Your Money, Your Rules | Money Mindset, Money Management, Abundance Mindset, Budgeting, Spirituality

166 | Life-Giving vs Life-Draining Activities: Protect Your Energy and Focus

Erin Gray | Wealth Coach, Former CFP and CFO

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What if the fastest way to create ease, momentum, and better money decisions is to treat your energy like your most valuable asset? In this episode, we break down the difference between life-giving and life-draining choices and how those patterns directly impact your business, finances, productivity, and boundaries.

In This Episode, We Discuss:

  • Defining life-giving vs life-draining through feelings and results
  • People-pleasing, overcommitting, and decision dumping
  • How to delegate, eliminate, or redesign draining tasks
  • Prioritizing your big rocks first
  • Money as energy and why frequency matters for financial clarity


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From my soul to yours,

Erin

Erin Gray:

Today on the podcast, we are going to be discussing the difference between life-giving and life-draining activities and how they affect every area of your life and ways for you to start looking at things from a more holistic and energetic view so you can become crystal clear on what you want to spend your time on and where you don't. And if you have been here for a while and you want support and more of like a 30,000-foot view for me to show you where you're leaking your energy, where your mindset is with money, so that you can start transforming it, so that you can create more ease, more calm, more confidence in your life, you can schedule a discovery call with me by clicking the link in the show notes. Also, I want to add that if you are new here, I want to say thank you for joining us and welcome. I will be hosting a workshop on Tuesday, December 16th at 10 a.m. Mountain Standard Time. And that is where I'm going to be diving into this specific workshop, is about relationships. So how to have a better relationship with your spouse, better ways to communicate and change, you know, your communication style with your spouse. And all of the details are going to be in the show notes. So you can just click the link in the show notes for both the workshop and if you want to have an introductory call with me for us to get to know one another and see how I can help. So I wanted to do this podcast on life giving and life draining because I am an open book. Everything that I go through, I'm willing to share with you guys. And this morning I was feeling frustration, a little bit of agitation. And I, you know, had to ask myself, I ask myself questions all of the time. And I'm like, what are you feeling right now? What is going on? And I was like, I just need to journal. And so I just journaled and came up with, you know, like, where am I leaking energy? You know, life-giving activities energize you, they align with your values, they help you create and build momentum in your life, in your business, in your personal life, all of it. It is going to feel more easy, more aligned, in tune. I want to say less friction. When we are doing life draining things, it depletes our energy. It can also, like I was feeling this morning, right? Like it brings up this frustration or agitation in my body. You're going to have to tune in for you and see what it feels like for you. But you will know because by how you feel. It tends often to slow any type of growth. So I am going to give you some examples in my life that are life-giving to me. You, what you need to do is you need to run it through your filter. You need to sit down with your journal and see what are the life-giving things for you and what are the life training things for you. So for me, life giving is some type of form of exercise, moving my body, meditation, journaling, sitting in the sauna, doing this podcast, writing the podcast, and also obviously having this podcast, thinking, pondering. I spend a lot of time thinking, contemplating, thinking about my clients, thinking about each of you. How do I make more impact in the world? Any type of client work, you know, coaching sessions and being with my clients. Traveling, super fun for me. Writing is very therapeutic. I'm also in the process of writing a book. So sitting down and writing and telling my story that is very life energizing for me. Going to any type of my health practitioners, you know, chiropractic or emotional release, or, you know, I'm working with a lady for all of my hormones and food and just all of it, just overall holistic whole body. Um, playing and resting and napping, reading, not all the time, but just reading sometime, right? Listening, following my intuition. That is very life energizing for me. That is very quick. It is a point fastest way to point A to point B for me. Connecting with my loved ones and my immediate family and you know, spending time with friends, things of that sort. So I want you to sit down and I gave you examples for me. They may not be the same for you. So what are they for you? Life draining for me or more of like when I know when I have overcommitted myself. And I would probably call this people pleasing, right? When I'm saying yes too much, I think that we have become a society of yes, man versus no. We need to say no more often. We need to allow more space for us for the things that we truly desire to come through. Where are we saying yes when we aren't really a yes for it? Making decisions, this is something that I've recognized this morning. Making decisions for people when they don't want to make them for themselves. I'm very good at making decisions. And so when I do, like let's say friends or family, where they don't really want to make decisions for themselves and then they're putting it back on me, it is this I feel it in my body. It feels heavy, it feels draining. So recognizing where are people trying to off, you know, put the responsibility back on me versus when I need to say no, you need to decide and you let me know when you're ready. So just recognizing that was an awareness that I had this morning. Any type of unnecessary meetings that people want to have, like what is the purpose? Like I have started to ask more very specific questions. Why are we going? Like, definitely with our daughter's school. Why are we going? What is the purpose? What are we going to talk about? Where's the memo? You know, like I want to know the details. And more often than not, I'll I will opt out because it is not an effective use of my time. It is something that we could probably say in a text message or in a quick email. Any type of task done out of obligation, saying yes when you really want to say no, too much time with people for me drains me. I love all of the humans. I love being with people, and I also love being by myself. It is this delicate balance that I have to walk. And I shouldn't say have to walk. I choose to walk because I love being with people. That is energizing and life-giving for me. But too much time with people and not enough time by myself and in my own space can feel draining at times. So being very, very clear and aware of when I am sensing that. You know, not eating the best foods for my body. It is, it doesn't feel good to not eat, you know, really good foods and fuel my body. So really spend some time today within this week to sit down and figure out what are the things that are really life giving, life energizing for me? What are the things that drain my energy and feel like I'm like sloshing through mud? Those are the things that we need to start eliminating from our life. So I want you to think about every single area of your life. Think about your business, think about your friends, think about where it is with money, think about where it is with your children, what about your spouse in your community? Just go down the list and start looking at where am I, where are the things that are life-giving, where are the things that are, you know, draining for me? And when we are doing these life-giving, energizing things, we do show up differently for ourselves. You know, we show up differently for our spouse, for our children, our business, our friends, our loved ones. And when we aren't, right, think about how it feels when you are doing stuff you don't enjoy doing. It takes longer. Our energy is slowed down. And I want us to truly look at everything in terms of energy and frequency. And when we move from that place, how I don't want to say how quickly we can speed up things because time isn't a thing, but we can collapse time because we're moving more efficiently. And I don't think a lot of us think in these terms. I think we value money a lot more than we value our energy. And I know energy, money is energy, but our energy, how we choose to, you know, spend our time is a very valuable resource. And I think a lot of us put more, more emphasis on money than we do on our actual energy and our resource with our time. So really start to ponder write down where are your energy leaks, where are your energy enhancers or boosters or the things that like light you up really start to get clear there. And the things that don't start to delegate them or eliminate them. I can think of two things right now that I have asked my intuition about, and I have gotten a no to both of them recently. And I've sat with them, I've ridden my wave, it feels really calm and neutral in my body, and I'm ready to make some changes there. And so I want to say here that, you know, letting the things go, like once you get clear on where you are yes or where you are no and where you're gonna let go of some things, that's the simple part. Like that, you could say, like, I'm not gonna do this anymore. That's so simple. But it's the the feelings that we are afraid or not willing to feel, that is the stuff that we need to work through. Those lower level vibration emotions that we are probably gonna feel because that is what we are avoiding. That's probably why we haven't, you know, stopped doing the thing yet, because we aren't willing to feel. And yes, we get to choose to feel however we want to, but a lot of times when we are moving through some uncomfortable things, the reason why it comes up, those lower vibration emotions is because it comes up to be released, to be seen and to be let go of. And so if we aren't choosing a more, I don't want to say harder path, but I just want to say like going for the obstacles, right? Like going for the things that are a little bit outside of our comfort zone, but they are going to help us grow. The reason why we want to do that is because we're going to be releasing some of these emotions that we have kept and held on to. So I always like to say with clients, like schedule those life giving, those energy. Um, like I always call it like lit up. The lit up things, do those things first. So I talk about big rocks and little rocks, you know, put your big rocks in your calendar first. So for me, there's three things that are big for me. It's me, like myself, my relationship with myself and God. That is number one. Two, my family, and three, my business. Everything else gets put down wherever it can. Okay, those are my three big rocks that I want to make sure that I take care of and I look at and I have time for every single week. So put your big rocks on your calendar first, your time, your family time, like what values are important to you? This is why it's so important to kind of do a calendar audit where you get to see, oh, what's on my calendar that I'm saying yes to that I don't really want to? And what am I willing to let go of, you know, in order to have things on there that actually give me energy and light me up. So the big rocks, they go on the calendar first and then put the little rocks throughout. And if there isn't enough, and I'm air quoting, you know, space or time for the little rocks, then you're gonna get to decide. Do you want to move some of that to the following week? Like I had someone ask me for coffee and they wanted to meet um on one week, and I was like, I've already got my calendar planned. I'm like, we're gonna have to do it the next week or the following week. So it's it's going to take some practice of you, you know, being able to say to someone, like, listen, I I don't when I don't like saying I don't have time to meet, but like I already have a full plate this week. What about the following? Like I just told the person, like when they suggested one day, I just suggested the following week. And they were like, Yeah, sure. So really just, you know, being very clear on what are your big rocks, what are your little rocks, putting them in there. And then if there isn't enough time for the little rocks, you get to decide, do you want to move it to the following week? Do you just want to let go of something that's on your current calendar? Um, so you're gonna have to play with this, you're gonna have to see like what feels good for you in terms of what are you doing that you love? Because here's the other thing that when you do things that you love, I want to say two things here. When you do things that you love, you you enhance or you have a higher vibration. Second, when I say when you do things that you love, let's say that I'll just use podcasting. I love podcasting, I love showing up for you guys. And sometimes my brain's like, and I would rather go do something else today. So I really have to check in and be like, okay, is that because you haven't been able to play enough? But this, but the podcasting still gets done. So if it is something that where my body's like, I need to move my body first, where you know, my mind originally thought, okay, I was gonna record at 1 p.m., but the body was like, I need to go move the body first. I still take care of what I want to take care of and what I need to take care of. But maybe it is the body needs to move or it needs to rest first and then it needs to. But just notice if you are, if that is where you are, or if you are using it as a reason to not do something. So the only way that you will know is if you check in with your body, you get, you know, you slow down, you get more clear, you ask yourself questions, you really start to see your patterns. I know myself well enough now to know, like, oh, okay, I just needed to move my body before I sat down because actually moving my body gave me more energy to sit down and write all of my podcasts for this week. So start asking yourself and thinking about in the life-giving or the life drain draining realms, you know. And before you say yes to something, ask yourself, is this life giving or is this life draining? You know, what you eat, your clients, your customers saying yes to your kids. Like this happens a lot. Sometimes I will say yes to my daughter, and I'm like, wait a second, I'm just kind of on an autopilot right here. Maybe yes is the answer, but not yes today. Maybe it's tomorrow or this weekend. So really start to slow down and give yourself time to ask yourself when you are saying yes to things, is it from a true yes life-giving reason or you know, energy? Um, you know, even your spouse or your family, even text messages have been very, very, um, I don't want to say specific, more so clear on okay, when am I going to text and when am I not going to? Like really start to do these micro shifts, you know, all of it. Pay attention to it, slow down and start asking yourself these questions. Because ultimately, yes, this podcast is about money, but really what it is is about is our entire life, right? Money is just the portal for me to get you to understand how are we behaving in every area of our life. So when we are training ourselves in one area, it it will it will show up in another. So just be very clear, be very cognizant and aware of where these are for you. And this might be something that, you know, it's not going to happen overnight, but your awareness will grow. You will practice this more often. You will be begin to be stronger at telling people from a very loving place, I love you. And this week is a no for me. And that is going to take you willing to feel and be in the discomfort of what you may not want to feel in that moment. But the more that you do it, the more that you practice it, the better you will get. Okay, that's all I have for you today. I love you. I'm rooting for you. Really start to look at yourself as such a precious asset commodity and really start looking at in terms of life giving versus life draining. Okay, I'll see you in the next episode.