Rah-Rah-Shish-Koom-Bah!
Focusing on the negative can consume you. Especially when you play the comparison game. It can dig deep, spring up bitterness, and give you every reason to hate everyone and all the things. Especially when you are consumed with all the ways your own life is failing you.
But one of the easiest ways to start to pull yourself out of a funk is to focus on all the other ways you can be someone else’s cheerleader. Making people happy makes me happy. It is in my DNA.
I work for smiles. And when I get one, I smile – because spreading happiness is always a thing and it is something this world could always use more of.
When you focus on your problems, it soon becomes an abyss that you cannot see your way out of. No one else exists – it is just you in this deep sea of negativity and that can be poisonous to relationships.
But when you make a choice to choose JOY and to spread it, you cannot help but be overwhelmed by that light.
So what does being a cheerleader mean?
1. You’re not first all the time.
You don’t have time to focus on your problems because you are too busy loving on someone else and encouraging them in their life journey. You are choosing to put someone else’s happiness above your own.
2. Celebrating success minus the envy.
This can be a tough one. It’s about being genuinely happy for someone else’s success without worrying about your lot in life. You’ll get there. But in this moment, it’s about them – and all that they are doing for themselves and their family. It’s jumping up and down for the good they have without using it as an opportunity to introduce your own issues.
3. It is sometimes sacrificial.
You may not always feel up to it – you may not feel like you have the time. But being a true cheerleader means you show up, even if you don’t always feel like it. Being someone’s cheerleader means that for a moment, you step out of your corner and cheer on someone else. It is sometimes sacrificial, but also intensely rewarding.
It is not always easy to celebrate someone else – especially when you don’t feel like cheering. But over time, I have found that when you give good things out into the world and it will come back to you.
Being a cheerleader for others is not a replacement for self-love – it is in addition to, on top of, and wholly important to your development as a person in society. It is part of finding your purpose and in turn, a part of supporting yourself – you are finding your people, you are loving on them, and learning to put your own life into perspective.
Choosing to cheer someone else on is the recognition that someone else is just as valuable as you.
And when we begin to recognize and embrace that in others, we learn to how to better do that for ourselves.
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