This morning, as I drove to work, I found myself brainstorming about my coaching practice and how to make it more awesome and accessible.

Ideas were flowing and I felt a joyful energy surround me—I was so fired up that I wished I could turn the car around and return home to put my ideas into action.

The moment I pulled into the parking lot at my 8:00-4:30 day job all my ideas and energy seemed to vanish. I made a mental note to remember what I’d been thinking about, and turned my attention to the many tasks at hand.

A deep sigh settled in my chest as I worked.

And, it’s not that I don’t like my job—I’m a school counselor and vocational teacher for at risk youth, which brings me lots of joy and satisfaction. However, it is also exhausting and takes up much of the energy I’d like to spend on other aspects of life.

My coaching practice is something that I want to devote more time to—I truly believe that what you focus on grows. While I do like my job, coaching is something I have a deep passion for and want to really build up.

It’s mine to create, it’s like my business baby—a baby that needs care and nurturing. A baby that’s no doubt starting to feel neglected.

I find my energy split between my job that pays the bills, and my  less lucrative (as of now) soul’s work. It’s kind of a catch 22, because it’s less lucrative due to the fact that I’m devoting much less of my time and energy into focusing and developing it.

Then how in the world can I give it the time and care that it needs when my energy is already spread so thin?

Of course there are other areas in life that take up energy: the house that needs cleaning and maintenance, plants that need watering, dinner that needs cooking, a dog that needs walking—the list goes on. We all have responsibilities, people and things that demand our time and energy.

The question is, how do we conserve some time and energy for ourselves and the things that we love, that we need, to live a healthy, balanced life? Why should we always be running around, too distracted by busywork to really pursue our passions and purposes?

It’s crazy-making. Not only are we distracted, but so much so that we’re also stressed to the max. What do you end up with? Stress, exhaustion and distraction. Where’s the leftover energy? All used up, and I can say that from experience.

Back to our question: how do we save time and energy for ourselves and what’s really important? Yes, it’s important to pay the bills and put food on the table, but how many times does that come at the expense of our dreams and ultimate purposes? Surely these two ideas can coexist in harmony. And I believe many of us are active in the search for that fulfilling, life affirming purpose that will also pay the bills.

But in the mean time, there’s gotta be some way to stay focused and energized, right? I’m still trying to figure it out, but I think it has something to do with prioritizing and getting rid of things that don’t work.

It has to do with setting aside time and space for creativity to blossom. It has to do with making time to be still and to receive. Because I believe that always doing is the key to waking up one day when you’re eighty years old and having to ask yourself where the last fifty years went. I want to know what I did, why I did it, and that it was in alignment with my soul’s purpose.

So how do we carve out that time and space? It all sounds so easy, right? Just prioritize and get rid of the bad habits.

Well, if it were that easy to change patterns of behavior, we probably would have done it by now. We’d be living exactly how we wanted all the time. But, as is our human condition, it takes time to change our patterns. It takes constant retraining and reminding, falling down and picking ourselves back up. I think many times, we try something differently only to fall back into familiar patterns, and then we never want to try again because we’ve told ourselves that it’s impossible—that we tried before but we just couldn’t seem to shake the pattern.

The thing is: trying to change something once isn’t enough. It may take multiple times, and months to really change a pattern of behavior for good.

One of my chronic struggles is getting up earlier in the morning. I know I need some mediative energy—receiving time before I start my day, but I just can’t seem to get up as early as I want. So I scrape by with just enough time to shower and not really enough time to eat breakfast. I hate it.

And yet, I continue to do this every morning. I’ve had success in the past for intermittent periods of time, but have not managed to sustain a positive morning routine. I know it’s going to take some re-commitment to try again (and probably getting to bed earlier, too).

So the lesson for myself: it’s the perfect time to make space, receive, and focus on each area of life as it comes. And as the saying goes: if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. It’s so easy to become discouraged and to beat ourselves up about our shortcomings, but if we could learn to see “failure” as a stepping stone on the road to success, life might look much different!

Yes, I might be exhausted from helping young adults in their pursuit of a high school diploma, but what’s really going to provide me with more energy is taking the time to develop my practice, make space to receive and take action with those activities and people that I love. It’s so tempting to plop down on the couch and watch TV after a long day at work, but more often than not, I end up feeling even more tired.

Sometimes you have to give a little energy in the right place to get a whole lot back.

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Assistant Editor: Melissa Petty/Editor: Bryonie Wise

{Photo: Flickr}