Experiment:  Act Enthusiastic for One Month

Experiment for February 2016

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“You can do anything if you have enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes rise to the stars. With it, there is accomplishment. Without it there are only alibis.”

Henry Ford

“If you want to be enthusiastic,
act enthusiastic.”

Dale Carnegie

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An American man named Frank Bettger wrote the book ‘How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling’ in 1947.  See a review of the book here.

Bettger had been a major league baseball player but an arm injury forced him to look elsewhere for employment. Though he was initially a failure in the profession of insurance sales, he gave himself a major boost in the field by drastically increasing his enthusiasm. He had learned the importance of enthusiasm from his previous sports career.

When Bettger was a baseball player, he was fired from a team for being too laid-back. On his way out the door, his manager told Bettger to put some life and enthusiasm into his work.  Unhappy about his demotion and a drastic drop in pay, Bettger decided to take the manager’s advice to heart and inject some enthusiasm into his game.

To prove a point to his former coach, he decided he would double his enthusiasm for his new team. This tiny trick worked so well, that he became the top player on the team and eventually received a raise of 700 percent!

He applied the same level of enthusiasm to his insurance sales later in life and again saw a major difference in terms of results. “Force yourself to act enthusiastic, and you’ll become more enthusiastic” was his number one rule.

He challenged people to try this for just 30 days, because this one change could easily revolutionise your life.

“If you don’t FEEL enthusiastic, ACT enthusiastic. Soon, you’ll BE enthusiastic. Double your enthusiasm and you’ll probably double your income.”

Frank Bettger

This experiment therefore is to put Frank Bettger’s advice to the test and act enthusiastic about whatever I (and you) are working on for the next one month.  Each morning I intend to spend a few minutes reflecting on enthusiasm and visualise myself acting more enthusiastically in everything I have planned to do that day.  I will make a note in my diary of what happens each day and see what difference forcing myself to be enthusiastic makes.  I will share the results in a follow-on article in March 2016.  Make sure to sign up to the Life is a Laboratory newsletter to keep informed of future articles.

Hypnosis Downloads also have a self hypnosis audio on enthusiasm which will no doubt supercharge my focus on being more enthusiastic and I aim to use this as well.

Good Luck with this experiment!

You should also aim to spend time with enthusiastic people as enthusiasm is contagious. Since your time and energy is limited, pay attention to how you feel after spending time with people in your life, and seek out those who fill you up, energise and inspire you.

“If you give your son or daughter only one gift, let it be – enthusiasm.”

Bruce Barton (1896-1967)