The Importance of Encouragement

Many thanks to The Santa Fe New Mexican for permission to share the Whole Hearted Parenting column!

Discouragement takes a physical, emotional, and mental toll.  Our fuse is short, and our creativity is low.  It feels as if we are running on empty.  Discouragement can limit you from taking healthy risks, and it can dampen your level of influence.  It keeps you focused on others rather than on what is happening within you.  Therefore, it serves us well as humans in relationship with other humans to get familiar with encouragement – what thoughts and actions encourage us and how we can inspire encouragement in others, especially our children.  Here are a few ways to begin.

Notice your internal dialogue.  Are you more encouraging or discouraging with yourself?  If you are discouraging yourself with criticism or pressure, find self-compassion, even for your inner critic.  If you were raised with criticism as a motivator, that outer critic from childhood can become your inner critic as an adult.  Avoid trying to make the inner critic disappear.  Instead, get to know that part of you even more.

Check out your judgements around mistakes.  Your inner critic can swoop in and take charge when you make a mistake.  Again, slow down and tune into your self-compassion.  Mistakes are a part of daily life.  They are how we learn and grow. 

Surround yourself with encouraging people.  The energy of encouragement is contagious!  It is uplifting to observe people handle mistakes and challenges with self-encouragement.  That is how we learn a new way to handle them ourselves.

Consciously encourage yourself.  Each day, write down three things that you did well or three things that you love about yourself.  They can be small things, such as how you kindly responded to a hostile remark from someone on social media or how you calmly handled someone taking the parking place you were going for.  Slow down.  Interrogate the story that you created about what happened.     

Encourage others.  Catch someone doing well and acknowledge them for it.  If your child helped clear the table after dinner, let them know how much you appreciated their assistance.  If you notice your older child helping your younger one with homework, acknowledge their kindness.  If your friend lets you know that they are volunteering at the pet shelter, acknowledge how much they care.                   

I wish you well in encouraging yourself, encouraging others, and staying encouraged!

Would you like to gain more insights into staying encouraged and being encouraging? Please join me on Saturday, September 10th for the live virtual workshop, “Being Encouraged”.  For details and registration, please visit https://wholeheartedparenting.com/shop/encouraged.