Re-energising oneself (as a professional) for the last quarter of 2024

Imagine this; it’s the fourth quarter of the year and you’re overwhelmed by your workload, wondering how you will make it. The fourth quarter of a corporate year is often difficult to see through from the added pressure of meeting your year-end targets (while simultaneously preparing for the next quarter’s targets) to the year-end fatigue.

This can leave anyone feeling drained, unproductive, and demotivated. Or worse, it can lead to burn-out. Whether you anticipate it or not, this doesn’t have to be your reality. This is how you can re-energise yourself as a professional.

Firstly, it’s important to realise that energy is consumed in four forms: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Knowing this will help you greatly in effectively re-energising yourself.

Physical energy:

It’s no secret that a healthy lifestyle is the formula for building physical energy. Start by evaluating your current lifestyle and note all the bad habits and behaviours that don’t align with a healthier lifestyle. Are you getting enough sleep? Are your meals nutritional enough? How often do you exercise, if ever? The next step is applying rituals that correct these habits and renew your physical energy.

• Sleep: studies show that the recommended amount of sleep is 7-9 hours daily.
• Exercise: exercising for at least 30 minutes daily can improve your mood, reduce stress and anxiety, and improve productivity and discipline.
• Breaks: taking a break every few hours in the workday improves performance and decreases fatigue.

Emotional energy:

Feeling emotionally unsettled can lead to high energy waste, leaving you feeling drained. Tending to your emotions can improve the quality of your emotional energy, regardless of any external pressures. Start by identifying emotional triggers in the workplace such as poor communication, internal staff conflicts, unexpected challenges, etc, and use methods to regulate your emotions when dealing with these triggers.

• Internal Communication and Support: although most employees are hesitant to raise ‘emotional’ matters with management or HR, addressing these problems and conflicts is the simplest way to resolve them.
• Breathing and Meditation: breathing is a powerful tool in regulating emotions. When feeling emotionally unsettled, slowly breathe in for 5 seconds, exhale for another 5 seconds and repeat for about a minute. This simple exercise helps relax our minds and regulates the nervous system.
• Gratitude: Showing appreciation can go a long way in improving morale. Creating a culture of gratitude in the workplace has a positive impact on employees, whether it be congratulating or rewarding staff performance.

Mental Energy:

In today’s digital age, focusing your mind can be difficult. When tackling your workload, ineffective methods such as multi-tasking can often hinder productivity and encourage distractions. It’s important to use methods that are actually effective in focusing the mind.

•  Technology “Downtime”: taking breaks from technology will ensure that you don’t break your focus. Take note of the period in which you’re most productive throughout the day and mute/avoid all technology during that time.
• Environment: Create a workspace that is clean and clutter-free. When focusing on a specific task, communicate your unavailability and request that the people around you are quiet. Having this kind of environment will maximise productivity.

Spiritual Energy:

Doing purposeless, meaningless, and invaluable work tends to increase negative energy which can be very discouraging to one’s spirit.  Unfortunately, the conditions of a corporate career don’t always allow for the prioritising of one’s purpose. However, your spirit must remain high to avoid feeling discouraged.

• Enjoy Work/Love Life: finding a career that aligns with your passions will ensure that you feel fulfilled in your everyday life. For those who don’t have that privilege, find ways to exercise your passions outside of the workplace. Discover hobbies, interests, and side hustles that fulfil you.

• Know Your Worth: It’s important to acknowledge the value that you add to your workplace and it’s equally important to have your value acknowledged by your superiors. Have a set of professional goals that you intend on reaching and communicate this to your superiors. This will allow for both you and your superior to monitor your performance improvements.

Re-energising yourself will not only help you survive the fourth quarter but will also prepare you for the new year’s quarter.