Relationship Tips #4 How to Express Love with Words of Encouragement
You look beautiful in that dress
Thank you for picking the kids up this morning
Good job in completing your XXX project
I really like how you always look out for me on the streets
You can always make me laugh
These are examples of Words of Affirmation you use on your partners. Works best if your partner's primary or secondary love language is Words of Affirmation. If you do not know your partner's love language, take the quiz from www.5lovelanguages.com
Note: This works on your child too 😊
How do Words of Affirmation work?
My primary love language is without a doubt Words of Affirmation. I can live with 1 good quality compliment for a month. To me, sometimes, words do speak louder than actions.
I have also realized a lot of misconception on affirmations that,
- A simple thank you is enough
- A simple sorry is enough
- Use only 1 to 2 methods are enough
Speaking from experience, these 2 sentences make a whole world of difference.
- Thank you, Tifa.
- Thank you, Tifa for delivering the cupcakes for me. I really appreciate your effort for doing so.
What differences do you realize? And why?
The first example, is a simple thank you.
The second example specifically thank me for something I've done and I'm being appreciated. This is a lot more powerful.
But if you repeatedly say the same thing everytime Tifa delivers cupcakes, Tifa will think you are not putting enough effort to diversify your words. So,
The key here is to be specific and offer a variety.
Hence, we have different dialects in Words of Affirmation love language. Similar to a language, there are a lot of diaclects and some dialects may work on your partner or not. You need to practice and learn which suits your partner best. 😄
Dialect 1: Words of Encouragement
I've recently discovered my love in writing. But neither do I have any experience in writing nor published my works before. I am unsure if my readers will like my writing. I almost convinced myself that,
No one will like what I wrote
But one day, I've decided to publish one article on WordPress, to test if there's anyone will read and like what I wrote. My boyfriend saw my blog and told me when he got home.
Darling, you write really good articles. I got absorbed into your story and feel inspired from your experience. You should write more!
Made in Canva.com
His words meant a UNIVERSE to me. He is the reason I've continued writing since then, and continuously I learn from people to improve my writing skills. If he did not encouraged me, you will never see me on Steemit today.
Another real-life example,
A wife wants her husband to look for a better job. When the wife says "You should go look for a higher paying job", she thinks she is encouraging him but to him she is nagging. However if the husband says "I've always thought of investing on stock markets", the wife should encourage by saying "If you decide to do that, be serious in that and put your 120%. I believe when you are serious on something, you will achieve it. I will help you with my all".
Now the husband feels empowered and supported by his wife, he will take action and start analyzing on the stock market, networking with relevant people and get things done!
Useful Tips
- Be SPECIFIC and offer a VARIETY of words of encouragement
- Take notice of what your partner does daily and compliment your partner that he/she is doing a good job on something specific.
- Encourage your partner to do the things he/she has always wanted to do. Do it with them, be their support system.
- Celebrate mini achievements daily. If your partner finished all important tasks, a simple "Great job, Honey! You're being productive today for finishing all important tasks!"
- Empathize and see the world from your partner's point of views. From their point of view, are you nagging or encouraging?
Words of Encouragement are extremely powerful. It allows you to unleash the potential in your partner. You will always believe in your partner's success and support them with your everything ensuring they are successful.
Encouragement requires empathy and seeing the world from your partner's perspective
Words of Encouragement is one of the dialects in Words of Affirmations. Keep a book titled Words of Affirmations and write down words of encouragement that you have told your partner. You will see how well or how badly you're doing 😉
Q: What are the words of encouragement that you've used?
Images are from Pixabay unless stated.
This Relationship Tips series include practical how's and what's of speaking your partner's love language. If your partner's love language is Physical Touch and Quality Time, I will share firsthand experiences of what I've done and its results :)
Relationship Tips is one of my initiative to help people improve their relationship based on a book I was reading The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman and my experiences.
Check out my series here:
Relationship Tips #1: Know Your Partner's Love Language Here!
Relationship Tips #2: How to keep the love tank full, or most of the time full?
Relationship Tips #3: Is This "In Love" or "Real Love"?
I believe having a good relationship will carve a positive path in all areas of your life. This belief is backed up by an 80 year-old research by Harvard University.
Tifa is writing on Steemit because it allows me to write and earn cryptocurrency. Imagine you do what you love and get paid for it, amazing isn't it!
Steem Dollars is the currency in Steemit and it worth 5USD each. You can earn them like me too:
- Sign up
- Create quality contents
- Upvote, comment, reply
Sign up for a free Steemit account, and you can thank me by coming back and upvoting this article. Then, you are already earning Steem :D
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Tifa, let me say, you are doing a wonderful job. (my words of encouragement)
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Thank you very much @bashadow!!
I appreciate your effort and time spent in reading and upvoting our posts in newbieresteem! You're rocking!
Tifa. thanks for these relationship tips. I have really gained something from the two posts I have read so far.
I'm really glad that you have learned something. If you don't mind to share, can I know what you have learned?
there are different love languages which made me think deep to know mine and that of my girl friend on the spot.
Then how words spoken to someone could create a positive effect in energizing them.
Lol! you ask like we are in a literature class 😂
Hahaha because I'd like to know what specifically that you've learnt so that I know what my readers are interested in :)
Great, what do you think are your and your girlfriend's love language?
lol... mine is more of sincere words... Is it the words of compliment or affirmation ??
Depends on the content. Compliment is part of affirmation.
Of course, all words need to be sincere to your partner.
That's right.
Our words really have a great impact on the feelings of our partners that's why it's necessary to use the right words or dialects as you call it.
Thanks for sharing this awesome post.
Hi @miraeff, thank you for giving your time reading this. Have you heard of the saying "Words are the sharpest weapons" (maybe not 100% correct but it's somewhere there). Words pierces, stabs and strikes if used correctly. That's how people fall into abusive relationships.
But if you use weapons can be used to kill or save. Words are the same too. You can use words to save a person from depression, humiliation, exhaustion, and more. Let's use words to save!
Found the keyword NOTICE
great find! what else can you add to the conversation?
@kuroiwa has added another comment about the post, do check it out @jorlauski 😄
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You are so right! Relationships are a give and take, give respect, get respect, give love, get love, give encouragement, get encouragement! My hubby and I follow this to a T, and couldnt be more happy! We both have been on the other side, where you arent appreciated, respected and encouraged. Sometimes love isnt enough! You need someone whos going to be there emotionally as well! Thanks for sharing!
Hi @smylie2005, thank you for giving your time to read this. I agree 100% with you. When you've been on the "giving" side, where you just give, give and give but hardly "receive", the relationship is no longer mutual. A giver cannot be giver all the time. I'll get tired and demotivated.
Love is not enough when it's just a feeling. You gotta act on it!
It was my pleasure! :)
It's the little things like these that people tend to ignore or count as worthless.....
You're right @kuroiwa. And those little things will accumulate become bombs ready to explore anytime. That's why you need to start from fixing little things, not big ones.
I hope you get something out of my writing 😊
Enlightening information to put more spark in relationship.
Quoted words, i need to make it more specific. Thanks @tifaong
Hi @eprolific, you're welcome! I'm happy that you get something out of my writing.
Yes, because it's very easy to say just thank you but why are you saying thank you to her? You'll need observation to say the specifics, and definitely those effort will be reciprocated.
I wish you all the best!
Yeah i got it.
Hi @tifaong, this is such a lovely post and I hope that more people will take the time to read it. I have taken the love language quiz and it says that I am not someone who expresses it in words, so that's something for me to work on. Thank you so much for putting in the time and effort to write such meaningful posts :)
Hi @plushzilla, thank you very much for your kind, kind words. I'm happy to hear you've taken the quiz. Do you mind to share what's your primary and secondary language?
If you're not the expressive in words person, it's difficult if coincidentally your child or your partner love language is Words of Affirmation but it's not impossible. All you need is practice.
A simple hack you can do it on yourself is, to keep all Kind, Encouraging and Humble words in a book. Review them weekly or monthly, then you'll know how well you're doing :)
This was my result:
I think a lot of it has to do with my upbringing and not really spending much quality time with family and relative so I do value it more. Also, I value doing things and contribution to someone's life as a way of expressing how much I care for them. I do think it is a very useful quiz that can help people to understand each other better :)
Wow, your Quality Time easily wins the ranks. Yes, love languages are very much tied to your personality. It is a way to know yourself better too. Yeap, if you know your colleagues or your friends' love language, you'll know what to do to strengthen your relationship with them. This is not only for couples or parents, it can be used for anyone!
I have compiled a small list of couples and siblings on Steemit and it would be quite interesting to see what the results are like for these couples as an experiment:
Wow! You're in the couple list too!
What is this experiment about?
Well, I am not in the list but I have created and maintain them to see if they might be useful later down the track. Maybe we can see if it is possible to get the couples there to take the 5 languages of love test and see what the results are?
Ak, sorry. It's the link to the bounty contest link.
Is it possible? I'm really excited to do this experiment!