come into contact with.
   How do I recognise low levels in this tank?
   Maybe you’re a bit impatient or snappy? Maybe you are focusing only on the negative episodes of your day and making them bigger than the day itself? Maybe you have an underlying sense of anger about something or someone within you?
   Paradoxically, often filling this tank up is by giving something of yourself to others. Volunteering is a well-known method of boosting one’s sense of purpose and common humanity. It’s a vital skill of the Duke of Edinburgh award undertaken by most teenagers in the UK because of its enormous benefits to the individual as well as to society.
   Other great ways to top it up are spending time in nature, without your phone, breathing in fresh air and noticing nature with wide curious fresh eyes. Forest bathing springs to mind.
   Meditations such a loving-kindness meditation are particularly good at turbo-charging this tank when done first thing in the morning.
5. Our social tank.
   We know that our social connection is as accurate a predictor of our mortality as is smoking, obesity or hypertension. This tank is depleted by spending large swathes of time alone either because of apathy, exhaustion or low self-esteem.
   It’s also surprisingly rapidly depleted by spending lots of time in the company of people who either (a) don’t appreciate us or (b)who we dislike, and (c) want something for themselves from our interactions.
   Our social tank is replete after spending time with people who we care about and who genuinely care about us. It can be filled by meeting new people and being inquisitive about them, caring for loved ones and physical intimacy with people who are genuine.

Back to Frank.
His physical tank was quite full because of his healthy lifestyle, good food and exercise.
His mental tank was half full. While he was enjoying learning about management on the job, his gregarious charismatic ways meant that everyone wanted a bit of him. He was constantly interrupted by colleagues, people he had to network with, and others who felt he could ‘fix’ everything by his presence.
His emotional tank was barely recognisable to him at this stage. He found himself being short with people who interrupted him which was not in keeping with the nice guy he was always trying to be. He was reacting reflexively instead of reflectively and often with impatience or anger.
His motivation was at an all time low, and he wanted to leave his job.
Spiritually, Frank had had no time in the previous eight years to be alone in nature, to meditate, to just be.
His job was all-consuming so volunteering or caring for others was out of the question. This tank was dry as a bone.

Surprisingly, after the myriad of social interactions he’d been having for years, Franks social tank was not proving to be the life saver he know it could be. This is because he was spending his valuable time with negative influences in his life, parasites and people who abused his good nature, instead of his long-term friends who knew him inside out and who loved him.

The morals of this story are…………check in with yourself first thing and last thing in the day.
Get used to quickly going through the different energy tanks like a checklist to see what level they’re at.
Act to replenish them in whatever way works for you, make it personal to you.
“Happiness is not ready made. It comes from your own actions” – The Dalai Lama