Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is something I truly believe you must bring consistently to be great, to be together with others, and to reach your best. The eagerness and excitement to be working hard and becoming brings so much energy to your task and to those around you. We struggle too much hiding behind “I’m tired” or “we do this everyday” or “that’s just not my personality”. But I call bluff—I think we make excuses because it’s simply hard to maintain a high level of enthusiasm.

And that’s what it takes. Getting outside of our comfort zone, boosting the energy within the groups we work, waking up excited to attack the day. That sounds like someone who is driven, who is after big things. I heard a coach say this: “It’s impossible to be special at something if you’re not having fun doing it.” True. We just have to have a realistic vision of what fun is and define that for ourselves and our groups (fun does not mean easy).

We talked about enthusiasm with our younger athletes at Junior Academy. A few of them didn’t know the word so we tried to define it as a group. 4th and 5th graders said things like: being happy, showing you believe in yourself and others, energy, noise. We compared it to being at a birthday party, not being at the library. Kids naturally have energy and enthusiasm when they are at a birthday party, enjoying what they are doing. What a great reminder to take that mindset in our other pursuits: work, basketball practice, parenting… Show up and bring an enthusiasm that says this is important, this deserves great positive energy, and this is highly enjoyable. Show up like it’s a party. Every day. This, I guarantee you, will become contagious.

#getbetter