Encouragement

Last week's IBM Toastmaster meeting theme was "Encouragement".

Someone once said that worthwhile causes fail only when participants begin to give up. In other worlds, team members became so discouraged to the point they no longer contribute to the cause.

Nothing else has changed--the need for the project is still there--whether it is raising awareness for global warming, helping children in needs, etc.

There are many reasons for people to get discouraged. I won't get into that.

Here I would like to share the lessons I learned to handle discouragement. It's straight out of Covey's Habit 1-Be Proactive. I call it the Rule of Five. For every discouragement I encounter, I treat it as an opportunity to offer encouragement to myself and too others. If I received one negative feedback or encountered one difficult obstacle, I would make a point to do 5 things to encourage others or to myself.

I have found that helps me not to give up and restore my energy and commitment to go on.

For example, last week, I went to a meeting and no one else showed up. I was the only one there. Out of that discouragement, I have started to do five things to encourage myself and others.

Perhaps, a thank you note to friends that I have made, or for new and interesting things that I have learned.

And you guess it. writing this blog and reminding people of the next LPG meeting on Emotional Intelligence is also one of those 5 things.

PS: For more information about Friday's LPG meeting: here is the link http://middlewaygroup.com/partners/leadership-practice-group-lpg/copy_of_emotional-intelligence-session-1


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