After such a long post yesterday, recapping my trip to Brazil, I’ll let you off easy today with as few words as possible!
For Motivation Monday today, I want to ask you to think of one way that you can help bring others around you up. Our busy world can be so cutthroat and competitive, and the desire to build ourselves up can often (mistakenly) lead us to bringing others down in the process. Have you ever noticed that those who insult, exclude, discriminate against, or degrade others are often those that are self-conscious about their own abilities or personality? Even if it gives you momentary self-confidence, bringing others down will not help you improve yourself or make your life any better. (picture source)
So today, go out of your way to compliment someone who you know has been working hard – knowing their efforts are paying off may make their day more than you realize. Tell someone you know has been struggling that they’re doing a great job. Support someone by doing a small favor. Hold the door open for a stranger, or give an extra large smile to the person who takes your order at Starbucks. Whatever you do, do something that will make someone else’s day … because, in my opinion, it’s only in building others up that we truly make ourselves better people. (picture source)
Note: Tomorrow (Tuesday) early morning, The Lyons’ Share may have an “Under Construction” notice for several hours. I’m working on a blog redesign, so please bear with me if you’re unable to access the site for a little while!
So tell me in the comments … What can you do today to build others up? What’s the last compliment you received, or the last time someone went out of their way to make your day?
Always love these! I think it’s the sign of a very insecure person when they cut other people up. Even trolls on the internet (on famous sites like HuffPo) who leave vicious comments…I think who are these people? They must be sad and miserable. And the best part of lifting someone else up is it really does make YOU feel good. I think you get just as much of a mood boost as they do. Compliments are free!
I couldn’t agree more with your thoughts on the trolls, Tonya! Thankfully, I’ve never dealt with truly hateful comments on my own site, but I do think about how miserable those others must be to be spending their time making people feel bad about themselves. Love the “compliments are free” attitude!
Agree with both of you – trolls are a real pain. For the other site I do writing for in my free time 😉 when we do YouTube reviews, if there is the slightest inaccuracy or mistake or the audio isn’t perfect … people get nasty. I really don’t get it. I mean, I love a spirited debate, but to take someone else down like that? To what end?
Completely agreed. It doesn’t take much to make somebody smile or feel loved and making compliments feels much better than snarking at others. Whenever I’ve made negative comments on others I felt bad sooner or later – but will we ever feel bad for complimenting? There’s no ‘too much’ when it comes to telling others how much we appreciate what they are doing, just smiling at somebody or wishing them a great day. I’m just now getting to know my new roommate and have been doing her dishes for no real reason whenever I saw them sitting in the sink. She was a bit confused about this at first but I think she’ll have to get used to it because I won’t stop the small favours anytime soon :).
Thanks for this comment, Miss Polkadot, and for sharing the post! I couldn’t agree more with feeling guilty after making snarky comments … even if they feel so justified at the time. I feel it is my responsibility to build others up when I can … because you never know how much of an impact you are having on someone’s day (either in the positive or negative sense). SO nice that you are doing your roommate’s dishes … can you come over to my house? 🙂
Wonderful post, Megan! Several months ago, I made an effort to give genuine, heartfelt compliments to people and focus on others strengths to build them up – without expectation of receiving anything in return. I was very surprised. It has deepened some of my existing friendships and created new ones. The positivity has carried through to other aspects of my life as well.
Thanks for stopping by, Denise! Congratulations on your effort to give compliments, and I’m SO glad the positivity has benefitted you! It really is amazing how much of a “ripple effect” positivity can have!
The expression “You can’t build yourself up by tearing others down” has been one of my key mantras since high school … so a long time. And I honestly believe it – and see too many people who fall into the easy trap of tearing others apart. We all judge and occasionally make comments we regret – even if noone else ever hears them.
My last compliment came from Lisa “I love you so much for how hard you are working to make this food thing work for me.”
As for how I work to affect positive change:
– Truly listen to others. I talked in my post last week about how sometimes you can sense someone is just waiting for you to finish talking to transition into THEIR story. How often do we do that in our own lives? Do we assume we know what our spouse and kids and coworkers are going to say and therefore don’t listen?
I don’t even know Lisa, but I KNOW that her compliment is so true – you do so much to make healthy eating feasible, fun, and tasty for your family, and I’m sure they appreciate that a ton!
I absolutely hate if I find myself doing what you mention – just thinking about what I am going to say about ME as the other person is talking. It’s so rude and sends the message that I am more important than them, and it feels terrible to be on the other end! Luckily, I don’t think this is something I do often, but I’m glad that you point it out as a reminder!
Love this idea Megan! I am going to work on this throughout the day and throughout the week! I find that it is easy to focus on this on a day when I have off but as the week progresses and I am working longer hours I forget about this. I am going to challenge myself to build someone (or many people) up throughout the week!
I’m so glad this helped, Sara! I know you’re super busy lately, but hopefully finding little ways to build others up will lessen your stress just a little bit.
I love this!! Great post! I really really love reading posts about positivity as I am a huge believer in spreading love and what you give out, you receive back even more love. I try to build people up as much as I possibly can, and I thoroughly enjoy seeing a smile on someones face when you pay them a compliment! I try to do this as much as possible in my daily life. One of my athletes last night said that he did not know what he would have done without me this year, that was wonderful to hear.
thanks so much for a uplifting post in a world of negativity 🙂
Thanks for sharing, Tina! I LOVE your story about your athlete – it’s moments like that that really make you feel like your work is paying off, right? I hope you were able to savor that and take it to heart – you’re making such a difference in many of their lives, so keep up the good work!