Enthusiasm is the essential ingredient of our successes. In this article I will reveal 10 unconventional methods to fill up with energy and return to being enthusiastic about study, work and life.
“Nothing great was ever accomplished without enthusiasm.” – RW Emerson.
Do you know the etymology of the word enthusiasm? She’s gorgeous…
Enthusiasm derives from the combination of the Greek terms: en (inside) and thèos (god). Being enthusiastic literally means: having a god within you.
When we are enthusiastic about our lives, we enter into a state of grace that infects everything and everyone: there is no obstacle or person that can resist us. Even the most ambitious goals become feasible, difficulties instead of knocking us down galvanize us and a warm and deep energy pervades every cell of our body.
But finding enthusiasm is not always easy.
In this frenetic society we feel more and more in competition (stress), in awe (fear), in confusion (disorientation), and we take refuge in distraction to calm our nerves.
How can we go back to being enthusiastic in the workplace, at the university, in our private life? How can we go back to feeling that god pawing inside us?
Here are 10 practical and unorthodox suggestions to rekindle the fire of enthusiasm. Follow me!
1. Pretend your enthusiasm
Yes, you read that right. When you’re not feeling enthusiastic: pretend!
Americans would say: fake it, ’till you make it (pretend, until you can).
But you have to pretend well! I try to explain myself …
There is a profound and two-way link between our moods and our physiology.
As demonstrated by social psychologist Amy Cuddy of Harvard University, there are specific postures that can change our testosterone and cortisol levels. In other words, if we change our body attitude we can change the way we feel. In short, perhaps the dress does not make the monk, but the posture definitely does.
Ok, but how do I find enthusiasm by acting on my physiology?
There are specific indicators of enthusiasm that is typical ways of behaving of people pervaded by enthusiasm. Specifically, when we are enthusiastic …
- Our voice is rapid, varied, has a high tone, and is characterized by sudden changes in tone and rhythm.
- Our eyes are open, bright, they almost seem to shine and dance.
- Our gestures are frequent, wide and involve different parts of our body.
- Our face passes quickly from one expression to another.
Replicate these attitudes, pretend when you feel down and watch what happens …
2. Put passion (yes, especially in these things …)
“Before you find your passion, put passion into everything you do.” – Andrea Giuliodori.
This unhealthy idea circulates between young and old that the secret to having an unlimited supply of motivation and enthusiasm is to find the purpose of one’s life.
Mind you, it is not that we should not look for it or have it (we will talk about it in the next point), but it is not written anywhere that you cannot live with enthusiasm until you are struck by your life mission in Damascus!
Indeed, the opposite is true.
If you learn to put enthusiasm, passion and dedication in everything, even in small things and in ordinary activities, it is likely that you can find your purpose in life, even where you would never have looked for it.
Test. Try it today: instead of facing your next task with intolerance and superficiality, do it with an attitude of sincere curiosity, as if you were doing it for the first time, do it with the utmost concentration, do it with the same love that a craftsman puts in his work.
3. Attach these photos to a wall
Have you ever heard of the “vision board”?
As mentioned, it is not necessary to have found one’s purpose to live with enthusiasm; yet having a direction in which to strive, a broad vision of what we want, can be the key to rekindling enthusiasm in our lives.
In these cases a vision board can be extremely useful.
A vision board (or dream board) is nothing more than a collection of images and words that represent what you want …
- Get.
- To be.
- Try.
As soon as you have the chance, cut out an hour all for yourself and start searching through magazines or online sites, images, quotes and words that inspire you deeply and that represent the goals you want to achieve, the emotions you want to try, the mentors you want to emulate, the person you want to become.
Print or cut out these figures and then create a collage to hang in a place to watch every morning when you wake up and every night before you go to sleep.
A vision board can be a very powerful tool and can help us bring our daily focus back to what we really want in our lives.
4. Set yourself a goal (any goal)
OK, I invented the passage, but the rest is damn true and it’s a situation that unfortunately affects many readers (too many).
If you are one of these, read the next words carefully.
If you don’t yet have a vision for your life, set yourself a goal: any goal.
There will also be something you want to improve in your life, something you want to change?! Find it and make it your goal.
Making a promise to yourself and respecting it for a long enough time to make concrete changes is one of those superpowers that will not only restore enthusiasm but will allow you to realize the unimaginable.
Start small, perhaps with goals you can accomplish in as little as one or two weeks. When you have taken the right pace, aim higher and accept a challenge.
5. Become an “informational” illiterate
The term “functional illiterate” has now entered the common language and is used (and often abused) on social media. In case you did not know it, functional illiterate is one who is able to read, but is not able to fully understand the meaning of what he reads.
Here, my 5th unorthodox suggestion to return to being enthusiastic about your life is to become an illiterate … “informational”: that is a person who is able to learn about the latest news of the day, but does not!
Before you get offended, give me two more lines of text.
Have you ever heard the saying …
“A tree that falls of a whole growing forest makes much more noise”.
TG, newspapers and online news sites, do not provide an objective representation of reality: these media do nothing but report 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the “falling trees”, or those news that make noise and this news is often dramatic news (murders, economic crises, acts of violence, theft, etc.).
Continuously feeding our mind with this information does not make us more prepared, it just makes us more scared, unmotivated and frustrated.
An excellent strategy to regain enthusiasm and optimism is therefore to make a healthy “media diet”.
- Media diet does not mean zeroing any source of information. No. Having a healthy media diet means getting rid of fast-food information (news) and enriching your mind with in-depth information (books, essays, documentaries, etc.).
- Stop whining
To paraphrase a famous quote from Emerson we could say that …
“Every minute you spend complaining, you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” – Emerson
It is physically impossible to complain and be enthusiastic at the same time.
Or choose to complain, focusing on everything wrong with your life. Or choose to be enthusiastic, focusing on what already works or could work great with a little bit of effort.
Ah, do you actually never complain? Sure…?!
7. Put this ticket in your wallet
For years around with a note very special in my portfolio.
It is a small post-it folded in two and now a little rumpled.
Inside I handwritten the 3 quotes I love most.
Every time I feel down and out of passion, I open that note and reread those 3 sentences: this simple gesture can work miracles.
- I will not share my sentences with you, so as not to condition you. Choose phrases that speak to your heart and your mind.
8. Buy a pair of soundproof headphones
Oh God, in reality they don’t necessarily need soundproof headphones, but if you travel a lot on public transport (trains, metro, buses, etc.), they could make a difference.
One of the simplest and most effective ways to change our mood and find enthusiasm again is to use music. The right track or the right playlist can give us the charge in a few seconds.
But music is sometimes not enough …
The musical rhythm acts on our most primal instincts, but in order for our motivation to last, we must be able to also nourish our intellect.
So take your soundproof headphones and also use them to listen to podcasts and audio books that inspire you.
I am now 10 years old that every morning, as soon as I wake up, I put on my headphones and turn on my brain with my favorite podcasts and the audio books of the authors I love. This year I also had the honor of recording my first audio books in collaboration with Amazon. To read the reviews, the listeners are … excited about it!
Who knows, maybe it’s not the right time for me to pass on this good habit.
9. Be specific
There are occasions when showing enthusiasm is essential for achieving a goal.
An example above all? During a job interview!
In these cases you can use this simple trick to prove your enthusiasm: be specific.
During the interview the moment will surely come when they will ask you “Why would you like to work here?” (Or similar questions).
The worst answer you can naturally give is a terrible “Well, I don’t know “; but also a trivial “I love what you do here” does not work very well.
If you want to be enthusiastic about the position, think of something specific that you like about the company or location. The more you go into detail the better.
This trick works not only in job interviews, but also when we are together with others.
One of the advantages of having more enthusiasm is in fact the pleasure of others.
Think about it: do you prefer to be in the company of always weak and negative people or people full of enthusiasm and will to live? Exactly …
If you want to be one of these people, when you relate to others: specific in giving compliments, be specific in giving advice, be specific in asking questions.
10. Raise your average!
We are the average of the 5 people we visit.
Repeat with me:
“We are the average of the 5 people we visit.”
Applying the advice seen so far will be of little use if you frequent people who drain your energy daily, lower your self-esteem and … you crush the chestnuts.
Learn to surround yourself with positive, enthusiastic and proactive people.
Raise your average!
Well, this article dedicated to enthusiasm ends here. Have you already decided which of the 10 tips you’ll experiment with first?
Let me know in the comments!
If you want to give me a hand to spread this article and maybe even to increase the enthusiasm of your contacts, you can share it using the social buttons below. Don’t hesitate to do it, because you remember …
“Enthusiasm is a volcano on which the grass of hesitation never grows.” – Jibran Khalil Jibran.
