disappointed woman

I couldn’t stand hearing the words encouragement, motivation, and inspiration.

Honestly, my disdain for these affirmative words grew over time because they appeared everywhere online. When I relaunched this past April, I vowed never to use them or their derivatives in any of my writing. Not only that, they’d become the essential job function of  folks that I’d met who blog, have an online business, or any kind of social media presence.

They’d say things like:

I encourage women to discover their purpose. 

I motivate women to pursue their passions. 

I inspire women to reclaim their authentic selves.

🙄 <eye roll emoji>

When I heard these platitudes, I’d be super annoyed because I believed that these mere taglines were vague, boring, and unoriginal to say the least.  

In our overly-saturated, online world of positive messages, just about everyone and everything encourages, motivates and inspires. Wouldn’t you agree?

Our timelines are flooded with a tsunami of encouraging memes to pursue your dreams, inspirational quotes about being a better version of yourself, and motivational videos demonstrating how to cook more healthy. I haven’t done the research, but it feels like suddenly the supply and demand for encouragement, motivation and inspiration has increased in the past 5 years 200 percent!

What’s up with that?

Why the sudden surge and popularity of these 3 words?

How did we survive before now without them?

What has the Internet done to us?

I’m being a little snarky, I know. Sorry. 

I get it. We all need to be encouraged, motivated, and inspired because when we are we can:

  • Rejoice in hope
  • Look forward to the future
  • Be healed of our past
  • Recover from mistakes
  • Gain clarity about why we’re on this planet
  • Begin again
  • Be at peace with others
  • Make healthy living a lifestyle
  • Forgive wrong done to us
  • Pursue our bucket list aspirations
  • Get out of debt
  • Live in the moment
  • Eat healthier
  • Make our ideas blossom

(Of course, this list isn’t exhaustive. It contains only a small portion of what we can aspire to if we are encouraged, motivated, and inspired.)

I just wish that these words weren’t overused and spoken so flippantly.  As you can see, they actually possess an extraordinary amount of power to:

  • Change us for the better
  • Lift us up
  • Awaken our spirits

And this was my epiphany.

As much as the use of these words has irritated me, you want and need to be encouraged, motivated, and inspired to live better lives. And you can activate the power of encouragement, motivation, and inspiration when you take action on your ideas.

  • The power of encouragement transpires when you don’t hesitate to ask someone who encourages you to pursue your business idea to be your mentor.
  • The power of inspiration transpires after reading your daily inspirational quote on procrastination, you immediately start tackling that task you’ve been putting off.
  • The power of motivation transpires when you actually exercise with your personal trainer instead of watching her demonstrate her moves on Instagram.

The power of encouragement, motivation, and inspiration ultimately lies within you to figure out how to encourage, motivate, and inspire yourself.

Get the idea? Girl, after writing this, I do. The words encouragement, motivation, and inspiration don’t annoy me anymore. I can’t say that I’ll use them more in my writing though because I want to do more than just encourage, motivate, and inspire you. I want to compel and convince you to take action and make your ideas blossom.

So how about you grab your journal and reflect on the following:

  • Why is encouragement, motivation, and inspiration crucial to making your ideas blossom?
  • What steps are you going to take to actualize the power of encouragement, motivation, and inspiration in your life?
  • If you aren’t encouraged, motivated, and inspired what happens to you?
  • Where does your encouragement, motivation, and inspiration to make your ideas blossom come from?
  • In what ways do you encourage, motivate and inspire yourself?

And if you’d like to share someone or something that encourages, motivates, and inspires you, leave a comment below or on the GoneGirlGo Facebook page. Email me at zoe@gonegirlgo.com for a personal exchange.