Encouragement, a fundamental component for success

Hello Friends,

In my humble opinion, encouragement is an absolute must for success. No IFs, ANDs or BUTs about it.

Merriam Webster definitions:

encouragement

1 :the act of encouraging :the state of being encouraged 2 :something that encourages

encourage

1a :to inspire with courage, spirit, or hope :hearten 1b :to attempt to persuade :urge

2 :to spur on :stimulate 3 :to give help or patronage to :foster

courage

:mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty

But Mel, What if I don’t have anyone to encourage me? What if I feel like I’m surrounded by a bunch of insensitive sharks?

First: No IFs, ANDs or BUTs! Second: Practice encouraging yourself.

The world we see and experience is a reflection of what we believe, what we think and how we feel. As Michael Neill, author and founder of Supercoach Academy, puts it: “We live in the feeling of our thinking.” If you believe life is hard, you will see and experience life as being difficult. If you believe you are not smart or good enough, you may never be courageous enough to share or implement great ideas that can lead to success. Very simply, crappy thoughts lead to crappy feelings leading to crappy experiences.

Mel’s Two Cents: I invite you to take a few moments to examine your thoughts and beliefs. If they don’t make you feel good and encourage you to achieve your goals, then change your mind. Adopt a more positive, loving and accepting view of yourself and see how your life improves. Here’s an affirmation to get you started: I love and accept myself just as I am.

I‘d like to encourage you by sharing a poem written by my colleague Peggy B when after spending many years caring for her family and home, she decided to reenter the workforce. Needless to say, she’s now a big girl with a big title and a big heart, who frequently encourages me.

Until next time.

Mel

P.S. I hope you enjoy the vocabulary lesson and Peggy’s encouraging poem :)

CHOICES

We have a choice. We can choose to live in safety where everything is known, predictable, and fears can be observed from a distance. This choice also means that one can be left incomplete, where a small but persistent voice repeats, “There’s a lack of fulfillment in you. You have withheld something from yourself.” Almost as if you were eating plenty, but were undernourished – you aren’t hungry, but you’re starving.

Or we can choose to be courageous and leave “home” and venture into lands that use and test our best capacities, where we can attempt to find a life with meaning, but where there is always the possible encounter with failure, disillusionment, and excessive expectations.

This choice is embedded forever in our minds. How one decides can determine our sense of satisfaction and quality of living. The difference between the diminished individual, wistfully yearning toward fulfillment but never quite daring to achieve it, versus the unleashed individual, growing well toward his or her destiny is simply the difference between fear and courage.