Be an Encourager – Part One

This article has two names. The first is what you clicked on: *"Be an Encourager – Part One." I’ll explain why it’s "Part One" at the end of this post.

The second name is "Lessons from Starting a Blog."

That’s because I was moved to write this article by the comments I received after launching my blog.

If you didn’t know this, I’m going to tell you right now: it is REALLY great getting positive feedback. Encouragement is fuel: fuel for the heart, fuel for the mind, and fuel for the hand. It makes you want to keep going.

A little affirmation or acknowledgment can be the exact thing that lifts someone out of a slump, steadies their feet, or pushes them to keep moving. Since starting this blog, I’ve received a few messages that reminded me why I write and why I must continue.

Let me share two of them with you.

The Voice Note

I’ll admit, I wanted to save this one for last. It’s my favorite, and they say to save the best for last. But let’s buck convention.

It was a simple voice note. Just a few seconds of someone’s voice, raw and genuine. But it felt like a gust of wind to my sails.

VN: “...I was so inspired, wow, because you’re the calm and quiet type…"

That’s accurate. I’ve never been the loudest in the room.

VN: “I’m very, very inspired…”

I started grinning around this point.

VN: “Please don’t stop. Keep writing.”

I nodded vigorously.

Do you know that scene in movies where the hero is down—on their knees, or flat on their back, bruised, beaten, and breathless? And then, just as it seems all hope is lost, they hear a voice. Maybe it’s a memory. Maybe it’s the voice of someone they love. But that voice stirs something. They open their eyes. They roar. They rise.

That was me.

That voice note was my scene. It gave me the kind of push that no coffee, no quote, no “motivational Monday” post could match.

“Please don’t stop. Keep writing.”

That was my fuel.

A Message from a Fellow Colleague

Another message came in after I shared a post titled Finding Joy in Work. The message was short and simple:

“Read the one on joy. Thanks for sharing. Currently going through a stressful time at work.”

It struck a chord.

As a healthcare professional working in a very resource-limited setting, we don’t just experience stress, we breathe it. It hangs in the corridors, sits with us in the clinics, and it sometimes follows us home like a second shadow.

To know that something I wrote could provide a small oasis in the middle of all that? That gave me peace I didn’t know I could achieve.

As a bonus, I later had a conversation with someone else who said the post helped change their perspective.

That person had been focusing only on negative patient outcomes, feeling weighed down by all the things that were going wrong. But after reading, they said they started to notice the little wins, the patients who recovered and went home. They noticed their perspective started to brighten.

In a way, I was the encourager there.

Sometimes, encouragement isn’t about lifting someone from rock bottom. Sometimes, it’s about giving them a new lens, a new way to see what’s already there.

How to Be an Encourager

So what do I want you to take away from this?

I want you to be an encourager. You MUST be one.

Here’s how:

• Send someone a voice note today. Not a text. A voice. Let them hear the emotion in your tone.  
• Say “thank you” to a colleague who rarely gets thanked.  
• Compliment someone not just for what they do, but for who they are.  
• Share a post, a line, or a poem that made you feel seen.  
• Write a note, leave a comment, or send a message.

And here’s a challenge:

Encourage one person every day. Minimum.

A kind word can be life-saving fuel. You never know when someone is in their movie scene, their lowest moment, waiting for a voice in the wind.

Be that voice.

Why This Is "Part One"

Now, I said I’d explain why this is Part One.

That’s because, as I wrote this article, I remembered a time when I experienced the opposite of encouragement. I experienced a total teardown.

I’ll be writing about that shortly.

Look out for it: Be an Encourager – Part Two: My Worst Experience in Medical School.

COMING SOON...