The Real Causes of Lack of Energy That Go Beyond Your Physical Health

Author: Adam Bergen / Source: Lifehack

Adam Bergen is the founder of Monday Views, a movement dedicated to showing that with focus and self-discipline, your potential is limitless. Read full profile

Think about this: you just spent a day at work, and you’ve thought all afternoon about how you want to tackle a goal that’s been on the back-burner all week.

As the day wears on and you make your way home, you tell yourself over and over like a broken record how you need to put your head down, so to speak, and finally get around to doing that one thing you need to do.

You get home, put your bag down, and… fast-forward a few hours. Before you know it, it’s time for bed.

What happened?

Well, you lost all the energy you needed; your mind effectively gave up before you even started.

A lack of energy can go beyond feeling physically tired, it can permeate into what’s known as “mental tiredness”. And it’s a real thing, affecting almost everyone for various reasons. But what if I told you it’s completely possible to tackle it? All it takes is realizing some of the sources of your lack of energy and finding ways to work with it.

Let’s go through the real causes of lack of energy and your desire to dip into tired territory:

1. An Unfulfilling Job

Everyone knows they spend at least eight hours a day at their job for generally five days a week. If you think about it closely though, you’ll realize that this 40 hours a week translates to about 88 full days a year you’re at your job.

We’re talking 88 straight 24-hour days worth of work in a year. That’s about 25% of your entire existence, not including sleep, spent at your job.

That’s a lot of time.

So if your job is unfulfilling to you, no wonder your mental fortitude takes the biggest beating.

Unfulfilling can also mean several things:

You could hate your job.
You could somewhat enjoy it but not be learning anything.
You could dislike your job but get paid well.
You could think your job is OK but you’re bored with it.

There’re many more situations, so inevitably the question gets asked: how do I know if my job is unfulfilling? And my answer is always the same:

You’ll know when your cup isn’t being filled, so to speak.

And it’s pretty important to determine if it’s not, and begin to implement changes to fill it up.

Why? Dire news: a recent study found a direct link between job satisfaction and mental health.^[1] Those who reported less satisfaction with their jobs suffered from higher bouts of depression and sleep difficulty.

Do you want to be in this category? Or are you already?