Please don’t curb your enthusiasm
The past handful of months I’ve been working on some big projects, and it’s reminded me of how fun it is to work with people who are really enthusiastic about what you’re making together.
It’s got me thinking about how wonderful enthusiasm can be, especially when it comes to our work. And how this can be sort of… trained out of us. Is it time to bring more enthusiasm back?
Years ago, I had a boss tell me to be less enthusiastic. Specifically, he told me: “You’ve got to manage your enthusiasm.”
I think what he actually meant by that was, don’t try to make things better, just do your job.
It wasn’t the first time I’d felt like a weirdo for being too gung-ho. When I reflect on my time growing up, I can recall feeling like I had more energy and excitement about stuff than other kids did. I have the potential to get really INTO something. I often wanted to take games, scenarios, and activities as far as I could. Hence, rather than running a lemonade stand, my sister and I once hosted an entire mini-carnival at our house, complete with a DIY “dunk tank”, and roped a neighbor’s kid into joining us.
There’s a photo of my sister and I and another neighborhood friend at the lake. We’re maybe 10 years old. Clearly, my sister and I had told our parents to take a picture of us jumping out of the water. My sister and I are LEAPING. The water is splashing, our arms are stretched high, we are going for it. Meanwhile, our friend has a slight smile on her face and is barely jumping. This to me reflects the kind of energy we brought to things… or at least, to the activities of our own making..
My teenage years were no exception. Maybe the things I was enthusiastic about were not the norm, but boy, what I got into, I went big on. In the hardcore punk scene, it wasn’t enough for me to stand in the back and nod my head. I was always at the very front, taking up tons of space being a full-on pit monster. When we weren’t attending shows, my sister and I also published our own zines, started and ran our own activist group, hosted rallies, organized benefit concerts, and more. (Oh to have my teenage energy back.)
Here’s what feels important about this to me:
I think a lot of standard social procedure these days trains us out of enthusiasm. We are taught to focus on the end-state of our work: producing, getting something done. Ticking the boxes. Work becomes a site of anxiety, a place to prove one’s worth through the accumulation of completed tasks, rather than a place of fun, play, excitement, or care. Even acts of creativity, like writing, get oriented around fear of failure and the need to produce and be “good” at all times… an orientation which is quite effective at draining the enthusiasm right out of you.
Enthusiasm is a very human experience. It combines energy, caring, commitment, excitement, and delight. From that perspective, it’s a great antidote to a culture that prizes convenience, productivity, robotic efficiency, and conformity. Enthusiasm invites us to do that very human thing of making whatever we’re doing fun. It invites us to share and show how much we care. It's also, when it gets right down to it, a form of love. A way of saying, I love this thing we’re doing, and I love that we’re doing it together.
Put another way: enthusiasm means you give a shit. And that’s a good thing.
A couple caveats though...
To be clear, enthusiasm doesn’t necessarily have to mean doing more. Sometimes we need to do less. Tinkering and editing your writing to death likely won’t make it better. If you’re very enthusiastic about a project, you might need to remind yourself to take breaks, pace yourself, or recognize when good enough is good enough.
Similarly, enthusiasm doesn’t mean getting obsessed with making things work the way you want them to work. Let’s not confuse enthusiasm for trying to control other people and situations. A lot of energy can be wasted trying to convince other people to see things your way or do things the way you think they should be done. Boundaries are useful here: channel your enthusiasm into spaces where it will serve you, not into dead-ends. That’s a lesson I learned the hard way.
All that said, I’m in favour of bringing your enthusiasm to your work, your writing, and your life.
Sure, we could walk through life trying to “play it cool” and acting like we don’t care, but enthusiasm is way more fun. And it’s infectious.
I’ve built my business around people who are really passionate about what they do. When they wake up in the morning, they’re excited to get to work. When we work on projects together, they can’t wait to bring them to life, and they’re keen to dig in and make them better. And when my clients bring this energy to our work together, it revs up my own enthusiasm in return. It makes me excited to go to work.
Your enthusiasm is a gift. Bring it to whatever you’re doing, and it will uplift others.
Oh, and if you’ve got a project you’re super enthusiastic about, I’m currently booking winter ‘25/26. If you want to jam about an idea you’ve got, let me know.