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 fueled 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 in 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.
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.
Feeling zestful is not an outcome of outside circumstances or situations, but an approach to life. By cultivating it we can all experience a life of unbridled energy and enthusiasm.