Negotiation #4: Negotiate Your Energy

Energy Is Your Most Precious Resource

Academic physicians are high-energy people. We have to be. Long hours and demanding schedules become normal—even a 12-hour day may not feel like much compared to training years.

But being able to push harder and longer than most people isn’t always a strength. Without care, it easily becomes overwork. Energy conserved and directed is far more powerful than energy scattered everywhere. Negotiating your energy is about choosing how and where you spend it, so you can focus on what matters most.

Five Steps to Negotiating Your Energy

1. Pay Attention to What Your Body Needs

In medicine, we’re trained to override fatigue, hunger, and even basic needs. We drink coffee to stay awake, skip meals to keep working, and ignore signals our bodies are sending us. Over time, this disconnect takes a toll. Rebuild the link between fatigue and rest, hunger and nourishment, exertion and recovery. Respect your body’s signals—exercise, sleep, nutrition—and give your body what it needs to function at its best.

2. Prioritize Rest, Not Just Sleep

Sleep matters. But rest is bigger than sleep. Rest means building pauses into your day—mental breaks, small moments to recharge, intentional pacing in your schedule. Instead of grinding through 12 hours straight and collapsing later, ask: Where can I create spaces for recovery throughout the day? These moments sharpen your focus and sustain your intensity.

3. Avoid Judgment

Few things drain energy as quickly as judgment. Criticizing others, yourself, or circumstances consumes focus without producing value. Consider: a spill in the lab is neutral until judgment is added (“you’re clumsy” or “they did it just to bug you”). Instead of fueling anger or blame, respond neutrally: It spilled. Let’s clean it up. When you drop judgment, you free energy for creativity, problem-solving, and progress.

4. Practice Compassion

Compassion generates energy where judgment depletes it. Others are working hard, even if imperfectly. So are you. Extending compassion to colleagues—and to yourself—creates space for resilience, recovery, and renewed motivation. Compassion doesn’t make challenges disappear, but it equips you to face them with strength instead of depletion.

5. Conserve Energy for What Matters Most

Distractions and dramas constantly compete for your energy. Gossip about leadership, frustrations with colleagues, institutional politics—these can pull you in.

Before engaging, ask: Does this serve my highest purpose? Does it move me closer to my legacy? If not, let it go. Save your energy for the work and relationships that matter most.

Energy Fuels Your Legacy

Negotiating your energy isn’t about doing less—it’s about directing your capacity toward what counts. Protecting your energy means you have more to invest in your productivity, your family, and yourself.

What’s Next: Negotiating Your Rest

Energy fuels your work, but rest renews it. In the next post, we’ll explore the fifth negotiation: your rest—how to reclaim it and why it is essential for long-term success.

Reflection Questions

• How well do you currently pay attention to your body’s signals for rest, nourishment, and movement?

• Where in your day could you add small moments of rest?

• What judgments—of yourself, others, or circumstances—tend to drain your energy most?

• How might you redirect energy wasted on distractions toward what matters most to your legacy?