Knowledge is power and enthusiasm pulls the switch.
Steve Droke
Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
Douglas MacArthur
Enthusiasm is wonderful. Why?
Off the top of my head, here are four powerful reasons:
- It makes life a lot more fun. Feeling unenthusiastic, bored and apathetic isn’t pleasurable or fun. It makes life dreary, slow and painful. Enthusiasm on the other hand is like an inner sun that makes life easier, shinier and more enjoyable.
- It’s attractive to people. Enthusiasm is probably one of the most attractive qualities a person can have. It’s a quality that makes you attractive in all kinds of relationship – personal or professional – and it’s a wonderful quality to find in other people. It tends to make all kinds of interactions and relationships whole lot more fun and with enthusiasm you can fulfill more of the potential of any situation or experience.
- Powerful communication. Hail the almighty body language and voice tonality when you want to communicate something. If you are enthusiastic it not only makes you more attractive, it also makes your words and message so much more powerful since when you are feeling enthusiastic then that feeling comes through in your body language and voice tonality. And those two parts of make up over 90 percent of communication.
- It gets things done. As Steve Droke says above: enthusiasm is the switch. With enthusiasm things get done and they often get done better and more easily than if you were to muster up the will to do them in an unenthusiastic way.
Now. Those are some good reasons to become more enthusiastic more of the time. But how?
Here are seven tips that I have used over the years. And it may be good to remember that the more you practise being enthusiastic the easier to it becomes to be enthusiastic.
1. Find out what you really like to do.
This is the most important tip as it can generate enormous and sustained amounts of enthusiasm without you having to do much about it at all. Enthusiasm will flow naturally a lot of the time when you are doing whatever you really like to do.
Some examples of such activities may include meeting new people, helping others, go fishing, listening to and talking about music, workout etc.
If you can spend more time doing those activities that make you enthusiastic then you are likely to feel enthusiastic more of the time. Perhaps you can even make a living off one of your favourite activities.
2. Go deeper, learn more.
Over the years I have time after time discovered how enthusiasm can work. If you are not enthusiastic it is often because you don’t know enough about the person/topic/job. It’s easy to get stuck in preconceptions about something or someone. But if you go deeper, you will often find fascinating stuff that will spark your enthusiasm. So just start, get going and a lot of the time enthusiasm will find you along the way.
3. See what’s positive in any situation.
Then build on that to get your enthusiasm going. Perhaps it’s just a thing or two. But that glimmer of positivity can be a starting point to change your perspective to a more positive one where you can find enthusiasm. And whatever the situation you are in will often be easier and more pleasurable to handle.
4. Get an enthusiastic vibe from other people.
Here’s where you can experience just how powerful enthusiasm is when we communicate with each other. Listen to CDs with enthusiastic people – Brian Tracy and especially Tony Robbins is two helpful guys – for perhaps 20 minutes and when you are done listening you’ll probably feel a lot more enthusiastic.
Or hang out with enthusiastic people and get them to talk about what they are enthusiastic about. Enthusiasm is contagious, so use that fact to help yourself (and others when you are feeling enthusiastic).
5. Act yourself into an enthusiastic state.
Emotions work backwards too. Move and talk like you do when you are enthusiastic. Take the actions that you take when you are enthusiastic. And soon acting as you would like to feel will actually make you feel enthusiastic.
6. Keep your energy up.
These last two tips are helpful to more easily reach an enthusiastic state and to stay there.
It takes energy to be enthusiastic. So if you are having trouble feeling that emotion then it might be because one or more basic energy problems. So get enough sleep. Eat well and not more or less than enough. Work out. Drink plenty of water.
7. Be careful with your information intake.
Negative and apathetic voices from media or people around you can quickly drain your enthusiasm. Replace such intake with more enthusiastic and positive sources. Don’t let you enthusiasm drown in a sea of negative voices.
What is your best tip for increasing enthusiasm?
Henrik Edberg is the creator of the Positivity Blog and has written weekly articles here since 2006. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Gothenburg and has been featured on Lifehacker, HuffPost and Paulo Coelho’s blog.
Comments on this entry are closed.
To pump up energy level, I will add listening to energetic music. It always boosts my enthusiasm.
I practise kung-fu and this also helps me to increase my enthusiasm. Simply, when I have poor enthusiasm, I take a break for a few minutes from my current activity and I perform some simple drills or techniques. Of course, it is not always possible to do this in comfortable way (people at work will worry if you are not insane), but when there is such possibility – it really works for me.
Thanks for the tips, guys!
Kacper: I like your music tip, I’ve used that one successfully too.
Hayden: Haha! That is an awesome tip, I especially like the woo! part. Shouting things like that can really raise the spirits.
WORD! You hit the nail right on the head. I completely agree with this post keep ’em coming.
If you work at a computer music does help try checking out these websites for genre categorized music last.fm or make your own jam session at playlist.com here is a link to some upbeat jams I’ve put together:
http://www.playlist.com/standalone/24792768
Don’t forget to have some you time, go get a bike, exercise while doing something that’s exhilarating.
Great Tips Henrik!
It’s also really important when staying positive that we recognise when we may be starting some negative self talk. When we start to recognise this we can stop it and ‘choose’ to be positive. Everyday we have a choice about the attitude we carry with us.
Craig
Thanks everyone for these great tips. I have to say being around enthusiastic people does it best for me. My sister in law is always enthusiastic – at least 23 hours a day. It oozes from her being. It always gets me going. So if you know of anyone like that get around them.
Another thing I like to do sometimes is when I am waking up in the morning I sing to myself “I’m awake, alive, alert, enthusiastic!!” Gets me up and looking forward to the day and what I get to do to help people.
I like to do a little “skip” as I walk. It feels fun, the silly-ness of it makes me laugh, and it naturally makes me walk faster which fits under point 5.
Personally the hardest thing about enthusiasm is to keep it up.
Now we’re talking! I love to see positive stuff being exchanged. Enthusiasm is contagious – it carries energy to everyone around. I found a bunch of good tips in a book I read recently which was written by a friend of mine. It’s called “Wake Up To A Happier Life” by Amanda Dickson. I also really enjoyed “The Fred Factor” by Mark Sanborn. Keep up the good work, and live with enthusiasm!
What a great post. Sometimes it is really hard to be enthusiastic but there is usually someone you can seek out who can always get you going. The best part of you getting enthusiastic that it is contagious and those around you will become more enthusiastic and everyone will accomplish more.
I really appreciate the information that I’ve read from this page. I am in a state right now where I am at battle with myself and I know the only thing standing between me and that which I require in my life is me! I totally agree that enthusiasm is contagious and I intend to become as enthusiastic as possible and then everyone around me will be “infected” with the enthusiasm bug!
http://www.212movie.com
i love the tip,
just reading it made me enthusiastic myself.
Thank you, Ben, for the upbeat music mix :)