Stop Wasting Your Energy: How to Focus on What Actually Matters

Stop Wasting Your Energy: How to Focus on What Actually Matters

Have you ever noticed how you can get to the end of a long, busy day and still feel strangely unsatisfied — like you used up all your energy but didn’t actually move closer to anything that matters? You’re not imagining it. You really are expending energy, but not always in ways that replenish or align with your deeper purpose.

If you’ve been feeling this way, our coaching and counseling services or personal growth programs can help you realign your time, energy, and focus around what’s meaningful starting today.

In this week’s episode of Love, Happiness & Success, I sat down with psychologist and author Dr. Diana Hill to talk about how to reclaim your energy and focus by using them wisely. Her new book, Wise Effort: How to Focus Your Genius Energy on What Matters Most, offers a roadmap for doing exactly that — helping you use your time, attention, and energy in ways that are intentional, regenerative, and aligned with your values.

This isn’t about doing less or hustling harder. It’s about recognizing what drains your life force and what fuels it — and then making choices that reflect that awareness.

Why We Lose Our Energy and Focus

Diana describes three main patterns that scatter our energy:

1. Getting caught in stories — the mental loops that tell us who we should be, what others might think, or why we’re not enough.
   
2. Avoiding discomfort — steering away from hard or uncertain experiences that actually lead to growth.
   
3. Holding on too tight — gripping control, outcomes, or identities that no longer serve us.
   

Each of these creates friction in the system. The more we fight, fix, or overthink, the more of our natural energy gets consumed by resistance instead of creation.

Research on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) supports this idea. When we align our behavior with our values rather than our fears, we conserve energy and increase psychological flexibility.

If you tend to overthink or replay scenarios, this guide on how to stop overthinking can help you redirect your focus toward what truly matters.

Finding Your Genius Energy

One of my favorite ideas from our conversation is what Diana calls genius energy, that effortless flow that happens when you’re living and working from your unique gifts.

When you’re in your genius energy, things don’t feel forced. There’s ease, momentum, and even joy. But most of us lose touch with this part of ourselves because we’re busy managing what we think we should be doing instead.

That’s where wise effort comes in — it’s the intentional practice of realigning your energy and focus with your values so your attention follows what’s truly meaningful.

If you’ve been feeling disconnected or directionless, you might relate to What Am I Doing With My Life? — it’s a reminder that clarity often comes after you redirect your energy toward what matters most.

How to Reclaim Your Energy and Focus

Diana shared a few practices to help you start redirecting your energy right away:

• The 24-hour regret check. At the end of the day, ask: “What do I regret from the past 24 hours?” Regret isn’t failure — it’s feedback. Research on regret psychology (Roese & Summerville, 2005) shows it can guide wiser decisions and better focus.

• The envy clue. Notice when you feel a twinge of envy. Instead of judging it, ask what it’s revealing about your values or desires.

• The 4-question filter. When deciding where to invest your time and energy, ask:
  
  • Is this a whole-body yes?
  • Does it use my genius?
  • Is it aligned with my values?
  • Is it of service to others?

When something meets at least three of these, it’s usually a wise investment of your energy. When it doesn’t, that’s often where burnout begins.

You can learn more about redirecting your energy and mindset in How to Get Out of a Slump and Back to Being YOU or How to Break Free From Common Bad Habits that quietly drain focus.