It'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.

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Encouragement - the secret ingredient for happiness