How to Build Enthusiasm in a Half-Hearted World
Anything you do without enthusiasm makes you less of who you were meant to be.
“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Once enthusiasm is lost, it’s like starting a fire with wet wood.
Enthusiasm is:
- Strength.
- Joy.
- Grit.
- Sweet.
Enthusiasm is the difference between putting in your time and meaningful effort.
Nearly all the great improvements, discoveries, inventions, and achievements which have elevated and blessed humanity have been the triumphs of enthusiasm. Orison Swett Marden
Enthusiasm indicates wholeheartedness.
7 ways to nurture and protect enthusiasm in a half-hearted world:
- Don’t compare yourself with slackers. It’s not fair that you work hard and someone else drifts. Forget about it. Resentment quenches enthusiasm.
- Notice low enthusiasm and take action to expel it in yourself. Low enthusiasm insults your humanity. You’re better than half-heartedness.
- Send chronic complainers to your competitors. Complainers love explaining why half-heartedness is appropriate.
- Do your best to hang with enthusiastic people. Those who delight in complaining, criticizing, and gossip destroy enthusiasm.
- Enjoy appreciation, but don’t need it. You are seldom appreciated as much as you deserve.
- Have enough confidence to learn enthusiastically.
- Do difficult work with enthusiasm. Painful labor done enthusiastically is completed sooner.
Confidence and enthusiasm:
When confidence declines, enthusiasm heads for the door.
If you want to build enthusiasm in your team, instill them with confidence.
Confidence building 101 for leaders:
- Your confidence fuels confidence. Believe in your team’s ability to deliver meaningful results.
- Remember people’s effort and contribution. When you remember someone’s effort, you instill them with enthusiasm to keep working. “I remember when you … .”
- Discuss and honor progress.
- “Tell me about the progress you’re making.”
- “What’s different about you?”
- “How are you improving?”
Leadership without enthusiasm is soul-sucking drudgery.
How might leaders build the confidence of others?
How might leaders nurture and protect their own enthusiasm?
Enthusiasm is so hard to come by these days.
leaders can nurture and protect their enthusiasm by surrounding themselves with the right people, people who posses an infectious personality.
Unbelievable timing! I just wrote to my Facebook-group how I have been working on fumes for the last few days, with very low confidence and motivation on myself and my target. And then you come up with the perfect blog post to help me around this pit! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
Enjoy appreciation, but don’t need it.
Nuff said.
“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill
I’ve often wondered about the applicability of this. Churchill had an endless number of people to fail on his behalf who carried the can when his ideas went wrong.
No matter who you surround yourself with, it’s up to you as a leader to guard against things that will kill enthusiasm.
Lack of communication;
Bureaucracy;
Fear;
Boredom;
Perfectionism.
All of these will kill enthusiasm. As a leader, it lies within your gift to address many of these and to watch for all of them.
When you give a project to a team member and you do not provide scaffolding to support them, that can take away enthusiasm. Team members feel like they are on an island by themselves.