Episode #416 – Q4 Energy Check: Are You Running on Empty?

This is episode 416 of the Brilliant Balance podcast, and today we’re running a Q4 energy check. Well, hello, my friends. Welcome back to this episode of the show.

As you hear this episode, I will be en route to Asheville, North Carolina, one of my favorite places to be in the fall. I’m taking the women in my BOLD coaching circle on our fall retreat. This year we’re hosting it at the Grove Park Inn—which, fun fact, is where I spent the few days right after I got married. We took a delayed honeymoon, but the Grove Park Inn is where we went for a few days right after our wedding, so I have very nostalgic memories of this property.

If you’ve ever been there, it is a stunning property in the mountains of North Carolina. The foliage is at its peak right now, and I’m so excited to gather this group of women for our fall retreat. We do four in-person retreats a year as part of my BOLD experience, and there are almost 30 women going to this one. It’s going to be so much fun.

It is a great way to fuel up, to restore and rejuvenate, and to think before we execute the rest of the fourth quarter.

I want to give you a little bit of that in this episode today—a micro-taste of what it feels like when you take care of your energy and find ways to restore and rejuvenate it throughout the year. I built this into my premier program, BOLD—four times a year—because I believe in it so much.

It’s such a powerful enabler of growth. And I think a lot of us pretend it’s not. We kind of put our fingers in our ears: “La, la, la—don’t talk to me about rest. I have no time for that.”

None of these women would have said they had time for this. It’s something we make time for because we’ve learned the benefits. So I want to do a little bit of an energy audit with you today because October is the month when our calendars start to feel like a pressure cooker.

Work deadlines are piling up. The kids’ activities are in full swing. The first thoughts of holiday planning start to creep in. And our personal goals—the things that keep us level—can start to feel distant, neglected, and non-essential.

That’s just not true. They’re probably never more essential than they are in this season. But there’s a real risk of running on empty.

From experience—and from coaching hundreds of women over the last 15 years—I know that when we let our energy slip too far, it’s not just us who suffers. It’s not just our productivity. Our confidence suffers, our mood suffers, our relationships suffer. The people around us suffer when we let our energy dip too low because we get gritty—raw and on edge—when we’re not making sure we restore our energy as it gets depleted.

So we’re going to do this energy check together today. Take a big deep breath. It’s going to be good for you. I’m going to walk you through a light-touch process to check in with yourself and then what you can do to restore your energy levels as you head into the fourth quarter—plus a few things to watch for as these three months unfold.

This one’s for you. So soak it all in and take it with you.

First step: you have to know where you are. Get real honest with yourself about how you’re feeling.

A lot of us ignore this: “I don’t want to know how I’m feeling. I don’t have time to know how I’m feeling. I’m just going to keep on keeping on.” But I want you to pause. Get your feet on the ground—unless you’re driving. Take a deep breath. Maybe put one hand on your chest and one on your belly and ask yourself: How am I doing?

How am I feeling? Am I tired? Am I exhausted? Am I sick? What have I done for myself lately? What did I mean to do for myself that I’ve stopped doing or forgotten about?

Then ask a few questions. What are the things in my life right now—the tasks, the appointments, the people—that leave me energized? When I see them on my calendar, I think, “Yes, that’s what’s in today.” What are those things?

We want to know what those are because—newsflash—we’re going to want more of them. We want to lean further into those things. The second question: What’s draining me?

What are the tasks, meetings, people, appointments, or activities that, when they’re on your calendar, you feel drained before you even start? They’re kind of sucking your life force right out of you.

You don’t like them. There’s friction. It’s not a good match for you. What are the things that are draining you? Maybe even think about whether there are people or obligations with “vampire energy”—they take more than they give.

There’s not a two-way street with give-and-take—just a lot of take, take, take, and you’re not getting much back. Where is that happening? I’ll give you an example: One of my clients realized that in her company she had her core job—which she liked—and then committee work she was expected to do. While it was technically important, it was sucking the life out of her.

She didn’t realize how much mental space it was consuming until we started talking about it. When she mapped this out, she decided to get off some of those committees—to consolidate the list and step back. The relief was almost immediate. We all have things like that.

You have things like that somewhere in your life where you think, “This is a complete drain. I hate it.” And yet you keep doing it because there hasn’t been time to think about it.

Awareness is everything. If you don’t know where your energy is going, you’ll keep burning it on things that don’t serve you. It will feel like everything is required, but there are places where you can step back or set something down and the world will keep spinning—and you will feel better.

The first piece is to do this audit. Increase your awareness—come into consciousness—of where your energy is going, what feeds you, and what depletes you.

Once you know that, you can recalibrate. Use small, practical adjustments—I’ll give you a couple today—that will tweak the way you feel.

We’re not going to overhaul everything. In a coaching relationship—when I’m in a two-way relationship and my team and I are supporting people—we can make big changes. But for a podcast, I want to give you things you can self-implement. DIY.

One thing you can do: get very clear about what helps you feel healthy, whole, and human. We have a name for this inside my programs, and we spend a lot of time on these rituals.

Figure out what makes you feel healthy, whole, and human—and do more of that. By definition, those things increase your energy level. They fill you up. It’s like plugging yourself into the wall—recharging your battery. These are the activities that fill you up.

When I worked in my corporate career, I had four practices on a Post-it note because I was so depleted and exhausted—this was when my children were very young. I wrote: eat, sleep, move, breathe.

That was it. Those were my reminders: Are you doing these things? If you need a place to start, start there—eat, sleep, move, breathe. And the reason “breathe” was on there—obviously I was breathing; I was alive—the reason was that I would often get through my day and realize I had not taken one full, deep breath. Not one.

So putting “breathe” on my list was a reminder to take an extra beat—to breathe here and there throughout the day.

That’s how foundational things were then. If that’s where you are and “eat, sleep, move, breathe” helps you—great. If you’re a little more advanced, you already know the practices that work for you, and I want you to build them in to raise your capacity for energy.

Another helpful tool: build recovery into your day to get more energy. One of the big mistakes I see women make is telling themselves the lie that they don’t have time for it.

“I don’t have time for a break. I don’t have time for recovery. I’m just going to go, go, go—head down and keep moving.” If that’s where you are, even a micro-break can be beneficial.

You may not go on a retreat this fall—I hope you do—but you may not. What you might be able to do is take 10 minutes between meetings. Rather than using that time to do something that drains your energy further, like doom-scrolling, use those 10 minutes to recharge. Get up and walk around the building—or better yet, outside—for 10 minutes. Fill up a big glass of ice water and sip it.

Take a few deep breaths. Play a meditation app for five or 10 minutes. Micro-breaks several times during the day can be powerful. Think about a nap: it’s not a replacement for a full night’s sleep, but it can be a bridge if you’re not getting enough. These micro-breaks are not the ideal, but they may be the minimum viable dose of recovery you need to stay energized.

One thing that can help enable those: say no to one thing per day. Just one thing that was on your calendar or to-do list—an invitation or request. Say no to one thing. I’m not even going to specify how much time it frees up. The power is in exercising that “no”—choosing what you decline or defer. It’s protective.

Protecting your energy isn’t selfish. It’s strategic. You want that energy available for the things most important to you. If you give it away to whoever asks—and don’t channel it into what you care about most—you’ll get upside down quickly.

So think about those ideas: healthy, whole, and human—what practices make you feel that way? How can you build micro-recovery into your day? And what could you say no to today? Start today by saying no to one thing to create a bit more space.

Creating space is the end goal. The way we feel like we have sufficient energy for any season is to start at the foundation—build the energy. That’s what we’ve been talking about with these rituals. Then be strategic about where you apply that energy. Make choices about what gets your energy and what does not, so there’s enough to go around.

Because this fourth quarter has some extra goodies we don’t want to miss. Summer has its goodies—most of us want to spend extra time outside or with our children if they’re off from school.

What happens in Q4? The holidays. I’m not trying to stress you out—the last thing any of us need is to start holiday planning today. But have awareness that, like it or not, it’s going to be a big element of what gets your energy this quarter. It is every year.

It’s not a surprise. We act like it is: “Oh my gosh, all this December stuff fell into my lap.” We know it’s coming. We also know that for most of us—if we’re lucky enough to take time off—December is a short work month. I often lose a week in November and two weeks in December.

That’s how it works. My kids are off for a whole week in November around the Thanksgiving holiday, and I traditionally take two weeks off at the end of December. So compared with any other two-month period in the year, I have three fewer weeks to work with.

Honoring that—getting clear about that in October—will help you scope the right amount of stuff into this quarter. As you plan what you need energy for, I want you to see that coming.

Not only are there fewer weeks of work time to get your work done (again, if you’re lucky enough to take time off), but there’s also a long list of projects associated with the holidays that you’ll probably be doing.

Where is that energy going to come from? The mistake I see every year is we act like it will just happen—on top of everything else.

Apparently we won’t sleep. We won’t work out. We won’t spend time with friends. We won’t journal, meditate, or read. We’ll cut all that out to execute the big project.

If you can think about it in advance—acknowledging the reality that we all have a big project coming onto our plates this quarter—what can you do now to create space for it?

How can you acknowledge the “work” that collection of tasks will take up? It’s powerful to be sitting here in mid-October, thinking about that already.

We’re in Q4. Many of you set a plan for the year—what you would get done. You probably set that plan at work, and there’s likely a collective stress building that you’re running out of time.

“What if I don’t get all these things done this year that I said I would?” Lots of us also set goals and resolutions in January for our personal lives. We start to feel the pressure: “I said I was going to do that, and I’m running out of time.”

Remember: the end of the year is an artificial designation. It’s just a milestone. We’re going to turn the calendar page to January and keep right on going. If you can alleviate some pressure by acknowledging that time keeps rolling forward—yes, the year will end and we’ll start a new calendar year—but there’s no fourth-quarter pressure cooker that says every single thing has to be tied up with a bow by year-end. That’s just not true.

In most cases, the work will continue into the next year. That can alleviate pressure, which allows you to protect your energy.

As you head into this quarter, challenge yourself to do the things you’re hearing today.

Can you run that energy audit? You can do it simply—when you end this episode, spend a few minutes on what’s draining your energy and what’s filling you up. Or do it more formally—write it down so you have something to reflect on.

You can add a time audit to look at where your time is going and how that affects your energy—bonus points. And very importantly, can you start recalibrating?

Can you build some recovery in? Can you add rituals that you know will increase your energy threshold? Can you create a rhythm you can sustain as you get into the back half of this quarter? From mid-November through the end of December, you’ve got extra holiday-related stuff to handle.

Can you start creating space for that so it’s easier to accommodate?

I hope these DIY tools are helpful—practical things you can apply so you feel better as you move through this magical time of year. I love fall. I always have. It’s such a wonderful, magical season. I hope you’re creating the space to enjoy it. And as we head into the holiday season with all that it brings, I want you to enjoy it too.

We don’t have to sprint through the fourth quarter exhausted. If you’re feeling depleted before you even start, get this reset so you can finish the year energized and focused—and, importantly, fully present for all it holds.

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Okay, that’s all for today, my friends. Till next time, let’s be brilliant.