Fuel your expansion
Energy is the most important resource we have.
Yet no one teaches us how to manage it.
Instead, we’re taught to push, hustle, grind, and throw our energy around like confetti until we’re shattered piñatas at a kid's birthday party.
Because it benefits and supports a system, even if it burns us out.
You don’t have to live on anyone else’s terms, especially not the crazy idea that you should work 40+ hours a week for 50 years and then die in the following 10.
F**k that.
Your life is your design.
You’re building your dream, your wild authentic business, your way.
But you need to know when to spend and save your energy.
If you move as though you’re jacked up on uppers, you’ll peak, then crash and burn. No fun.
And it takes A LOT of energy to peel yourself up off the floor.
It’s easier to check in, see what’s needed, and design how you want to move daily.
Note, I said easier, not easy. It’s a practice, one worth starting now.
No one can give you the energy management blueprint because your energy is a unique signature only you can really feel into, tune, and direct.
Only you know when to sashay across the dance floor or pop and lock.
Only you can learn to recognize when to sit this one out and when to take the stage.
Sometimes, knowing how you don’t want to move is how you figure out how you do.
Working in creative agencies for 15 years, growing up in an unstable home, and as a native New Yorker, I’m hard-wired to fight, make myself fit into any space, and throw everything I have at it.
When life got tough, I just pushed harder against the wall.
When I could have simply walked around it.
I didn’t realize this was even possible.
Until I started building my own business.
Last year, when I launched Kollektiv Studio, I wanted to build with flow, ease, creativity, and joy.
And craft a full, juicy life that’s so much more than work.
But I forgot how to be wild, to move differently. I had become tamed.
I had been taught to ignore my boundaries, push beyond my limits, and disconnect from my body. The corporate structure locked this in.
Welcome to the great unlearning and re-learning.
As a wildly expanding creator, you’re consciously moving and building your way.
If you’re pushing, become aware of what you’re up against.
Decide if you even need to push at all.
Over-efforting is anchored in fear.
Passion is tethered to your purpose.
Learn to tell the difference and understand which energy is fueling you.
Then choose consciously.
Design your days
It’s easy to say, ‘design your days’.
Harder to implement.
What baseline are you using? Hopefully your own.
Listen to your body, check in:
Observe your energy levels.
Tune into yourself. Really feel yourself.
What do you need in this moment? A nap, a walk, a deep work session?
What energy do you want to move and build with?
I want to move with the energy of being in an open field on a summer’s day.
Laying in the grass, pulling off daisy petals, sun warming my exposed legs, or running through the field, golden retriever almost tripping me up. It’s a soft light space.
I’m learning when to daydream and stare at the clouds, and when to run, carving my own patterns in wheat stalks.
You create the energy field and move within it based on what you need.
It’s a dance between refueling, cruising, and stepping on the gas.
Be kind to yourself as you build.
Your space and time has mostly been designed by other people.
Now, you hold the pen and sketchpad.
You’re doing the most important work there is - designing life on your terms.
This work requires:
deciding how you want to direct and manage your energy
designing how you build, move, and expand
crumbled piles of paper and White-Out
But the process, the space, the energy is yours.
All you.
You brave, rebellious, wild creator you.
📓 FIELDWORK 📓
✦ COACHING MOMENT ✦
Discover what feeds you and what feeds on you.
Reflect on your energy. As you move through a day, the next week, become aware of what replenishes and sucks your energy.
Make a list of energy givers and drainers.
What makes you feel energized, light, or free?
What makes you feel heavy, stressed, or tired?
Do more of what fills you up. Observe the impact.
Some of my energy givers + takers
✦ DOSE OF CREATIVITY ✦
Imagine the energy you want to build with.
Close your eyes. Hand on heart. Sit quietly. Breathe deeply.
What place, image, or space comes up?
How do you feel in it?
Find images or words that describe this place and feeling.
Check in with it daily. Are you in that place or someone else’s?
✦ NOTE TO SELF ✦
Don’t push against the wall. Just walk around it.
