Harnessing Your Energy
We must guard our hearts and minds so that the days do not come upon us suddenly like a trap and weigh us down.
Many people race out of bed, their body several paces behind their overreaching mind. They eat standing up or as they drive to the office. The days are lived at a frenetic pace with little intentionality.
If you start your day in a footrace, nervous energy can gain steam. If you are a Christian, in this state of mind, you won’t likely be able to detect God’s voice, His warning signs, or see how He is manifesting Himself in the details of your day (Psalm 46:10).
By gifting yourself a few moments each morning to talk to God, asking Him to help you stay focused on the things that truly matter, letting all else go, you can experience more pleasure and calm in your days (Romans 12:2).
Having a purpose that aligns with God’s plan is another way to stay focused on what brings meaning and fulfillment. Anything that doesn’t align with it, if eliminated through the course of your day, will eliminate a lot of choices, especially mistakes.
Athletes ready themselves for games mentally by developing practices to manage pressure, maintain focus, and build confidence. This often involves strategies like visualization, positive self-talk, and pregame routines. By focusing on controllable aspects of their performance and practicing mental skills, athletes can optimize their mental state for peak performance.
As moms, dads, working professionals, and students, we can prepare for “come what may.” Staying in command of our emotions is key. We do this by having strategies in place that help us harness and focus our mental energy. This is what you call self-discipline. When we do this, our performance will be better because we will feel less harried. Even our relationships will thrive under a focused and disciplined set of practices.
When you are overemoting, harried, and scattered, a disproportionate amount of energy is in your brain, thereby starving the rest of your body of energy and oxygen. This is a highly dangerous state. It’s not possible to have any type of emotional, mental, and spiritual sense of well-being, which in turn throws your body’s equilibrium completely off. This is why people have the proclivity to overreact, get defensive, and make decisions they end up regretting. All of this is preventable.
Ask God to help you make your words, thoughts, and actions count, to walk in obedience to His commands, and to blaze a trail of excellence in all things each day (2 Corinthians 10:5).
How do you begin to harness your energy and have command of your emotions? Form new practices and mantras.
Here are a few examples:
- Check in with Him each day, confessing your fears and your thoughts (Philippians 4:6–7).
- Thank Him for His grace and mercy.
- Focus on what is going right in your life, not wrong.
- Sing a song of praise.
- Ask Him for eyes to see Him in the details of your day.
- Pray for renewing of your mind and spirit by asking Him to cut and clear out all negative, repetitive thought programs and to fill you to overflowing with His light, love, and presence.
- Put on the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:14–17).
“Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls” (Proverbs 25:28 NKJV).
