Like many of my fellow Nottingham Forest football club fans… I am excited about the new season starting in just over a weeks time… This is because Forst have made 9 new signings of a good calibre and plan to make a couple more prior to the 8th August when the Campionship season kicks off.

Yet in the Nottingham local papers and Forest fan blogs, our manager Billy Davies has been stating that we are just catching up with the other teams in the league with our signings and not building up our chances too much… He can see that there can sometime be an issue with too much expectancy… Football fans are a fickle bunch and if the team does not have the most impressive start to the season, the initially high expectancy can turn very sour.

It is a safety procedure almost, isn’t it? To not let people run away with enthusiasm… It happens within us all at certain points…

Imagine having just experienced a situation that created within you an abundance of enthusiasm.

Perhaps you had been single for a very long time and you finally meet someone who you could imagine spending every second with…. Imagine that you had been in an unsatisfactory work role for years and then finding a job that is everything you have been looking for AND it paid much better…. You are naturally excited and want to jump into these situations without any brakes. Is that a good idea?

I think so.

Embracing a new opportunity with all your enthusiasm, can have many advantages.

Firstly, it presents an opportunity for pleasure allowing natural endorphins to provide you with a healthy natural high, a fabulous feeling!

Secondly, it promotes optimism which some consider to be the best antidote to almost everything and anything.

Thirdly, it helps you live in the moment so you are able to appreciate and fully participate in the present.You code that memory with all of your senses and it gets lodged in your brain as a special time. When you have special times to recall in your mind, it makes for a happier mind.

Fourth, it provides you an opportunity to appreciate yourself and your life, then in any less fortunate times you have a reference for some truly great moments.

For all of these reasons, learn to embrace your good fortune, face it with enthusiasm, and give it all that you’ve got!

Is there a negative aspect to having lots of enthusiasm?

A client once told me that he feared that if he was “Too high spirited and enthusiastic” then disappointment may result… and that “I set myself up for a big fall.”

So is the solution to deprive yourself of the full force of joy in that moment to safeguard against something that may not actually happen?!

The reality is that any situation could possibly not turn out to be what you had hoped for. You may be disappointed, but is the upset any less if you were less enthusiastic? Is there really more of a problem caused if you had been enthusiastic before hand? If you actually enjoyed it thoroughly at some lvele before hand, then at least you got some enjoyment out of it, no?

Disappointment is disappointment regardless of how intense; it is still an unpleasant feeling. Remember we have all faced disappointment and although we wish we could avoid it, we can’t.

Lets not make disappointment something to fear. It is a short-term unpleasant emotion that fades with time. Don’t let that fear get in your way of grasping the positive opportunities that present themselves.

Embrace the fabulous moments you have, store the memory, relive it, and know whatever happens nothing can take away that experience, you have it in the bank so to speak. What’s more, with lots of those enthusiastic, life-loving moments stored upstairs, any disappointment that does come along is easily dealt with and let go of.

I am going to get enthusiastic and excited about Nottingham Forests spate of Summer signings and look forward to the season ahead…

I shall be enthusiastically, and also sadly waving goodbye to my current batch of students this weekend… Then happily saying hello to a new bunch of fully qualified hypnotherapists… It is the last weekend of my current diploma before I start gearing up for my new intake this October… Have a great weekend 🙂