Encourage or Discourage? - Encourage or Discourage

Encourage or Discourage? What do you do?

How we get discouraged

How many times in your life have you thought of trying or doing something new, something that really excited you, that was absolutely brilliant of you to think of doing it. Then you told your friends and family about the thing, ending in them laughing at the idea or thinking that you cannot or should not do it. This lead to you just dropping your shoulders and dropping the idea altogether? Ouch! That hurt didn’t it?

Are you encouraged?

We get different reactions from different people. Some people encourage you and some discourage. People have no idea what their reaction to you does. What goes on in your head when you see them laugh at the idea or act ridiculed at the mention of it. Actually, they do know, but they do not understand. 99.9% of the people would know the feeling of being laughed at or not being taken seriously but they forget it when they are on the other end.
The worst part is some of them don’t even know they are discouraging you by their reaction. This is why it is important to learn how to respond instead of reacting.

How you react

Now, think about the times someone else came to you with that idea and excitement. How did you react? Did you tell them how proud you were of them for thinking it or like what others did to you, you also laughed the idea off or went all sarcastic on your friend who came to you with it? Are you someone who encourages or discourages?

I want you to think really hard on this because this could completely change the way you think and behave. Are you an encourager or discourager? If you encourage others there is a high chance that you will receive encouragement from others and if you discourage, you will encounter discouragement.
WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND – This is Universal law and I absolutely live by it because I have seen countless instances in my life when this held true.

Unintentional discouragers

So, it is quite simple, if you want people to encourage and support you, you need to start encouraging others. There came a point in my life where I realized that, even though I despised people who discourage others, I was one of them (unintentionally). When someone came to me with something they were excited about doing, I would say things like “Shakal dekhi hai aaine mein?”, “Tu moong aur masoor ki dal” and “Mujhe lagta hai tere alawa yeh koi kar hi nahi payega”. All of the above implied either ridicule or sarcasm. Bear in mind, I always believed that they could do it and wanted to be supportive, but just wanting to sound funny or clever, my reactions did not echo how I felt.

Epiphany

The day I realized this, it was like an epiphany and I decided I will never discourage anyone in anything (unless of course they were about to commit a crime or harm themselves or anyone else). And you know what? Since that day, I cannot remember anyone discouraging me. I have seen such awe-inspiring love and support in everything I have decided to do that sometimes it is incredible to me.

Being an encourager does not mean that you cannot ask questions though. You can and should ask questions of the other person to see whether they have thought it through. Just make sure that there are supporting sentences along with the questions and make it clear to them what your intention behind asking those questions is.

Challenge

Today, I challenge you to find out which of the two categories you fall under, encouragers or discouragers?
If you fall under the former, Kudos to you and please keep doing that. You are awesome!
If you are the latter, do you think it is possible for you to turn the tables and change the way you react?

Hope this changes you like it changed me.
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