An enthusiastic attitude is one of the most important aspects to a successful life.  Yet, enthusiasm is really an art – it must be practiced in order to be performed well, and enjoyed on a regular basis.

I have two friends right now who are new mothers, working full time, and starting online courses in January.  One of them came to me the other day asking for advice.  ‘”I’m beginning to wonder how I’m going to do all of this.  I know you’re a positive thinker, can you give me any words of wisdom?”

My first thought was, “how much time do you have?”   I’m a motivational speaker – I can give you weeks’ worth of profound wisdom and advice!

But since this was a close, personal, friend whom I’ve come to know very well, I decided to just give her the truth about what I see.  I didn’t come right out and say it, but I had been wondering how she was going to do it all as well.  From my observation of people throughout the past 20 years, the ones who accomplish the most and are the happiest are the ones who embrace and develop enthusiasm.  Successful and happy people, the ones I know personally, are high-energy, positive thinking, very focused, and just generally upbeat people.  They always have strong faith, (although no particular denomination stands out), and usually will readily deject or at the very least get away from negative thinking and negative people.  They have boundless energy and are always smiling.

My friend, despite her good intentions and determination, does not have these qualities.  But then, I don’t know of many of us who do have them naturally.  You have to want to be enthusiastic, and then you have to focus on that desire long enough to develop habits that support it.  What I want to share with you today, are some ways I have found to develop enthusiasm.

1. Don’t sleep too much, and don’t worry about insomnia.  An enthusiastic person is a high-energy person and I’ve never met a high-energy person who sleeps a lot.  Now, we all have different requirements when it comes to sleep, so I’m not going to give you a number.  You know what your number is.  If you’re taking sleep aids to help you sleep and caffeine to help you stay awake, your sleep habits are off balance.  If you’re working on a project that you’re excited about, you can probably get by on as little as 4 hours a night for awhile.  Once the project is completed, you’ll likely go quickly back to your normal hours.  Instead of worrying about not sleeping, use that time to channel your energy into something positive.  Work if you want, relax and watch TV, read a book – use that time to chill out.  The advantage to working is that it just might help your mind relax so that you can go to sleep.  I usually look at my next day’s schedule, do a few little tasks, and then relax knowing that everything else will get done tomorrow.  Sometimes, just staying up an extra hour helps me unwind and then get a good night’s rest.
2. Work out – get on the treadmill.  Do something to get your body going.  Your body is the housing, the casing, if you will, for your mind and is the robot of your spirit.  It needs to be in good working order.  Don’t exercise to lose weight, just do it to feel good.  In time, you’ll likely look good, too, but at first, just focus on how good it makes you feel now.
3. Read more. Knowledge about what you’re doing, getting ready to do, or would like to do, is very empowering.  Empowered people are enthusiastic people.  There is nothing that builds self-esteem faster than going to work, going to class, or going to a social event and knowing that you’re going to get it right.  You have the latest information and you know it cold.  When you approach your work, school, and life with enthusiasm, learning will not feel like a chore, it will feel like passion.
4. Focus your thoughts on what you want – what will it look like and how will it feel once you’ve achieved your accomplishment?  It’s okay if you don’t know exactly, just how to you think your life will be when you’ve achieved your goal?  Don’t get too caught up in the details.  Set your thoughts on what you want and define only as many details as you can and still feel good.  Don’t get caught up in being too specific on how your desires will come to you.  The universe will take care of that.  Listen for inspiration and follow it when it comes.
5. Demonstrate the enthusiastic attitude that you’d like to create.  Pretend.  Fake it until you make it.  I know a lot of people this has worked for.  You can get a vision of who you want to become so vividly, and then play the part so well, that before long, even you believe you are that person.  Why is that?  Because your actions define you are and will become.
6. Appreciate where you are now.  Right now on a sheet of paper or word processor, list 5 things you’ve accomplished in the past week.  Look at all you’ve done and how far you’ve come.  Yes, you will always want more.  But even when you accomplish that, you’ll still want more.  That’s how we grow and become more – by wanting more.  Being satisfied with where you are while enthusiastically expecting more is the fastest way to creating anything you want.
7. Stop complaining. Stop finding fault.  Stop speaking your discord.  Eventually, as you stop saying negative things, you’ll stop thinking negative things.  Once you start speaking and thinking positively on a regular basis, your experience will get better and better.  But don’t take my word for it – try it and see for yourself.
8. Train your brain to find the positive aspects of every situation.  Do you believe that within every adversity is a blessing?  It’s true.  Every obstacle is an opportunity to discover something about yourself and become better.  See every problem from that perspective and you will never have a bad day every again.  In reality, there are no bad days, there are just some days when you grow more than others!  (Stop and think about that one for a moment.)
9. Smile.  Greet people cheerfully and genuinely.  This is the first sign I get that a person is truly enthusiastic and either is or is going to be successful in life.  When I meet someone and they divert their eyes, are distracted constantly, or have to force a smile and cheerful greeting, I know they either don’t want to be there, or are miserable on the inside in some way.  The good news is that by smiling and focusing on the other person, you will momentarily forget whatever it is that is bothering you.  This is called relief and it can have a huge impact on your thought processes.  Various studies have shown that smiling releases endorphins much the same as exercising.  Try it.  Let me know how it works for you.
10. Plan.  There’s just something soothing and energetic about a well-laid-out plan.  Now, you don’t have to stay rigidly adhered to a long-term plan.  I’m a believer in going with your gut, listening to your inner being and taking what feels like the next logical step.  But for me and many other successful people that I talk with, having a plan to start with is energizing and helps keep you motivated because it keeps you on track and helps you notice those serendipitous opportunities when they come along.
11. Get organized and simplify.  What do you really want?  Pick two or three things for now and put everything else on the back burner – you’ll get to it one day.  (If it’s meant to be.)  What’s important to you now – right now – this very moment?  One idea I shared with my friend was to focus on just the roles she’s bound to already:  Mother, wife, employee, and student.  Housekeeper, gourmet chef, landscape artist, part-time blogger, and other things that are stressing her out need to go on the back burner for now.  In the future, if she finds herself bored, she can pick back up with any of those.
12. Dale Carnegie had the best advice of all:  Stop Worrying and Start Living.  Enthusiastic people have trained themselves to focus on solutions and finding them quickly, instead of dwelling on the problems.  When something happens in your life that displeases you, make your mind go immediately to “how can I fix this?”  or “What is it that I do want? And how can I get that?”  If the answer doesn’t come immediately, go for a jog.  Clear your head.  Go dancing.  You’ve experienced situations when you dwelled on an issue for hours on end and came up with nothing.  Finally you gave up and a few hours later what happened?  The solution “came” to you.  You were probably either in the shower or taking a nap or doing something else completely unrelated.  We’ve all had that experience.  People who are successful – and by that I mean happy and satisfied with their life, but eager for more – have trained themselves to not worry about anything, but instead think about solutions using all three parts of their being - body, mind, and spirit.  In our Western culture, we tend to put all of the emphasis on our mind, leave our spirit out of things, and let our bodies suffer.  My friends, the sooner you embrace the connection of your spirit to what your mind is thinking and your body is doing, the sooner you will find the success, inner peace, and happiness that you seek.  How can you tell when you’re on the right path?  You’re enthusiastic about it.

Your assignment for today is to follow the calling of your inner being.  While reading this article, you have felt inspired to do something.  Do it.  Trust me, you’ll be glad you did!

Related Articles:
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7 Ways in Increase Your Enthusiasm
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The Power of a Smile

Until next time,
Live Joyfully!

Posted under Conscious Creation, Inspiration, Law of Attraction, Leadership, Motivation, Success

Have you ever given up on a project about halfway into it?  Many of us do that with our goals and dreams. Living your dream and creating the life you want is hard sometimes.  The actual work becomes so difficult, we forget about the reward at the end – living our dream - so we quit.  Then a few months down the road, we decide to start again, only to follow the same pattern.

Successful people have a way of visualizing the big dream – they focus on the result, not the work.  I can’t tell you how many times in developing this website I’ve almost given up.  I have literally had the thought, “Forget it.  This is too hard, I can’t do this.  No one should have to go through this, there’s got to be an easier way.”  Then I realized there was an easier way; I could hire someone to design the site for me.  But then I’d be at their mercy every time I needed to change it.  I want a site that I can re-design and customize on a moment’s notice.  If I give a speech and want to make materials available to that audience alone, I want to be able to do that immediately and on my own.  Luckily, I’m a very determined person who doesn’t give up easily.  I don’t like to give in and let something beat me.  More appropriately, I was able to keep my thoughts focused on the desired result instead of how complicated the process.

I’m still working on my site – constantly.  There’s a lot more I want to change and the list grows daily, but I can do it all myself and I’m constantly learning.  I also enjoy the creative side of maintaining my site myself. With each new language I learn, it seems as if there’s another that must be learned to go with it.  Then there’s the marketing side with new methods introduced daily.  There’s also the profitability side, which accounts for a lot of stress as well.  The important thing is that I’m living my dream of motivating, educating, and inspiring others to be their best through my writing, speaking and consulting.  This site is the glue that holds all of that together and to turn it over to someone else would not work for me.  So when the going gets tough, even painful at times, I let my “control freak” kick in and guide me through the process.

How to overcome the strong notion to quit

So what are some ways that you can overcome that strong notion we all get when the going gets tough to just call it quits?  I’ve put together some ideas and thoughts for you that have helped me.  First of all, take a step back and ask yourself, “What am I trying to do?  What is the desired result?”  If that desired result is strong enough, it will keep you going.  That’s what kept me going on this project and does so almost daily.  I remind myself of my unwavering desire to have complete control over my website.  That’s the most important aspect of my career right now.

Realize that it’s not really you

Those thoughts of, “I’m not smart enough to do this,” or any version of, “I can’t,” are just hogwash.  You can do it or you wouldn’t have started/been assigned the project to begin with.  More than likely, you just need to eat something, take a break, go for a walk, read something light, or get some sunlight - REFRESH!  At the very least, you need some perspective.  Refuse to give in to any negativity, wherever it’s coming from.

Make sure it’s your goal/dream

It’s common for us to get caught up in someone else’s dream.  If you’re faced with a situation where the work should be easy for you to accomplish, and you know how to do virtually everything required to accomplish it, but you’re still confronting blockages, think about whether or not this is your goal.  Or, are you being used to accomplish someone else’s dream?  When you work for someone else, it’s easy to get caught up in this, especially if you’ve chosen a field you’re not passionate about.  Assuming you can’t quit, (and I strongly recommend you not quit a project you’ve given your word to complete), think about what your individual reward is for the attainment of this goal.  Is it money?  Is it a better position within the company once this project is completed?  Find that incentive and focus on it.  As Brian Tracy puts it, “Let your vision of the future guide your present performance.”

Think of it as easy

With whatever you have to do today, think of it as easy, and it will be.  Don’t believe the voice in your head telling you that the accomplishment of a particular task is going to be difficult.  So you have to design a new website today?  Easy!  You’re on your way to an important meeting where you’re expected to a sign a $5 million account?  Easy!  You have only two hours to clean your two-story home?  Easy!   Why is it easy?  Because it’s important to you.

Anytime you concentrate on the difficulty of the work instead of its results or rewards, you are likely to become discouraged.  Dwell on it too long, and you will develop self-pity instead of self-discipline.  The next time you’re facing a must-do task and you’re thinking of giving up instead of paying the price, change your focus.  Count the benefits of doing what’s important, and then dive in.

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Seven Steps to Goal Accomplishment

Until next time,
Live Joyfully!

Posted under Inspiration, Law of Attraction, Leadership, Motivation, Success, Weight Loss