Following hot on the heels of last week’s Blog I have chosen to write about encouragement, for without it I think many of us would not achieve our goals or even dare to dream big. We all need some encouragement in our everyday lives.

Encouragement is a wonderful gift and, if we are lucky enough, something we will hopefully receive throughout our lives from friends and family.   From the time we take our first steps our parents or guardians are offering us encouraging words to reach their outstretched hands and when we do, we feel very pleased with ourselves usually to the accompaniment of much cheering, clapping and praise of how clever we are. Next time you are in the presence of a baby, just watch them when they are learning to take their first few steps and see how happy they are when they reach their destination.

If we are fortunate, our family and friends support and encourage us at different times throughout our lives. For example:

• Encouragement to do something
• Encouragement to finish something – go over the line, a child’s race at sports day
• Encouragement that things will get better in our times of need
• Encouragement to get better when we are sick

Encouragement can come in many forms such as listening to someone’s speech which might strike a chord and becomes the inspiration that spurs us into action.  For example, Michelle Obama frequently offers encouragement to young people to complete their education, to travel and to believe in themselves and that they really are good enough and can achieve their dreams.  Reading an autobiography of someone who may have struggled during their life but pulled out all the stops to go for what they believed in can also offer us encouragement.

Back in 2012, the UK celebrated its most successful Olympics here in London. When the competitors were interviewed later they all said it was the crowd cheering them on that really helped with their performance and to pull out all the stops.

As we can see from the above, encouragement is a wonderful way of offering positive support and is an extremely powerful tool in all aspects of our lives.

With encouragement comes enthusiasm and once we start to take small baby steps, we become enthusiastic about how many more steps we can take and aware of how far we can go and begin to feel excited. In turn, we begin to feel more energised. Have you ever found yourself in a situation when you have so much energy and enthusiasm that you want to finish something that you’ve started and you find yourself going to bed much later than usual or waking up earlier so you can continue or finish something? This is of course a sign that we are enjoying what are doing. So just by someone’s words of encouragement we not only find ourselves doing something we thought might not be possible but we find we have more life and energy and as a result are much happier.

Interestingly, the word encouragement goes straight to the heart.  The word itself comes from a combination of the prefix en which means “to put into” and the Latin root cor which means “heart”.

Whatever stage we are in our lives, young or old, we all need encouragement, so why not greet someone today with some words of encouragement no matter how small. You never know it might help someone achieve their dreams, make that change or just feel happier that someone noticed them and took the time.

I would love to hear from you when you received encouragement at a time when you felt like giving up or when you didn’t think you could do something and the difference the encouragement made to you. I know that I have achieved lots during my lifetime that I would never have dreamed of and it was all thanks to some very special peoples’ encouragement and belief in me, for example I am a qualified homeopath and have also achieved second degree Reiki and am able to practice.

Wishing all my lovely readers a wonderful week full of love and happiness.