Thank you Violet for this post:
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Please, take two minutes and think of all the communities you’ve been a part to: school, work, friends, or whatever else. Do they have something in common? They all had their popular one (or few) figures, that guy or that girl everybody seemed to like and follow. How were they different? What makes some of us popular, while others are never noticed?
Until you figure this out, you should know that you can easily earn some “bonus points” with only two words. You can make people see that you care. You can make them understand that you appreciate and respect them. You can make someone’s day.
Try to picture this: since childhood, you had tasks to do, and doing them at your best was the “normal”. You knew that, and you know it today, so you don’t expect any praise or rewards for all normal things you do at school, at home or at work. But there are times when you feel better. If I asked you, you couldn’t tell what triggers these feelings.
May it be because the sun is shinier some days? Maybe.
Or may it be that you have just achieved something you are proud of, and that changed your mood? Possibly.
Or maybe did you hear the two magic words that made your day?
The words I’m talking about are: THANK YOU!
Many times, you can motivate people to keep on doing things, with a simple thank you (although you know, and they know it too, that it was their job to do that).
Let’s imagine some situations when you could experience the magic power of thank you:
- You are a team leader, and your colleagues have just accomplished a difficult task. Acknowledge this by a thank you, whether or not can it be accompanied by a more substantial reward
- You are the proud mom of a child who has just put his room in order. Don’t say something like “you should have start doing this a long time ago”. Just smile and say “thank you for being such a help to me”
- You run a blog project where people send you articles. Send them a thank you note immediately after you receive the material. There’s no big effort in this; you can use an auto responder. And it makes a great difference to your readers.
Such situations are endless. If you don’t believe it, try it for yourself for 10 days. Notice the changes in people around you. Notice the increase in their motivation. Notice how they smile back to you. Does it feel better already? Then why not making it permanent? We can definitely live in a better world, but nobody’s going to make it better for us. Leaders are very few. Most people are followers. Lead those around you to respect and love and you’ll be rewarded with harmony. Lead them to wars and you’ll have hatred and selfishness all around you. Don’t do anything and somebody else will lead you to his/her picture of reality, which you may not always like. It is true that we create our reality. If we don’t enjoy it, we can create a change.
One more thing: don’t start tomorrow (as tomorrow never comes). Start now!
P.S.: Thank you for reading my article. It means a lot to me.
