Why feeling in control can change how much energy you have

Most people think about energy as something that simply runs out, a resource depleted by hours worked or tasks completed, and topped back up by sleep and rest. This is not wrong, but it is incomplete.

Research into vitality, the subjective experience of feeling alive, alert, and energised, has found that energy is not only physical. It is also deeply psychological, and it fluctuates with how much control a person feels they have over their own life, not only with how much they have physically done.

This is the territory that empowerment coaching works in directly. It does not treat low energy purely as a scheduling or lifestyle problem to be solved with better sleep hygiene or fewer commitments, though those things matter. It treats energy as something that responds to a person's sense of agency, and works on rebuilding that sense of agency where it has eroded.

The link between energy and feeling in control

The foundational research on this comes from Richard Ryan and Christina Frederick, who developed the concept of subjective vitality to describe energy as it is actually experienced, rather than energy as a purely physiological measure. Their work found that vitality relates closely to psychological well-being and self-esteem, and relates negatively to depression and anxiety, suggesting that how energised someone feels is tied up with their broader psychological state, not just their physical condition (Ryan & Frederick, 1997).

Crucially, later research building on this found that vitality is not just an individual trait but a state that shifts with circumstance, and one of the strongest circumstantial predictors is autonomy support, meaning the degree to which a person feels they have genuine choice and volition in a given situation, rather than feeling controlled or compelled by outside pressure (Nix, Ryan, Manly & Deci, 1999). In practical terms, this means two people doing the same amount of work can experience very different levels of energy depending on whether that work feels chosen or imposed.

This connects directly to self-determination theory, which identifies autonomy, competence, and relatedness as the three basic psychological needs that, when met, are associated with greater self-motivation, higher satisfaction, and better overall well-being (Ryan & Deci, 2000). When these needs go unmet, particularly autonomy, people do not just feel dissatisfied. They report feeling depleted, even when their workload has not objectively changed.

What empowerment means in a work context

Empowerment is sometimes used as a vague, motivational term, but it has a specific and well-researched meaning in organisational psychology.

Gretchen Spreitzer's influential work defined psychological empowerment in the workplace as having four distinct dimensions: meaning, the sense that your work matters and aligns with your own values; competence, confidence in your own ability to do it well; self-determination, a sense of choice in how you carry it out; and impact, a belief that your work actually influences outcomes (Spreitzer, 1995). Each of these dimensions was shown to relate meaningfully to how people experienced their working lives, and low levels in any one of them can produce the flat, depleted feeling that gets labelled simply as low energy or burnout.

This is a useful reframe. Someone who feels persistently tired at work may not need more rest so much as more meaning, more genuine choice in how tasks are approached, or a clearer sense that their contribution actually changes anything. Addressing energy purely at the level of physical recovery, while ignoring these psychological dimensions, tends to produce only temporary relief.

Why coaching, specifically, helps here

Empowerment coaching works by rebuilding these dimensions directly rather than treating exhaustion as purely a rest deficit. This often starts with meaning: helping someone reconnect their day-to-day work with values they actually hold, rather than values assumed on their behalf by a job title or a company mission statement.

It continues with competence, building genuine confidence through evidence of capability rather than reassurance alone, and with self-determination, identifying where a person has more genuine choice available to them than they currently believe, even within a constrained role.

The impact dimension is often the most overlooked in coaching conversations, yet it may be one of the most important. People who cannot see how their work affects anything real tend to disengage regardless of how interesting the work initially was. Part of empowerment coaching involves making that impact visible again, whether through reconnecting someone to the people affected by their work or through simply tracking outcomes that had previously gone unnoticed.

Bringing energy and empowerment together

The practical implication of this research is straightforward, even if it runs against a common assumption. Energy is not simply a battery to be recharged through rest. It is also a psychological state that responds to how much genuine control, meaning, and impact a person experiences in their daily life.

Coaching that works on all of these dimensions together, rather than energy management alone, tends to produce change that lasts longer than a good night's sleep, because it addresses the actual source of the depletion rather than only its symptoms.

If tiredness has become a constant companion despite reasonable sleep and manageable workload, it may be worth asking a different question. Not simply how much rest is needed, but how much genuine choice, meaning, and visible impact currently exists in day-to-day life. That question tends to be where empowerment coaching begins.

References

Nix, G. A., Ryan, R. M., Manly, J. B., & Deci, E. L. (1999). Revitalization through self-regulation: The effects of autonomous and controlled motivation on happiness and vitality. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35(3), 266–284.

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78.

Ryan, R. M., & Frederick, C. (1997). On energy, personality, and health: Subjective vitality as a dynamic reflection of well-being. Journal of Personality, 65(3), 529–565.

Spreitzer, G. M. (1995). Psychological empowerment in the workplace: Dimensions, measurement, and validation. Academy of Management Journal, 38(5), 1442–1465.