I have already said that I considered 'energy management' - which I prefer to call Personal Ecology because I am not that fond of management speak - to be a crucial part of coaching. This is all very well but HOW can I actually DO it? 

I started by being slightly conflicted about it because I held two apparently opposed ideas:

• One size doesn't fit all
• There must be at least one coaching tool that is helpful to all.

Becoming ecologically savvy on a personal level has been, and still is, a momentous challenge for me. It all started because I got really fed up saying "I feel tired" or worse "I feel exhausted" all the time. It quickly became repetitive, boring and ultimately meaningless.

One day, it occurred to me that the good old scale of 1 to 10 could be useful to me. Encouraged by my medical team, I started to keep an 'energy diary' (that was my name for it). Every day, I noted whether my day had been a 3 or a 5, and whether my energy reading had fluctuated during the day. I had originally assumed that my 10 out of 10 would automatically be my 'feeling on top form' but I soon re-examined my assumption in the context of my bi-polar illness. Could it be that what I had always considered as my 'top form' was actually 'over the top' and therefore unsustainable in the long term? I realised I did indeed have a personal calibration challenge...

This brings me straight back to my conflicting ideas: the scale of 1 to 10 is a universal tool for measuring energy levels but it needs to be individually calibrated. In other words, what is right or 'normal' for one person will probably not be so for another. I have a sense that coaching is uniquely placed to encourage and support that personal calibration.

The other thing of course is that I needed to give an 'energy score' to different activities AND emotions (my spinning plates). That score can be positive or negative, depending on whether the activity/emotion concerned recharges me or drains me. Again, the scoring system could be universal (-1 to +5?) but the results unique to each individual. It could work a bit like an 'energy elicitation' exercise.

I understand that my illness is a unique experience to me and I certainly would not wish it on anybody else. Nor do I think it is necessary to be/have been ill to value your personal energy. I have a profound sense however, that energy awareness and energy mindfulness need to be part of the coaching spectrum of learning and working. My illness was my own learning vehicle. Other vehicles do just as well.

What do YOU think?