The Power of Encouragement

Everybody needs encouragement. None of us achieves or can achieve anything without HELP. The great achievers in history became all they were because there were people in their lives and around them that encouraged them.

Everyone needs help. You need help, I need help, our leaders need help, and Nigeria needs help! We as an individual can decide from today to be the HELP that someone needs. The truth about life is that to get help, you need to be a help. The help you need, the encouragement you need to walk through life successfully is locked in the practice of you being a help to someone. Everyone, young and old, successful and less-than-successful, famous and unknown who receives encouragement is changed by it. Mark Twain once said, "One compliment can keep me going for a whole month". Zig Ziglar also once said this that "You never know when a moment and a few sincere words can have an impact on a life."

I once read about the principal of a school, who one day called in three teachers and said, "You three are the finest in the system, so we're giving you ninety high-IQ students to see what you can do with them." Those students, at the end of the evaluating year, achieved thirty percent more than the other students in the school. Seeing the results, the principal called in the three teachers and said, "I have a confession to make. You didn't have ninety of the most promising students; they were run-of-the-mill (meaning nothing special about them). We picked them at random and gave them to you." The teachers naturally concluded that their exceptionally teaching skills must have been responsible for the students' great progress. "I have another confession, said the principal.’You're not the brightest teachers; your names were the first three drawn out of the hat.'

I found this story interesting how the power of encouraging words made ordinary teachers and ordinary students produce excellent performances. The popular philosopher said, 'Treat a man as he appears to be, and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he already was what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be.' Why did those students and teachers performed at that level? Because they were encouraged to believe they could!
Words of encouragement are powerful and life changing. Let us as individuals make it a habit of encouraging, of helping someone. Let us help someone realize their full potential. When we do this, the impact will be will be profound in our society. Look around you, imagine a community where boys, girls, man and woman live to their full potential; everyone will be better for it! Imagine a Nigeria where everyone is encouraged to do or produce or manifest some great works or attitude.

We all need each other, and we don't have go too far out of our way to find someone to help. The opportunity abounds. At work, in school, in public buses, in the market place, in seminars, we meet people, we talk to people. Let’s make it a purposeful activity to encourage someone, to help someone achieve his or her dream. That is the essence of life, in following this path is fulfillment in life.

Today, go out and encourage somebody!