Creating my dream life starts with something much less glamorous than vision boards and big goals. It starts with something very basic: my energy. Not how to get more of it. And not how to become more productive. But simply: Where is my energy going?
I think we often assume that when we feel tired or drained, we need to add something. More rest. More motivation. More supplements. More routines.
But sometimes the problem isn’t that we don’t have enough energy. It’s that we’re spending too much of it on things that are gradually draining us.
So one evening, I sat down with a pen and a piece of paper and asked myself: What takes my energy away?
I divided my list into a few areas. And this is what I got.
Chores & routines
The first one was pretty obvious: cooking, cleaning, laundry, and all those repetitive things that keep a home running.
It’s not that I hate doing them. Actually, most of the time cleaning or cooking feels almost meditative to me.
But when the same things need to be done over and over again, they can still become exhausting.
It made me realize that even things I don’t necessarily dislike can take more energy than I think.
Food & alcohol
I specifically wrote down alcohol along with food.
I don’t drink much. Mostly when meeting friends, celebrating a birthday, New Year, or something similar. And it’s usually wine or beer.
For years, I associated drinking with relaxation, but alcohol is a depressant (surprise, surprise), and for
me the “relaxing” part doesn’t always seem worth how I feel afterwards. I simply don’t like the aftermath anymore. Even after one glass of wine, I can feel more down or anxious the next day. And because that’s exactly the kind of feeling I try to have less of in my life, alcohol is on my list.
I also wrote down sugary, refined foods.
From time to time I’ll reach for waffles, cookies, chocolate, ice cream, and whatnot. And while they feel good in the moment, they don’t always leave me feeling particularly energetic afterwards.
Again, this isn’t about deciding that certain foods are “bad.” I’m just trying to pay more attention to what gives me energy and what seems to take it away.
Thoughts that drain me
This section was probably the most important one.
Some of the biggest drains on my energy aren’t things I do. They’re thoughts I keep returning to.
The first one is relocation.
I currently live in Georgia, but it’s definitely not my final destination. I have a few countries in mind, but haven’t decided where to move next. And every time I start thinking about it again I can feel, almost physically, how draining it becomes.
Then there’s the thought of having my own home.
I have an apartment in Russia, but here in Georgia I rent. And I really miss having a place that is fully mine—somewhere I can decorate, change things, and make it feel completely like home.
But this is connected to the relocation question. So it doesn’t really make sense to make decisions about a house. I know that logically. And yet my mind keeps coming back to it.
Another recurring thought is about the future and my parents.
They’re doing well and living their lives, but sometimes I start thinking far ahead—about them growing older, about whether they’ll need more help one day, and about how complicated that can become when you live in different countries.
Nothing is wrong right now. But my mind can still spend energy trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist yet.
And then there’s one more habit I noticed: being hard on myself.
If I skip a workout, don’t finish something I planned, wake up later than I wanted, or simply don’t have a very productive day, I can criticize myself. It’s subtle, but it takes energy too.
Lifestyle
The last section was lifestyle.
The main thing I wrote down here was lack of sleep.
It doesn’t happen all the time, but sometimes I go to bed too late. Then one of two things happens: either I wake up late and feel bad about that, or I wake up early and feel exhausted during the day.
Neither option feels particularly good. And again, it sounds obvious. Of course lack of sleep affects energy. But seeing it written down together with everything else made it feel much more concrete.
So, now what?
I’m sure I’ll come back to this list, cross things out, add new ones, and probably notice things I completely missed the first time. But that’s the point.
For now, I want to take each area separately and ask myself what I can actually change.
- How can I make cooking and housework take less energy?
- What do I want my relationship with alcohol and food to look like?
- How can I stop spending so much mental energy on decisions I can’t make yet?
- How can I be less hard on myself when I don’t follow a plan perfectly?
- And how can I protect my sleep a little better?
That’s the next step.
Have you ever done an exercise like this? What are your biggest energy drainers?
You can find me on Instagram and share your thoughts there. ♡
xoxo, Sveta