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The number of hours in a day is fixed, but the quantity and quality of energy available to us is not. It is our most precious resource. The more we take responsibility for the energy we bring to the world, the more empowered and productive we become. The more we blame others or external circumstances, the more negative and compromised our energy is likely to be.

The best way to build an emotional muscle, much like a physical muscle, is to push past your current comfort zone and then recover.

Since will and discipline are far more limited and precious resources than most of us realize, they must be called upon very selectively. Because even small acts of self-control use up this limited reservoir, consciously using this energy for one activity means it will be less available for the next one. The sobering truth is that we have the capacity for very few conscious acts of self-control in a day.

From our work with athletes we learned that visualizing a performance challenge in advance is a very effective way to allay anxiety and to perform without awkwardness or self-consciousness.

PRINCIPLE 2: Because energy capacity diminishes both with overuse and with underuse, we must balance energy expenditure with intermittent energy renewal.

Dehydrate a muscle by as little as 3 percent, for example, and it will lose 10 percent of its strength and 8 percent of its speed. Inadequate hydration also compromises concentration and coordination.

The only caveat was that the naps had to be timed to insure that the subjects didn't fall into deeper stages of sleep. After more than thirty to forty minutes of sleep, many of them emerged feeling groggy and even more fatigued than if they hadn't napped at all.

The limitations of conscious will and discipline are rooted in the fact that every demand on our self-control--from deciding what we eat to managing frustration, from building an exercise regimen to persisting at a difficult task--all draw on the same small easily depleted reservoir of energy.