Encouragement pushes you forward and discouragement pulls you backward. Or at least, that’s what happens when you let them.
When people have your best interests at heart and know better, both when they encourage or discourage you, it can be extremely valuable. When they have your best interests at heart but don’t know better, it can be appreciated but you’d have to be skeptical. Similarly, when they don’t have your best interests at heart but know better, be suspicious. As for not having your best interests at heart and not knowing better, why would you even pay any attention?
You may have heard over and over that affirmation of any form is to be ignored or even avoided, but we are limited creatures that also happen to be interconnected with other limited creatures. And they may have what we lack and vice-versa. There is only so much that you can find out and figure out for yourself. And sometimes, even if you know something well and are firm in that knowing, having it affirmed can still grant you a boost of confidence.
It does become a problem, a disability even, when you leave it all to others, denying yourself having the capacity to discern and reach your own conclusions. So that you’re constantly looking around, not knowing what’s best and what’s worst, what’s right and what’s wrong, and become directionless as a result, for different people will give you different feedback. It can be profoundly disorienting, too. And even if it somehow goes well, it’d still leave you without an identity of your own.
It helps to be positive. Yes, you can be realistic and optimistic at the same time. Realism tells you what is. Optimism tells you what could be. While pessimism, well, it is defeated before it even attempts anything. So be a realistic optimist.
You can find it in yourself to be your own cheerleader when you should and also surround yourself with people who’d like you to succeed as much or more than you, yourself, do. It works wonders.
CREDIT: AI-Generated Examples done on Leonardo.AI
