- Become more enthusiastic by exploring your passions to find what lights your soul on fire. If you’re not sure what your passion is, be curious and try new things until you find it.
- Adopt a more positive attitude by practicing gratitude and surrounding yourself with enthusiastic, supportive people.
- When in doubt, fake it ’til you make it! Just pretending to be more enthusiastic can help you become more enthusiastic over time.
Getting Your Head Right
Find yourself. In order to channel that gusto, you gotta be yourself. Pretending to be something you're not takes up all your resources you could be using on doing what you actually enjoy and could get excited about. Life coach Sandra Possing notes, “So many of us are kind of confined [by]...who we think we should be based on…society's expectations, fears, parents, all of that…[we've] never really given [our]selves permission to just be curious and to be honest.” It's only when you're naturally you that you can find what drives you and grab a firm hold. Then you can work on being enthusiastic.
Figure out why you're lacking enthusiasm. Maybe someone around you is giving you a hard time about your lack of energy. Maybe your job or love life isn’t going how you wish. Or maybe you’re just feeling generally low, with no apparent cause. It's natural to get stuck in a rut. These things happen. They also end at some point. But mental health conditions, like clinical depression, could also make it very hard to feel motivated or inspired. If you believe you may be struggling with poor mental health, consider speaking to a therapist. They can help you unpack your lack of enthusiasm and find ways to manage your mental health.
Start thinking positively. Worrying or assuming things won’t pan out how we hope can leave us feeling negative and unmotivated to even try. Reframing your mindset to be more hopeful can help you feel more enthusiastic and excited. Positive thinking doesn’t mean ignoring bad situations—it just means approaching them with a more productive and less dire attitude. Practice positive self-talk. Periodically, throughout the day, pause and check your thinking: is it mostly negative or mostly positive? If it's mostly negative, try to spin your thoughts to be more positive. Possing also recommends counteracting negativity with what she calls “positivity brainwashing”: “I do my best to consume as much positive content as possible…to basically counteract the amount of negative content that's always coming at us from all directions.”
Define your goals and how you'll achieve them. It's hard to be enthusiastic when we're floundering about life without purpose. What are your dreams? What steps do you need to take to fulfill them? If you’re not sure what you’re passionate about, Possing says that the answer lies in “creating a little bit of space to tap into a childlike wonder and curiosity. Putting pressure on yourself to go find your passion doesn't necessarily feel fun, and then that can flow down and halt the process.” Knowing exactly what you want to do and exactly how you want to go about it will make it easier to be enthusiastic about it. For instance, if you want to lose weight, don't just plan to "lose weight"—plan to eat more vegetables and fruits and to work out a few times a week.
Convince yourself. It's all well and good to have goals, but you gotta actually believe that you can achieve them. If your goal is too lofty, bring it down a notch, until you can readily believe that it's something you can make happen. If your goal feels too big and overwhelming, it may also help to start on a slightly smaller scale. For instance, want to start your own business but don't know a thing about how to do so? Make goals of taking business courses and networking. Smaller things are totally doable and totally useful.
Get over your fear of failure. Often when we're not enthusiastic, it's because we've made up some excuse as to why not to be: maybe we don't want to get our hopes up, we're too unsure, or we're worried others will judge us.If you can put these worries aside, you can become more enthusiastic, confident, and hopeful. Possing notes that many people “want to have the perfect plan and they want to have it all figured out…before they go do anything. So I love to challenge them to…just take imperfect action…. Just getting into action creates some energy.” Realize that your desire to be enthusiastic is there—it's just buried under a pile of worry and fear. When we grow up, often adults call that "reason." We had enthusiasm when we were children; it's time to get it back!
Finding Motivation
Find what you really enjoy and do it all the time. Living a dull life that doesn't feel meaningful can get quite bleak. However you can, find something you enjoy and stick with it. Do it as much as you can. Give your life that spark it needs to generate enthusiasm. It does not matter what it is. Whether it's building model airplanes, karate, or German karaoke, do it. Make time for it. Rearrange your schedule. Sacrifice other obligations. Make it a part of your routine.
Keep good company. Ever been in a room full of Debbie downers? It sucks and it's super contagious. Before you know it, you're hating on everything, too. If you want to work on your positivity and enthusiasm, surround yourself with positive, enthusiastic people. The first step is to end your toxic friendships. If you think about it, you'll probably have a good idea of who you need to cut ties with. Once the negativity is expunged, think of 3 people that truly make you feel downright good. Spend more time with them. They can be enthusiasm role models to boot!
Get healthy. It's a lot harder to feel mentally in the zone when you're not physically in it, either. So eat healthy, exercise, and sleep well! Your enthusiasm is worth it. Eat a diet rich in fruits, veggies, lean proteins, and whole grains and low in processed sugars, sodium, and saturated fats. Try to get about 150 minutes of moderate physical activity per week. That endorphin rush will be step one to feeling the inspiration flow through your views. Try to get 7-9 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night. If you haven't been sleeping well lately, that could be a cause of your lack of energy. So rest up!
Make a list of things you're grateful for. Studies show practicing gratitude can really improve your mental health. Seeing a concrete list of everything you have going for will make it hard to deny why you should be enthusiastic. Not into list-making? Possing also suggests “[Starting] the day, as soon as you wake up, by just saying thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you over and over…[not] to anyone in particular or about anything....It becomes this almost meditative mantra.”
Act enthusiastic. There’s truth to the saying “Fake it ’til you make it.” Act enthusiastic for long enough and eventually it'll be your go-to emotion. It might feel like you're being a phony, but over time, it'll become second nature.
Projecting Enthusiasm
Exclaim things. How do you “fake it ’til you make it”? Start by exclaiming things. Whether it's "Heck yeah!" or "Jolly good," the more pizzazz you express, the more people will be fooled—and eventually, so will you! Imagine your friend Ted walks into the room. You two make eye contact, give each other a nod, and you say, "Sup." Not even in question form. Just "sup." He responds with, "Yo." Greeting exchanged. Now imagine Ted walks into the room and you say, "HEY, TED! OHMIGOSH I'M SO HAPPY TO SEE YOU!" and then you run around the room, arms flailing. Who's enthusiastic now, huh?
Show enthusiasm with your body language. Try pairing your enthusiastic outbursts with physical movement: jump up and down. Wave your arms like a madman. High-five your grandma. Moving excitedly will get your blood pumping and help you feel more excited. You could do a happy dance. You could make a finger gun and pretend you're the Fonz. You could point your thumbs at yourself and talk about how awesome you are. Why don't you try them all out and see what reactions you get?
Express enthusiasm with facial expressions. All of this advice just won't jive with those around you if your face doesn't match your words, tone, or body. Whenever you want to show an emotion, make sure you're expressing it with your facial expression as well as your words. When Ted walks in the room, smile. Widen your eyes. When Grandma informs you she's made you cupcakes, drop your jaw in gratitude.
Speak clearly and confidently. Loudness doesn’t automatically equate to enthusiasm, but quietness usually equates to a lack of enthusiasm. Let your enthusiasm be a bit unconstrained. Take whatever's normal for you and bump it up a notch.
Staying Enthusiastic
Ask questions. Asking questions shows you're interested and engaged in the moment. And then what happens when you ask questions? People respond and they might say something that actually sparks your interest, if it didn't before. So make the first step! Ask questions, get the ball rolling, and see how it grows from there. It's easy to write off something as uninteresting, but try to pry a bit further. You may find that lifting the veil sparks your curiosity. And that curiosity may lead you to finding something worth being enthusiastic about!
Laugh. One of the simplest ways to get happy is to start laughing. Start laughing and being happy and enthusiasm will follow. It can naturally put you in a better mood and get the creativity and positivity flowing.
Hold onto a sense of wonder. After a certain amount of time in an environment, the novelty of it all goes away. When that happens, enthusiasm escapes, and all of a sudden life is drab and unremarkable. Don't let that happen. Find the joy in simple things like the beauty of a sunset or the architecture of your favorite local building. Even if you’ve seen them a million times, pretend you’re looking at them for the first time, or try to see them from a new angle.
Try new things. A simple way to start getting awestruck again is to try new things. Life can get boring doing the same ol', same ol'—so mix it up! Even the smallest of change-ups can do wonders. Have you been running 3 miles (4.8 km) a day for the past 6 months? Find a new trail! Pick up a hobby. Go thrift shopping. Explore the tourist attractions in your area. It doesn't have to be big; it just has to be different.
Keep learning. If you quit learning, you'll run out of reasons to get inspired. So do more thorough research, seek out experts, tap into your network. Whatever it is you want to do, dig in deeper. It doesn't have to be book learning. You can learn from those around you, you can learn from yourself, you can even learn from wikiHow! Just keep seeking knowledge—the more you know, the more interesting things become. Life included!
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