Seven Tips to Help Awaken Your Enthusiasm
Ignite your enthusiasm. It’s an energetic and positive vitality which means you’re able to face difficulties with greater impetus and confidence. In fact, this emotion is the engine that drives you to achieve your goals.
Although, as you probably well know, sometimes it isn’t easy. Indeed, it’s difficult to feel enthusiastic about your life when routine weighs you down and you feel uncertain about the future. However, being enthusiastic is one of the most beautiful virtues of being human. Therefore, it’s worth remembering how these psychological mechanisms are activated.
The famous doctor Gregorio Marañón used to say that enthusiasm is a sign of emotional health. It means committing yourself to life and giving it momentum. Furthermore, as the psychologist, Martin Seligman points out, it’s a trait that allows you to face things from your heart, in a lively and energetic way.
Why don’t you give it a try? Why not find out how to further develop this valuable mental focus?
“It’s faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living.”
-Oliver Wendell Holmes-
How can you spark your enthusiasm?
Arousing your enthusiasm doesn’t only improve your well-being. In fact, if there’s one thing that’s magical about this emotion, it’s that it’s contagious. It’s like a light in the darkness that guides and inspires you. Indeed, so much so that, according to a study published in The Journal of Positive Psychology, the character strengths that most correlate with happiness are enthusiasm, curiosity, and hope.
Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman, in their book Character Strengths and Virtues, described enthusiastic people as energetic people with bright eyes because of the passion and motivation they experience within themselves. On this basis, it seems that some possess the trait of enthusiasm from birth.
It would certainly appear that some people possess a certain predisposition to be enthusiastic. On the other hand, there are those who, due to their character, start out at a disadvantage. Nevertheless, whatever your personality type, it isn’t easy to always possess 100 percent levels of energy and positivity. Therefore, you should think of this dimension as a mental state to develop, awaken, and ignite whenever you can.
Discouragement makes a horrible permanent companion. For this reason, we give you some tips to awaken your enthusiasm.
1. Get out of yourself, it’s time to explore other territories
We live in an age where self-help books are permanently in demand. The cult of the self, the need to understand ourselves, care for ourselves, develop and heal ourselves forces us to always be focused on ourselves. However, it’s a good idea, from time to time, to leave yourself behind for a minute and discover other worlds.
As you do so, you’ll become aware that there are other minds you can learn from. In fact, fostering new friendships, discovering new settings, places, or practices, and expanding your experiences awakens your passion for living. That’s the spark of enthusiasm.
2. Relax, stop living in survival mode
To awaken your enthusiasm you have to stop living in survival mode. What does this mean? Well, states of stress and anxiety are what make you operate in a self-preservation mode. In other words, fight or flight. In this mode, your mind only focuses on worries, on what’s happened or what may happen, on what you should do…
Your enthusiasm doesn’t get ignited when you’re caught up in constant rumination and worry. Therefore, relax, slow down and give yourself moments of calm.
3. What are you passionate about?
This might seem like an obvious question, but not everyone knows how to answer it. What are you passionate about, what ignites your inspiration, your enthusiasm, and your motivation? Clarifying what your tastes are, your personal concerns, and working on them allows you to awaken your enthusiasm.
Remember that, when you begin to feel enthusiastic, you’ll start to think along the lines of “I know I can do this; I love spending time doing that; I feel really good about myself; Time’s just flying by…”.
4. Align your values with your belief systems and behaviors
If you do something, it should be in tune with your values and beliefs. Always adjust to what your intuition and your inner voice tell you. That’s because they know you so well.
Only when you pour your heart and soul into something that’s in harmony with your authentic self and personality, do you enjoy it, allow it to flow, and awaken your enthusiasm.
5. Stay away from those who discourage you
This is an inevitable part of life. Around you, there’ll always be one or two people who’ll undermine your passions, your tastes, or even your concerns. These people are experts in clipping the wings of those who dream, and in discouraging those who are finding their way in life. If there’s someone like this in your life right now, it’s time to distance yourself from them.
6. Practice transcendence to spark your enthusiasm
To transcend is to go beyond the apparent and ordinary in order to develop broader visions and deeper insights. This psychological strength was initially defined by William James and later by Abraham Maslow. It’s also connected to self-realization, with the clear purpose of continuing to learn to fully develop ourselves.
The Simón Bolívar University and the Autonomous University of Madrid conducted research that suggested that something as simple as a nature walk evokes in us a sense of wonder and enriching transcendence.
According to Maslow, transcendence implies reaching a more inclusive and holistic state of human consciousness. It means relating to yourself and others and with nature and the cosmos in a higher way. This dimension also lays the foundations of enthusiasm, of feeling committed to something higher.
7. Enthusiasm is an attitude, choose it every day
What’s life without enthusiasm? Without it, you lack brilliance, charisma, desire, and the courage to work on what you want. Indeed, without this emotion, you vegetate, you just exist, on autopilot. Therefore, clarify a goal that you’re excited about and start work on it.
To awaken your enthusiasm, choose hope, action, and look to tomorrow with positivity, not fear.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- Minarik, Susan K. (Jan 18, 2013). “Increase your happiness: add some zest to your life”.Positive-Living-Now. Positive-Living-Now. Retrieved April 7, 2015.
- Peterson, C.; Park, N.; Hall, N.; Seligman, M. E. P. (2009). “Zest and work”.Journal of Organizational Behavior. 30 (2): 161–172. doi:10.1002/job.584
- Peterson, C., Park, N., Hall, N., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2009). Zest and work. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 30, 161-172.
