“Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
Enthusiasm is that place between perseverance and defeat. It is what makes someone stay motivated and keep going and others give up and quit. Enthusiasm.
Thursday morning, the day after I returned from Florida, I woke up with a fever of 102. I was dizzier than usual:), and had the chills. By 2:30 in the afternoon, I was headed to the doctor. For those of you who know me well, I don’t go to the doctor unless I’m dying. Diagnosis–Flu A and B. (I never do anything halfway.) I didn’t care–just give me drugs for it.
Yesterday (Friday) morning, I wondered if I could “enthusiasm” myself up to get this email out. I haven’t missed a Leadership Seeds in three years and I wasn’t going to start. I thought about you…and YOU gave me enthusiasm! You may not read me every week, but my highest objective is to provide you with information to help you reach your goals. Between Tamiflu, the miracle drug, and the strategy below, I got ‘er done.
So how does one get enthusiasm and how does one keep it? Look at your own life experiences to times when you lost your desire to work at something whether it was a marriage, a career, or something less dramatic as shoveling your driveway. So you don’t finish the driveway and sidewalk. Maybe you don’t call it quitting because it is insignificant on the giant spectrum of life, but with something like a marriage or career, the results could be disastrous.
Imagine you want something so wonderful – so out of reach – anything – a car, a career, a house, a spouse, a smaller waistline, whatever it is – imagine it. Do you feel energy inside you – don’t worry about how you will get it – just imagine it. The how isn’t important – release that from your mind. Stop and get that image now. Really. Got it?
OK, you have that image now. Now think about that every day. That image. Keep that image alive. Every time you think about it you can add more detail to it. If it were a house, you can start to add furniture and accessorize the house. The color of the walls, the carpet or tile or wood flooring. The light fixtures. Every time you think about it feel the energy. That energy is enthusiasm.
So now you know what that feels like – let’s build on that feeling and keep it alive. You have a job to do, some task, and you aren’t feeling too motivated or enthusiastic about it. You can use self-talk to give you energy. You know that if you do it now you will be grateful later. You know that this task is the right thing to do and the benefits will outweigh the energy spent on the task now. Focus on the end result to build your motivation.
Sustain enthusiasm by understanding what the outcome is to your actions. Enthusiasm is an emotion that you show and feel and sometimes when you aren’t feeling so enthusiastic about something, you can pretend to be and the more you pretend, you trick your mind into believing that you actually are enthusiastic. It is a phenomenon that will help you sustain your enthusiasm when you aren’t feeling very motivated or full of energy.
Being enthusiastic about a task at hand will spill into other areas of your life and you will see that your positive enthusiastic attitude will lighten up a room. You will become that person others are drawn to.
Almost 100%,
Jan
Jan McDonald
The John Maxwell Team
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