In my previous 2 videos I talked about enthusiasm. Why you need it and how to get it. I talked about how enthusiasm is a CHOICE. You can choose to be enthusiastic about getting it done or you can choose to dread it instead. Either way, In the end enthusiasm is a choice. In this video, I’m talking about why you might lose enthusiasm, and how to maintain it. You can start out enthusiastic in something and end up losing the enthusiasm you started out with.
So why does this happen? What happens for people to lose enthusiasm?
It’s usually because they're not getting what they expected out of what they're doing. It's easy to start out with enthusiasm for something.
But when it becomes difficult or boring… you’re not getting the satisfaction that you thought you would get, or you're not getting the results that you've wanted, then you're probably going to lose enthusiasm. It happens
It's like losing endurance during a long race. You start out with all kinds of energy and optimism, but slowly your energy and optimism gets depleted with every step you take. You need something to energize you.
It usually comes down to looking at what you’re doing with a new set of eyes. Try taking a break.
I think part of the reason so many people lose enthusiasm is that they get too close to what they’re doing. We’ve become addicted as a society to needing to constantly outperform everyone else, and to do that, we must work harder and longer than everyone else. And you hear this with stories like Will Smith saying he’d rather die than have someone run on a treadmill longer than him. And I get the sentiment and I’m sure he’s exaggerating, because dying on a treadmill seems rather low priority if you ask me. I get it; he’s saying don’t quit. And that’s important. The problem with this idea is that you need rest. You need to take time out for recovery or else you’ll burn out. You’ll burn out your enthusiasm. Which would you rather do, run on a treadmill longer than someone else for a single session and then wake up the next morning aching and sore and unable to move - and then you can’t do any work?
Or would you rather pace yourself and run for a shorter time and still be able to wake up the next day and do it again with even more energy and able to run for a longer period of time than you did the day before?
Rest, recovery and just some time away from the task will do wonders for your enthusiasm towards it. You have to give your mind and body some time to consolidate the activity into something it can make sense of.
Another reason is that whatever it is that stands in their way becomes an excuse, it becomes a struggle, but if you look at the obstacle instead, as a challenge to overcome, you can make yourself excited by thinking about who you will become on the other side by pushing through it. Who will you be on the other side?
Challenges make you grow, so get excited about the growth rather than looking at it as something to dread. Don’t look at it as a situation that will make you have to do more and more work or whatever it is you're not looking forward to doing.
Enthusiasm is like a muscle, the more you put yourself into situations and the more you flex that muscle, the easier it becomes to recruit it when you need it.
So get to exercising that enthusiasm muscle every single day.
But along those same lines, don’t forget to take a break and give that muscle some time to rest and grow. Just don’t let rest and recovery become an excuse to be lazy.
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