Encouragement - the secret ingredient for happiness

universal heartIt's true. If you want happy and supportive relationships in your life, you need to learn the art of encouragement. Stephanie Dowrick, author of The Universal Heart, shares her wisdom

Forget diamonds. The only gift that really changes people's lives forever is encouragement. Encouragement can be given in a range of ways, from support and loyalty to interest and having a positive attitude. Encouragement doesn't cost anything and it can only add to the sum total of your happiness.

The funny thing about humans is that we are often slow to see the obvious and what works best. When you're looking for ways to encourage and support other people, you learn to focus on the good characteristics rather than the bad. And you will be gentler and wiser with your criticism than when you're fixated on what's wrong with a person.

We love being encouraged ourselves, especially when this is done with sincerity and finesse. We love specific rather than blanket encouragement. And we relish support. Yet we don't easily take the next step to develop our capacity to encourage others and in turn improve our own relationships and well-being.

Several things get in the way of our being generously and spontaneously encouraging.We often think that encouragement begins and ends with praise - and it may feel awkward to us to praise too often, especially if we grew up in a non-praising family. Encouragement goes beyond praise to include:

  • support
  • interest
  • loyalty
  • resilience
  • a positive attitude
  • trust
  • actively desiring the very best for the other person.
Transform your relationships
The qualities listed above are the ones we tend to bring to any new relationship when we are 'selling ourselves'. The challenge is to keep those qualities alive in a long-term relationship or with people we have known a long time. And these relationships are the ones that will benefit the most from an encouraging attitude.

I have worked with many couples whose relationships have fallen flat and have found that by learning to encourage one another and to hold back on complaining, they can transform not only their relationship, but also the way each of them feels about themselves.

Don't just encourage others - pat yourself on the back too!
Encouragement expresses your general attitude towards others - and yourself. If you are constantly criticising yourself or putting yourself down, it becomes difficult to look at other people generously or to appreciate the role they play in your life.

One of my clients, Bettina, grew up with a family she describes as manic perfectionists.Now 26 and a radiographer, she says, 'I always assumed that other people were thinking negative things about me and it took me years and some professional help to grasp that the things others could say about me were nothing compared to what I was already saying about myself.'

Because Bettina was so relentlessly self-critical, this also meant she interpreted other people's casual remarks negatively. And if anyone actually criticised her, their words would really upset her because they matched what she was already thinking.

Bettina - like many other perfectly intelligent people - simply had no idea how powerfully she was affecting her attitude, moods and relationships via the never-ending loop of negativity running through her mind. Bettina and others with similar problems inspired me to write The Universal Heart, but I also know that genuine encouragement can not begin and end with 'positive thinking' or just by thinking about ourselves.

Beyond positive thinking
If you feel self-doubting, anxious or depressed, it is highly likely that you will also be relatively self-absorbed, even when you don't want to be. Worrying about what other people think of you can be a full-time occupation - and not a rewarding one.

Taking back your power, learning that you can set the tone for your interactions with others through encouraging and supporting them, inevitably lifts your spirits. It also extends your world. It takes you 'out of yourself' in ways that are genuinely revitalising. And because it makes you much better company for others, it will bring you immediate rewards.

Just do it!
Encouragement begins to work for you and other people as soon it is put into practise. As you begin, it helps to:

  • Write down and challenge persistent negative thoughts.
  • Let go of small hurts or disappointments.
  • Silence your criticisms.
  • Check out your body language. It's hard to be encouraging when you are tense, angry or impatient.
  • Know that you can influence your mood by changing your posture.
  • Talk about what you have - rather than what you don't have.
  • See less of negative people.
  • See more of positive people (and be one).
  • Avoid talking about yourself like a slave ('I have to?').
  • Know what your strengths are - and focus on them.
  • Set yourself a goal that you will make at least three genuinely encouraging or supportive remarks to each person in your life each day. (This is great also for your creativity!).
  • Do much more of whatever lifts your spirits and connects you to life.


Stephanie Dowrick is a practising psychotherapist and the author of anumber of best-selling - and explicitly encouraging - books includingher recent release, The Universal Heart (Penguin, 2003). More information about her work is available at www.stephaniedowrick.com