Tis the season to encourage your favourite bloggers.
Tim Challies has written a great post titled How to Encourage a Blogger this Christmas. I’m hoping that this link to his post will be an encouragement to him becuase I know how encouraging it is when others link to me. 🙂
Do you know anyone who doesn’t enjoy hearing an encouraging word or two? Sure, there are people who don’t know how to accept compliments and encouragement well but most of us still enjoy a pat on the back now and then.
If we all enjoy being encouraged and knowing that we’re valued, why is it that we encourage others so rarely?
I know that some people are really good at encouraging others and if you’ve got someone like that in your life you would know how good it can be. I’m not talking about vain flattery but real encouragement that lifts and builds us up.
Life Skills Trainer, Jill Bonanno, joined me yesterday on 98.5 Sonshine FM for our weekly radio segment, Simply Living. We looked at how easy it can be to encourage others and what a difference it can make.
A simple word, a note, a touch on the arm can all be very simple ways to encourage others. During the programme we even had a caller tell us that she uses text messaging to send people an encouraging note now and then and she’s been amazed at the positive result. She’s had several friends phone her right after receiving a text message to say that the message came just at the right time.
Do you make encouragement a habit? How about instead of just nodding in agreement you decide to send a couple of text messages right now or phone someone who might need a kind word or even jot down a note for a friend? What about visiting a couple of blogs and leaving a couple of comments to let the blogger know you appreciate them? And here’s a twist – how about encouraging someone you don’t even know? Make a mental note to encourage the checkout operator next time you’re shopping or perhaps your bus driver or someone else you encounter in the next couple of days.
If you regularly encourage others I’d love to hear how you do that. If you’ve got a story about how you’ve been encouraged please tell me about it. Just click the comments link of this post and share your story.
If you’d like to hear Jill and me talking about encouragement (as well as all kinds of other stuff) just click play on the audio player at the bottom of this post.
John Smulo has a simple yet profound post about the power of words.
Check out Powerfully Positive Things People Say and maybe you can decide to use some of the phrases he suggests to make a difference in 2008.
Thumbs Up! is ready to roll for another week.
As we get closer to Christmas I certainly hope that many more people will give the gift of encouragement by submitting their own Thumbs Up! posts..
How about deciding now to write a Thumbs Up! post today and sending me the details to include in the next edition?
If this is the first you’ve heard of Thumbs Up! and you’re wondering what it’s about you can read the details here.
Roger Carr presents One Child – 25 Acts of Kindness – Making A Difference posted at his Everyday Giving Blog. Can I encourage you to read Roger’s post? It is truly inspiring.
Romi returns to say Thank You, Administrators at her blog, Romi’s Journal. It’s a post of thanks to those who put in all the hard work of running Life with Christ, which hosts free and ad-free blogs.
Isabella Mori highlights a fellow blogger with her post Practical Creativity posted at Change Therapy, saying, “An article about a blog post that didn’t win a contest – but I liked it so much, I nominated it for a consolation prize. This person wrote a very good post on applying creativity in a very practical way.”
I don’t think I’ve left anyone out but if you did post a submission this week and you can’t see it here, please email me so that I can add your post. If you missed out on being a part of Thumbs Up! this week, get posting now and submit for next week.