Feeling Off? Unpack Your Energy Influencers

What if your emotions, mental state, or even your environment could be the key to unlocking peak performance in your daily life? Join us as we unpack the six key influencers—spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, social, and environmental—that shape our ability to thrive and perform at our best. Gain practical insights and real-life examples that reveal how your sense of purpose can elevate your spiritual well-being, while navigating mental challenges can either stimulate or frustrate your efforts. 

Discover the unexpected ways that emotions like sadness or tiredness can actually fuel creativity and productivity. We'll guide you through identifying and aligning these influencers to support your personal and professional goals. Whether you’re striving for greater focus, emotional resilience, or a deeper connection to your purpose, this episode offers valuable tools and strategies to enhance your performance and well-being. Tune in for an illuminating conversation that promises to transform the way you approach your daily life.

If you are enjoying the show please subscribe, share and review! Word of mouth is incredibly impactful and your support is much appreciated!

Transcript

Lisa Hopkins: 0:24

Hey there. So we all have things that affect us and influence our ability or capacity to thrive in certain situations or to be as effective as we know that we can be. It isn't uncommon to feel off, to feel like you're not quite able to do what you normally can do, and this can come into play when we're operating at a very high level. The folks I work with rely on their capacity to thrive, and when things are off, what we do is we check in with what influencers are at play. So I'm going to talk today a little bit about what I mean by influencers and how you can draw awareness around what may or may not be affecting you and your ability to perform or show up in the way that you know you can. So there are six influencers that I talk about Social, mental, environmental, emotional, physical and spiritual. I'm going to break them down a little bit and then maybe give you a few examples of how your influencers might be at play. So your spiritual influencer is all about your purpose. It's all about why you do what you do and it affects how you do things. So when you're, when you are motivated by your spiritual influencer, you feel connected to your purpose. Now, interestingly, all of these influencers can also detract from your energy. When whatever you're doing is causing you to question your values or your purpose or comes in conflict with what it is you stand for, well then your spiritual influencer could be out of whack. A good example of this is doing things for the right reason, and the right reason lies in you, not an external factor. So when you connect to your why, you're connected to your purpose, to your spiritual connection, to your reasons for doing things, and if your reasons for doing things are connected to the outside to impress or to show up for somebody else, or to put on a mask and be what people want you to be, well then your spiritual influencer will be out of whack, because what you're doing is not connected.

Lisa Hopkins: 3:18

When I wrote the book, I was connected to my purpose of connection, of sharing, of creativity, of connection, of sharing of creativity, of personal discovery. It was really ripe with spiritual influencers, which made it very easy for me to do and to show up for, because I felt connected to my why. Alternatively, had I been trying to produce a book, I wouldn't have been able to tap into my values of creativity and purpose and connection and service had I been doing it for other reasons? Had my spiritual influencer been out of whack? Had I been doing it because I'm supposed to? Had I been doing it because I said I would? All of these things don't allow me to connect into that deeper reasoning for why I do or did what I did. I hope that makes sense.

Lisa Hopkins: 4:24

So let's talk about the mental influencer. So mental influencers, the mental influencer, so mental influencers. They're all about focus. They're all about something being interesting enough for you to stimulate you, but not so hard that it frustrates you. So if you're the type of person that loves a challenge and feels energized by that, well then your mental influencer is something that is important to you. If you're someone who feels frustrated when something is too hard and feels challenged and feels down on yourself, well then you are being influenced by your mental influencer in a negative way. And again, keep in mind, these are all contextualized as well, which is probably a whole other conversation.

Lisa Hopkins: 5:20

So let's talk about emotional influencers. When your emotional influencer is serving you, it's likely that you'd be feeling good about doing something, you'd be feeling capable, you'd be feeling positive and you'd notice when you feel this way, you're able to get a lot done or to really focus on whatever it is that you want to be effective at Now. This is not to say that only the positive or happy emotions are ones that serve you. In fact, I can think of a lot of artists who find that when they're feeling blue or sad or even tired, that they're more effective, which is interesting, right. Tired that they're more effective, which is interesting, right, that it evokes a place where they can go to and really go to that well of feeling Interesting, isn't it? On the other hand, an emotion might really affect you. I might not be able to communicate as well if I'm super excited, for instance. Sometimes I get excited about stuff and I feel that I lambaste people with my energy. So if the goal there is to communicate openly and calmly and I'm excited, well then my emotional influencer is a little bit off. Do you see how that works? So there's no good or bad in either of these or any of these. It's only, it's all about awareness and it definitely is about context as well. So we've talked about spiritual and mental and emotional.

Lisa Hopkins: 7:02

Let's talk about physical. So physical influencers involve your awareness around what your body's telling you, right? So if you feel better when you exercise, then exercise is part of your routine that serves you and helps you and you don't get to exercise, well, then your physical influencer will be out of whack. If you exercise too much, for instance, right, if you overexert yourself, then you might be too tired to perform that night or to take that meeting or to have that hard conversation. So, again, balancing and understanding how your physical influencers serve you and in what context, is massive. Some days I feel so much better if I get up early and stretch and then start my day, and others not so much. Others I feel better if I sleep a little bit more because my body's telling me I need to rest. Again, awareness is the key.

Lisa Hopkins: 8:13

Let's talk about social influencers Now. I think it's fair to say that social influencers are pretty massive, right, this involves, you know, being surrounded by like-minded people, people that are excited about doing the same things that you do. This is about being lit up when you're with certain folks or drained when you're with others. So there's an example of the social helping, the social not helping. If you are, you know, an introvert, this may affect you differently and you may need to adjust accordingly.

Lisa Hopkins: 8:55

I know that, for me, social really includes family, and so it would be fair to say in my case that social is one of my biggest influencers, that social is one of my biggest influencers. I can be lit up by a group of strangers that I'm just meeting and I'm enjoying, or that I'm sharing with or teaching. I can equally be drained by a loving my family so much that I try too hard. Does that make sense? So my family, again as an example of a social influencer, also brings me so much joy, but it influences me. If I get a phone call, it can take me off my game. If I am really focused at doing something and I get a phone call call and it's either good or bad, it doesn't really matter what the context of the phone call is or the communication with my family is. It can draw me away from being as effective as I want to be. So drawing that awareness for myself allows me to adjust my influencers accordingly.

Lisa Hopkins: 10:10

Today's a good example for me. I am in a very heightened social situation with my family. All positive, but I'm feeling my physical influencers off. I'm not sleeping. The same way, I'm feeling my spiritual is off, because I'm sort of pulled away from doing what I do, which is a huge part of who I am. So I'm adjusting accordingly. Today, against all kind of common sense, I've decided to step away and focus on my work, on my practice, on recording this for you today, because that is my spiritual influencer and that's what I need right now to help me balance out that physical and that social, which are kind of so amped up. I hope that makes sense to you.

Lisa Hopkins: 11:09

Other physical influencers can include, you know, having an injury or you know not just not feeling. Well, there's some obvious ones there. So we're going to talk about the final one, which is environmental. So an environmental influencer involves, well, your surroundings. It involves what helps you be the best that you can be. So, in a theater analogy and I'm a theater person, so I'll talk about this when your dressing room has air conditioning, that helps. When it doesn't, and the perception is, oh my gosh, I'm not going to perform as well Because there's no air conditioning in my dressing room, that starts to affect me. So that can be information that helps me recognize that. That helps me recognize that A I ensure that I either have accommodations for that, or that I maybe drink a little bit more water or that I bring a fan, you know, if I know I'm going to a venue that won't be providing that If we do not make adjustments and recognize that these influencers are not black and white, meaning if you don't have the air conditioning it doesn't mean that you're going to perform less well. It means you don't have the air conditioning at that venue. So you will amp up other aspects that will help you and make accommodations for yourself so that you can perform your best.

Lisa Hopkins: 12:47

I hope that makes sense. You know environment. You know influencers are super important, right. Sometimes rain, sometimes weather, sometimes sunshine. It affects our mood and if we know that we feel better when we breathe in the fresh air in the morning, then it's a good reminder to self that when we're feeling a little off, that maybe we schedule a little more time to do that. If we can't do it in the morning due to other circumstances, well then maybe we find another way to do it, and maybe it isn't the walk, maybe it is just opening a window. Right, there's a spectrum of ways that we can adjust our influencers. I think my instinct tells me we're going to stop there and that I will continue this lesson so that you can create your own success formula for being as effective as you can in whatever it is you're trying to do.

Lisa Hopkins: 13:50

And again, this can be the big meeting, it could be the big move, it could be the big show, it could be the next conversation with a stranger, it could be your relationship with yourself, it could be, you know, anything big, small or in between. It's about all the moments, not just the big ones and not just the bad ones. I'm going to leave it at that for today. I'm going to honor my physical influencer, which is telling me go drink some water, go eat some food, so that you can feel replenished for all the social stuff that I'm going to be amped up in over the next little period of time.

Lisa Hopkins: 14:44

You guys, I appreciate you so, so, very much. Thanks for being here, for learning. It says a lot about you that you're here to grow and to expand your knowledge about self and about how you can show up in the world, so this world can be a better place. I'm so, so grateful for you. Please check out my book. I continue to get incredible messages from folks saying how much it's helped them, and I will be sharing some of those at some point, but for now, just please do yourself a favor and go out and get the book. The link is in the show notes, the places where there are spaces cultivating a life of creative possibilities. Give yourself the gift of growth, a life of creative possibilities. Give yourself the gift of growth. So much love and light. No-transcript.