Creating zest

All of us have experienced zest, a feeling of unbridled energy and joy sometime in our life. Maybe it was during a vacation, or when you bench-pressed 50 kilos at the gym or when your favourite team won the football world-cup.

But some people seem to carry that feeling with them. You can see it in – the spring in their step, their enthusiasm, energy, pride and passion.

To some people, zest may feel overrated, or a mask to tell the outside world that they are happy. However, real zest can’t be fabricated.

Real zest comes from within. It is infectious and enviable. It gives you the drive to get more done in less time and do it with gusto.

Zest creates joy; it gives you the ability to appreciate life even when there are ups and downs; the drive to face challenges in a positive manner.

Zest is fuelled by what excites you, makes you enthusiastic and passionate. If you know what this is, do more of it.

When you are living and working with passion, it is contagious and it inspires others. Work and life are then less stressful.

Finding things that make you feel excited about life help to increase your zest – but doing the right thing does too. How you build your relationships with loved ones can have an impact on how zestful you feel. If you have loving and jovial relationships, you enhance your energy.

The same is true at the workplace. In a study conducted with more than 9,800 full time employees, Christopher Peterson and his colleagues found that personal zest was positively connected to an employee’s degree of work satisfaction, overall life satisfaction, and belief that their work was a calling, rather than just a job. Zestful employees result in lower absenteeism, lower turnover, higher group morale and a better bottom line.

If you have a zest for life you produce more, get people more excited, and are more in-tuned to your customers, who in turn enjoy spending time with you.

Your work isn’t simply a means to make a living; it becomes a place of excitement, enthusiasm and positive outcomes.

People who practice zest embrace life as an adventure and push the envelope. They see possibility where others only see problems.

They do big things and bring other people along on their journey.

Nelson Mandela, who was unjustly imprisoned for 27 years, and Victor Frankl, the Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, are prime examples of people who showed that it is possible to find meaning and a zest for living in all circumstances, even the most brutal ones.

To summarize, feeling zestful is not an outcome of outside circumstances or situations, but an approach to life. Create zest in your life and experience a life of unbridled energy and enthusiasm!