🤝 What you can do today to celebrate National Day of Encouragement.
A 360 approach-from encouraging yourself to colleagues and community around you.
Though seeming like just another slow Monday, today, September the 12th, is actually known as the National Day of Encouragement, at least in the United States. This day is dedicated to uplifting people and making a positive impact.
Encouragement is not only something to be spread to those around us, but also to be absorbed within ourselves. Challenge yourself to a positive encouragement this week and make sure to always encourage with the right intentions.
A glow up in 10 days, with 4 rules
Transforming into a better version of yourself is not all about physical appearance. One of the most underrated diets that you need to start paying attention to today, if you haven’t already, is the Mental Diet.
Philanthropist and life coach, Stefan James, has set up a positive encouragement challenge that could help you elevate your mental state, which will affect your physical wellbeing as well. Follow these rules for 10 days to achieve it:
Rule #1: Refuse to dwell on any un-resourceful thoughts or feelings. Avoid indulging in any devitalizing vocabularies.
Rule #2: Reframe any negative thoughts. When they come, ask empowering questions like “What's great about this?” or “What else could this mean?”.
Rule #3: Make certain that your whole focus in life is on solutions and not problems.
Rule #4: Don't beat yourself up. If you fail, give yourself a maximum of 1 minute to break the rules, then get back on track.
Most people will need several tries until they can finally complete 10 consecutive days of following the above rules. But once you do, you will reap the benefits of:
Being aware of all the habitual mental and emotional patterns that are holding you back.
Training your brain to search for empowering alternatives to negative situations.
An incredible sense of confidence, as it’ll help you see that turning your life around is easier than you might think.
Creating new habits, new standards, and new expectations that will help you expand.
Learn more about this positivity challenge to encourage yourself inwards here.
Tightening the diverse bond
At work or other social settings where people from different backgrounds come together, there tends to be tension or awkwardness that usually comes from not understanding each other’s values.
This could create an unproductive environment, or even an unsafe one. A few things can be done to encourage engagement within a diverse community:
Research the Culture
Certain cultures discourage women from speaking out and others discourage disagreeing with authority. When you do research on your colleagues’ culture, you’ll be able to find ways around specific barriers that you may run into.
Create An Inclusive Social Group
Sometimes, creating an event like a weekly coffee meetup specifically for the minority you are trying to reach could be a starting step to bring people together and build deeper relationships.
Reach Out to Leaders
By reaching out to key figures within the minority, you can often gather feedback which is representative of a large part of the group. The rest of the group will feel more confident to engage as well.
Provide Digital Option
A digital option gives community members the option to engage anonymously from the comfort of their own home. It will require a lot of preparations, but the benefits that community members get to experience will be worth it.
Explore and Ask Questions
Make sure that when you spend time with these community members you are asking questions and really getting to know them and their way of life. Put your judgment and differences aside to first understand.
Find 5 other ways you can do to create a safer, uplifting diverse community here.
Don’t take this the wrong way
Encouragement and help are such good seeds to sow, but be sure not to throw them in the wrong piece of land. Some people intentionally encourage others only to gain positive impact for themselves.
These backhanded deeds do more harmful than good. When encouraging others, be sure that it doesn’t come in the form of:
Anxiety Help
A very common example of this is when a mother becomes too overly protective of their child, interrupting the actual learning process. No adult wants this kind of help, either.
Vanity Help
Helpers engaged in this form care less about who they help and more about the perception others have of them as “helpers”. They expect positive social regard in return of their good doings.
Aimless Help
Some people spend countless hours helping others, while they are aimless in their own lives because they never direct themselves inward. They deal with other people’s problems as it’s easier than dealing with their own.
Read more about each of the forms above and why they can discouraging here.
Do you think you encourage yourself enough, or maybe even too much?
Make sure to share this week’s Monday Mavens edition to your friends who need a bit of an encouragement nudge, and help them start their own positive encouragement challenge.
Found any of our insights interesting? Share them also to your social media!
It would encourage us in more ways than one 💜