Following on from my earlier posts about Enthusiasm v Confidence, Ludivine’s question about How to Maintain Enthusiasm When Things Get Tough and Ways to Stop Worrying When You’re Under Pressure, I’ll finish off this mini-series with a few tips for tapping into your natural enthusiasm.

You’ll be pleased to know that you don’t need to be stressed out to use these tips – they work equally well if you’re just looking for a boost of enthusiasm to get you started (or restarted) on a project that matters to you.

The key to enthusiasm is not to try to force it – I like the phrase ‘tapping into enthusiasm’ as it suggests a natural spring that rises up of its own accord, especially if we don’t block it.

1. Start with curiosity

I once went to a writing class with the poet Craig Raine where he said writing poetry is a bit like stripping wallpaper. Once you’ve started, you end up with little ‘tags’ of wallpaper sticking out, which you start to pull slowly – sometimes the tag breaks off in your hand and you’re left with practically nothing. Other times, you pull on the tag and it gets bigger and bigger, till you’ve got a long strip of wallpaper coming away in your hands. Sometimes the strip goes on and on until you’ve pulled away the paper from a whole section of the wall. If you hadn’t been curious enough to pull the little tag, you’d never have managed such a spectacular achievement (in wallpaper-stripping terms).

Where are the ‘tags’ that are piquing your curiosity? A book you meant to read? A film you meant to watch? Someone you’ve been meaning to call for a while? Something you’ve always wanted to learn? An idea you never got around to trying out? Follow your curiosity wherever it leads you – lots of times it will trickle out, but if you keep trying, sooner or later you’ll feel it swell to a rushing torrent of enthusiasm.

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Image by ForsterFoto

We all want to be confident, don’t we? It’s a word that crops up fairly often in coaching sessions, even with people who are very talented and successful. We’re all human, and for most of us there are times, places, audiences and situations where we feel we’d like to be a little more confident. For creative professionals, these typically include high-pressure performance situations, such as presentations, pitches, interviews, auditions and stage shows.

Of course we want to perform at our best in these situations, but I think the word ‘confidence’ creates more problems than it solves. I usually advise clients to change the word to ‘enthusiasm’. Here’s why:

1. Confidence is about you – enthusiasm is about your subject

As long as you’re focused on ‘being confident’, you are the focus of attention. And when it’s all about you, it’s very easy to get caught up in self-doubt (“Am I really up to this? Will I be able to do it?”). But when you focus on a subject that’s important to you – the work you’re presenting, the information you want to share, the message you’re trying to get across – then chances are you’ll find yourself overtaken by enthusiasm. You’ll be energized, your voice will sound stronger, your hands will start gesturing, you’ll find your whole body moving as you warm to your task. You’ll lose your self-consciousness and be lost in the work itself, in the words and ideas you want to get across.

2. Confidence is about you (again) – enthusiasm is about others

I repeat – when you’re trying to be confident, your attention is on yourself. But when you focus on your audience – whether one person, a roomful or a whole stadium – you stop worrying about your own performance. Instead, your attention is on the audience’s experience: How are the ideas coming across? How do they look? Engaged? Confused? Intrigued? Have they ‘got it’ yet? If not, what can you do to help them? What feedback are they giving you? How can you use this to make it easier for them to learn, to enjoy or to see your point of view? How can you get them to share your enthusiasm?

3. Confidence is impressive – enthusiasm is infectious

How many times have you watched a presenter or met someone and been impressed with their confident manner – but without really warming to them? Confidence can be impressive, but beware the kind of impression you’re leaving. Enthusiasm on the other hand, is highly infectious. Think of a time when you heard someone talk about a subject you had previously no interest in, but they were so enthusiastic about it, you couldn’t help being intrigued, even fascinated. There’s something contagious about the body language of enthusiasm – when you see someone talking excitedly, smiling, gesturing, full of energy and keen to share what they know, you can’t help responding. It’s as though at some level we look at an enthusiastic person and think “That looks good, that looks fun” and can’t resist the urge to join in.

4. Confidence is certain – enthusiasm is creative

You can feel confident when you know what you’re doing, and are sure you can do it well. There are lots of times and places for this kind of confidence, but too much certainty can be stifling. With enthusiasm, there’s always an element of uncertainty, the excitement of not knowing exactly what you’re going to say next and looking forward to surprising yourself. That’s why scripted speeches are so dull, and why the atmosphere at an improvised show is electric. Accounts of the creative process abound with stories of images, ideas or words ‘popping into’ someone’s mind – and invariably, the subject or medium is one for with the person has huge enthusiasm.

5. Confidence is serious – enthusiasm is fun

When you start talking or thinking about being confident, you’re likely to start taking things a bit seriously. When you want to be confident about doing something, it’s because you think it’s important. And when something is important, it means Bad Things can happen if you get it wrong. Thinking about Bad Things is enough to make anyone serious. But when you’re enthusiastic, importance translates into passion – and the whole thing becomes fun. There are few things more enjoyable than talking enthusiastically about something you’re passionate about, and feeling others share your enthusiasm.

I’ll climb off the soap-box now. Enthusiasm is one of my enthusiasms. What are yours?

EDIT: in the comments below Ludivine has asked a really good question:

what about when worrying about practical & financial issues stiffles enthusiasm ?

I’m answering this question with a short series of posts: How to Maintain Your Enthusiasm When Things Get Tough, 7 Ways to Stop Worrying When You’re Under Pressure and 7 Ways to Tap into Enthusiasm.