I think its possible to have almost unlimited energy. I didn’t always think like this or feel like this. I had chronic insomnia since I was a child. I think because I grew up with it, it was harder for me to escape it. I would work on getting out of it, and sometimes I would fix it temporarily, but it would appear a few months later. You can imagine that it put a huge obstacle in my life. It was like living through a filter where everything was fuzzy. On top of that I would have constant headaches. Eventually with logging my sleep every day for a year and writing a daily journal, I was able to fix it. From that point on, I wanted to “catch up” in life. I would push very hard, but my mental energy would not last long enough, I would easily get burnt out. After much experimentation, I learned that I could generate all the energy I need to do way I want to do. I changed several things in my life to be able to accomplish this.
- I practice presence of mind every day. I meditate as soon as I wake up and right before I go to sleep every single day. This helps me to clear my mind and focus.
- Eliminate as many negative thoughts as possible. I have had a lot of negative thoughts in my life: I’m stupid, no one likes me, why is that person so stupid, what is wrong with me, I can’t handle this, its too much, etc. The list goes on and on. As living creatures, we are optimized to focus on the negative more than the positive. When negative thoughts get stuck in your mind, its easy to get into a vicious cycle were you are literally tearing yourself apart. I realized that these thoughts serve no purpose, most of the time the thoughts are not even true, so I spent a lot of time training myself to recognize a negative thought as soon as it appears, and I stop it immediately. There is no reason for me to get angry or upset about life situations. Of course I still have negative thoughts or get angry, but they truly have been reduced and it has been life changing. I also removed any thoughts of stress or anxiety and instead of letting them cause me pain, I’ve tried to use them as sources of growth and learning. For example, I used to be afraid to speak in front of people. So I would think to myself, why don’t I try talking for a few minutes in front of people, or how about I try a smaller group first, or how about if I talk about my favorite subject first. This will be an ongoing process. To be clear, I am not living a life of fake happiness, just eliminating negative ruminating thoughts. Of course the natural consequence is I have more positive thoughts 🙂
- The most important thing is I keep my goal in my mind. My why, my purpose, my reason for doing everything I am doing. According to Victor Frankl, author of “Man’s Search for Meaning”, the meaning of life can only come from within our selves and there are usually 3 main meanings: “building the project”, “love and family”, and “growing from personal tragedy into triumph”. For me, it is about “building the project”. I want to build something great that effects lots of people. At the end of the day, we are all going to die, so its really important you are doing what matters to you. Only you can decide what is important for you, not society, not your parents, not your idol, only YOU. My personal reason drives me everyday to keep going no matter what. I keep it in my mind constantly by writing about it, visualizing it, and thinking about it every single day.
- I stay healthy. Typically by exercising frequently, diet, and going out into nature. I exercise as often as I can, which is usually 3-4 times a week for 40 minutes. I had tried to exercise often before, but I could never keep a consistent habit until I fully understood my why. After I had that figured out, then exercise and health were a core requirement that I could not compromise on. For nature, I try to go out into forests or to water on a near daily basis and try to experience its beauty without thinking about other things.
- Know your limit. We are not machines, we can’t work 24/7, but if you know your true limit, you can optimize your whole life around it and get pretty close 🙂 I found my true limit by constant experimenting. What happens if I work later, what happens if I skip dinner, what happens if I do different work at night, what happens if I change my diet, what happens if I wake up earlier, etc. The key is experimentation to know your limit and then strictly follow it. I found a schedule of 4 am to 6pm works fine for me and I do often end up doing that, but that schedule doesn’t work for a lot of people. Also another key point around this, you cannot just do your hardest work all day. I organize my day to do certain types of work throughout the day. For my hardest work, I usually put that for early mornings. For admin work, I usually save that for the end of the day. It was only after I understood my why that I could literally generate as much energy as I wanted to.
I truly believe if you follow these practices, you can have all the energy you need to do whatever you want.