Energy Audit: Clearing What's Making Your Business Feel Heavy {5.13.26}

You're showing up. But something feels off, and you can't quite name it.

It's the weight of what you haven't looked at yet -- the thing you're dreading, the decision you keep circling, the situation you've been tolerating longer than you should. 

None of it is loud. But all of it is costing you.

In this episode, I'm walking you through a 15-minute energy audit I run with my clients and on myself.

Because here's what I've found, every single time: when you're carrying unaddressed energy drains, everything downstream gets harder. Decision-making slows. Momentum feels forced. You use a portion of your focus just to keep the weight of what you haven't dealt with from surfacing.

And eventually, that starts to feel normal.

This episode is about interrupting that. Not by solving everything -- but by being willing to see it.

In this episode:

• Why energy drain shows up quietly and why that makes it harder to catch
• The one rule that makes this audit actually work (and why your brain will try to talk you out of it)
• Why the first answer matters more than the polished one
• What changes when you stop pretending the weight isn't there

Ready to build momentum? The Momentum Room -- jenlaffin.com/tmr

Jen Laffin is the Chief Momentum Officer for women entrepreneurs and the creator of Accountability Without the Angst™. She helps women business owners build consistent follow-through and self-trust through The Momentum Room and private coaching.

Thank you for listening!


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Transcript

0:00

Welcome back everyone. I'm so happy that you're here with me again this week, because today we're going to be doing something a little bit different. We are not going to be talking about a framework or necessarily mindset. We are going to be doing some practical work today, and this is work that I do with my clients all the time. So we are going to be running an energy audit on your business, and I want you to do it along with me, which means if you are driving, please press pause and come back to this podcast later. You also are going to probably wanna grab yourself a notebook, because I have some questions that I would like for you to answer. So this energy audit is going to take you probably about 15 minutes, because there are four questions that I'm going to have you answer. But I do have one rule that I'm going to ask you to follow, and that is, when you are writing down your answers, you must write down the very first answer that comes to your mind. Not on the one that you land at after you've thought it through for five minutes. I want you to capture the first one. So again, if you are not somewhere that you can complete this in real time, like if you are driving or maybe even out on a walk, please pause this episode and come back to it later. Because the rule of working with your first answer matters way more than anything else I'm going to say today, and I'm going to explain why in just a minute. So why do I want you to do this energy audit? I want to start here with the word audit, because I know that that word can feel very corporate, very analytical, and what I'm talking about is actually quite the opposite of that. An energy audit is not about tracking your time or figuring out where your hours went. It is about identifying what is quietly draining you. We're going to be looking for the things that aren't loud and obvious, but they are things that you carry around with you every single day. Because here's what I know about the entrepreneurs that I work with. They are often operating at a significant energy deficit, and they do not fully see it. They're getting things done, and they're showing up, but underneath it all, there is a low hum of things that they're not dealing with, decisions that they haven't made, solutions that they keep tolerating, work that costs them more than it should. And that hum is very expensive, even when it's quiet. And this audit that you're going to do today is going to make all of that visible to you. So what happens when you don't look for these energy leaks in your business? Well, I want to spend a minute here before we get to the questions, because I think most people underestimate what sustained energy drain actually does to them. It does not usually show up in a crisis. That's the thing. If it showed up in a crisis, you'd be able to deal with it, right? It shows up as something much subtler and much more dangerous for the long-term success of your business and your happiness as a business owner. It shows up as a general sense of heaviness that you cannot quite explain. You're doing all the things. You're keeping your commitments. But something feels off, and you can't name it, so you just keep adding more to your plate, or you push harder, or you convince yourself that you just need a good weekend to reset. And the Monday comes around, and that heaviness is still there. When someone is carrying unaddressed energy drains, the dread that they're not dealing with, the decisions they keep circling, the things that they keep coming back to un- that are unresolved, it affects everything downstream. Their decision-making slows down because they're using a portion of their cognitive and emotional capacity just to manage the weight of what they haven't looked at yet. Every conversation they have, every plan they make, every goal they set, it's all happening with a depleted engine. And here's the part that is hardest to see from the inside. When you are operating that way long enough, that starts to become your norm. It starts to feel normal, and you forget what it feels like to have full access to your own energy and attention. You assume this is just what running a business feels like. It's not. What running a business feels like when you're not dragging unresolved weight behind you is much different. Your decisions come faster, your momentum feels less forced, and the work that actually matters gets more of you, your focus, your presence, your energy, all of it, not the leftovers. And you cannot get there by working harder. You can only get there by getting honest, which is what this audit is for. So we're going to dive into those questions, but one more thing. I wanna talk to you about the rule that I told you about at the beginning of the show, because I think this is where most of my listeners are going to want to cheat, and I don't mean that in a really harsh way. I mean that is what your brain is going to want to help you with. It's going to want to help you come up with a deep answer, because as an entrepreneur, you do a lot of deep thinking. You're going to ask yourself the first question, and your brain is going to generate an answer, and then almost immediately it's going to say, "Well, but that's not really the problem," or, "That's not a big deal," or, "I've already thought about that. I'm probably just overthinking it." And then it's going to offer you a second answer, a tidier one, one that doesn't feel as uncomfortable to look at. That second answer, it is not wrong, but it is not the one that this audit is built for. The first answer, the one that came up before your brain had a chance to manage it, this is the one that we're after. And when you notice it, I want you to write it down, even if it surprises you or seems too simple or too big or, let's admit it, too embarrassing to name out loud. I have found that the first answer is almost always the real one, the one that matters the most. So grab your notebook and let's dive into those four questions. And as I read each of these questions to you, I want you to press pause right after and write down the first thought that comes to your mind. And then when you're done doing that, press play again. All right, question number one: What am I dreading right now? What am I dreading right now? Press pause and write down your answer. Okay, question number two: What decision have I been putting off? What decision have I been putting off? Press pause and write down your first answer. Question number three: What issue keeps coming back unresolved? What issue keeps coming back unresolved? Press pause and write down your answer. And question number four, last question: What in my business requires more from me than it gives? What in my business requires more from me than it gives? Press pause and then write down your answer and come on back All right, so we've just gone over the four questions in the energy audit, and I hope that you really were able to grab that first thought answer, because now I'm going to tell you what to do with what you find. And I want to be clear about something before we begin. This audit is not a to-do list for you. You are not walking out of this episode with four more action items. This is not the point. The point is to stop pretending that those things that you just wrote down aren't costing you anything, because that's what happens when we don't name them. They don't disappear. They stay in the background, pulling our attention, and our energy, and our decision-making in ways that we don't always notice. We might move a little slower. We might hesitate a little more. We might stay busier than we need to be, and we wonder why we can't seem to get traction on the things that actually matter. This audit interrupts all that. It is making the invisible visible, and sometimes, not always, but sometimes just naming the thing is what makes it movable. So take a look at your answers and ask yourself, "Is this something that I am ready to move?" Because if you are, add it to your priority list and get it out of your attention area so what comes next? I run a version of this audit with my clients inside The Momentum Room, and I also run it on myself, and what I've found every single time is that, like I told you, that first answer is the one that matters. And when we actually look at it, when we stop managing it and start working with it, the path forward almost always becomes clearer than we expected. You do not have to solve everything today, my friend, but you do have to be willing to see it. So if you did this audit while you were listening to this podcast, I want you to sit with what came up. Notice which answer surprised you the most. Which one did you want to skip? Those are the ones that are asking for your most immediate attention. And if you're ready to stop carrying those things alone and start actually working through them, then that's exactly why you should be in the Momentum Room. We do this kind of work every week, making the invisible visible, building the self-trust to act on it, and staying accountable to the follow-through. I hope you enjoyed doing this audit this week. You can learn more about the Momentum Room on my website, jenlaffin.com/tmr. I hope you have an amazing week, and I'll see you right back here again next week