Some Thought-Shifting Jiu-Jitzu with 3 Client Examples
I’m kicking off 2025 by talking about Energy + how to get more of it. (Isn’t that something we all need, at this time of year?). If you missed it, you can find my past few essays here: 1, 2.
This week, I want to share a slightly sneaky idea for getting your energy back.
I call it “slightly sneaky” because when we think about energy, most of us think about action. What to do or not do.
But this one isn’t about action.
It’s about your thoughts.
More specifically, I want to argue: Your thoughts are keeping you tired.
And conversely: Changing your thoughts could free up a surprisingly amount of energy.
Here’s 3 real examples of thoughts that were keeping my clients tired — all from the past few months:
Client 1: Hiring help makes me selfish
Client 2: I need to change how I spend my whole evening.
Client 3: I have to deal with the legal and logistical details of my parents’ estate as soon as possible.
When the thoughts are summarized like this, it’s decently easy to see how they were making my clients unnecessarily tired.
It’s also decently easy to feel a little, well, *smug.*
As in: I wouldn’t fall victim to such obvious thought errors!
But I can almost guarantee that you also have thoughts like this — but (1) You aren’t aware of what they are and (2) You don’t question them assertively enough + cultivate new, believable ones.
So let’s go back to those four clients again — with the new thoughts we cultivated, and the effect they had on their energy:
Client 1:
Old thought: Hiring help makes me selfish
New thought: What if *not hiring help* makes me selfish?
Result: I offered my client this thought — “What if *not hiring help* is selfish?” in a session, and it kind of blew her mind. (My argument: she could afford it, and it would give a job to someone who wanted one. Why isn’t that a good, self-less thing?)
The point isn’t that either thought was true or not-true — but just freeing up her brain to the possibility that the selfish choice was, in fact, not getting help freed her up to get the help she so desperately wanted. And has had incredible downstream impact on her energy — freeing up time and mental energy for her to read more, exercise more, cultivate her creativity, and finally think about the next steps for what she wants to pursue in life.
Client 2:
Old thought: I need to change how I spend my whole evening.
New Thought: I can just spend 30 minutes resting more effectively — and keep the rest of my night as before.
Results: As many of us do, this client was spending much of her evening on her phone, or doing other Pleasure Button-y activities.
But instead of expecting her to shift her whole evening, I just suggested that she spend 30 minutes of it on “true rest.” This thought freed my client up to read a book for 30 minutes and also still go on Instagram. Or walk to the gym and just freaking go in the sauna for 30 minutes without exercising at all (Another thought she replaced was: “I can’t go to the gym and not work out!”).
And who woulda thunk it: when she did those things — her stress levels lowered, she felt more content with her life, and she naturally started eating better, spending even more time off of Instagram, spending less, and more.
Client 3:
Old thought: I have to deal with the legal and logistical details of my parents’ estate as soon as possible.
New thought: Maybe it’s okay to balance rest with also attending to the legal and logistical details of my parents’ estate.
Result: After her last remaining parent passed, my client felt a lot of pressure to handle the details of her parents’ estate quickly — it felt like a “fact” that a “good daughter” would do that.
But she was also exhausted and overwhelmed. When she finally cultivated the new thought that it might be okay to pace herself, it brought her a ton of relief, and freed up a significant amount of energy, which she spent resting, traveling to see friends, and taking care of herself.
…
If you are a fastidious reader, this might be the moment when you point out: Katie, these clients did eventually take action, didn’t they? So isn’t this about action, ultimately?
And you’d be right! My clients did take action. They went to the sauna, read books, made requests, prioritized, and hired help.
But to me, the thoughts are like the key to a bolted door.
With the door bolted, it’s crazy-hard to walk through. You can expend a ton of energy on action — pulling at that door with all your might, trying to knock it off of it’s hinges, and still… nothing happens.
But when the door is unlocked with the right key (e.g., the right thoughts), it is nearly effortless to walk through the doorway.
So I’ll leave you with that suggestion:
How could your thoughts be making you tired?
(And as a reminder: I can almost guarantee that if you’re tired, your thoughts are contributing to it. Try me.)
As always, I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.
Katie
p.s. Want me to be your coach and help you (1) identify thoughts that aren’t serving you + (2) show you how to shift them? Learn more here about what it’s like to work with me.
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