• Do you ever find yourself wanting to do one thing, and then doing another?
• Do you ever make a promise to yourself… and then break it?
• Do you ever decide something and go ahead with it, even though you know you’ll regret it?
• Or avoid doing things you know are in your best interest?

What? Often? All the time?
Great. That means you’re human!

What is our most fearsome energy vampire?

The sensation we have almost permanently, of feeling an inner “force” pulling us in an unwanted direction, which seems to boycott all our efforts to improve and over which we seem to have no control, has been known as long as the world has existed: Socrates always spoke of his “demon”, Saint Paul, in his letter to the Romans, wonders why “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want”, Faust complained that “two souls dwell in my body” – to quote only the first ones that come to mind.

And, often, the fight against this “force” leaves us so frustrated and exhausted that we wonder how this is possible? And it is no coincidence that, in order to explain this force, practically all religions have created the concept of the “devil” who tempts us and makes us deviate from the right path.

Psychoanalysis replaced the concept of “devil” with that of “subconscious”, but beyond providing a “scientific” nuance, it does not explain more than that. Evolutionary psychology is a little more precise and shows us how the mind, beyond its apparent unity, is composed of a huge number of departments, each trying to achieve its goal and thus inevitably creating conflicts at a systemic level.

“System”: this is the key word when it comes to energy.
A system is a group of resources – human, technological, financial – directed towards a common goal: a company that wants profit, a sports team aimed at victory, an army that fights the enemy, a country that tries to raise the standard of living of its citizens, all are systems; and we define “energy” as the ability of a system to achieve its goal (energy is often confused with fuel, and this is a major mistake: gasoline or electricity, in themselves, are of no use if they are not put into the right system and used correctly).

If all these resources are aligned and pulling in the same direction, the system achieves maximum performance. If a resource acts inconsistently with the system’s objective, it is not only useless, but it actually slows down – and sometimes even blocks – the entire system.

And this is regardless of how much effort is put in: imagine being on a boat, together with others, pulling the oars: if you all pull in the same direction, the speed is maximum and the boat easily reaches the desired destination. But if everyone pulls in a different direction, the effort is maximum, the exhaustion total and the results non-existent.

This is the very essence of leadership: taking a group of resources and people who are each self-interested, acting independently, and giving them a common goal to work towards by working synergistically. Whether it’s a politician, a CEO, or a team coach, a true leader is the one who shares with people a vision so compelling that it convinces them to put aside their petty selfish ambitions, conflicts, jealousies, and personal things, to participate in the creation of something greater, which none of them could achieve alone.

And man is also a system.

Inside it, either at the physical or psychological level, a huge number of subsystems operate, each with different tasks and ambitions, often in conflict with each other. The feeling of mysterious forces pulling us in different directions is therefore not a metaphor, but the result of an internal struggle between two “departments” that – paradoxically – both want our good: discussion would take us too far, but often, the first step in psychotherapy is to stop fighting with yourself, to accept the “inappropriate” behavior and to understand what the positive intention behind it is.

However, without resorting to psychotherapy, the simplest method to get rid of this feeling of a divided mind, of internal conflict, of lack of decisions – which are the most powerful energy vampires, leave us exhausted and prevent us from achieving any results – is to offer our internal resources a vision and a goal so big and attractive that they leave aside small tensions and worries and align themselves with this vision.

Anyone who has participated in a personal development course has, of course, done the exercise about goals, learned to formulate them correctly, to check them, to use the SMART model, to make an implementation plan, etc.

Even though the validity of this approach is maximum and should be used whenever possible, I have a slightly more ambitious vision, which I talked about in an article that I am reposting here: SMART or GENIUS?

I repeat, “energy” refers to the ability of a system to achieve its goal, and a system in which resources are aligned is in a “flow state”, a state that we have talked about many times; we often complain about “lack of energy” and look for different methods to raise our energy level, but the truth is that we have more than enough energy, but we waste it fighting with ourselves: we do not realize that if we do not resolve the series of internal conflicts, we do nothing but get up and fight against ourselves. It is exactly like having a car with misaligned wheels, the handbrake pulled, and trying to put a more powerful engine: the effort will be maximum, but the results will be minimal.

The discussion about energy, obviously, is much broader and we will see how there are a number of unexpected implications, which – I assure you – will completely change your perspective on personal energy, goals, money, relationships, etc.

A step towards manifesting our highest potential is to verify that all parts of us are aligned towards the same goal.

We’ll talk about the rest in a future article dedicated to energy and vitality.
See you soon.

A greeting

Bruno