With the many difficult challenges and uncertainities that people face daily, they tend to be saddened resulting in inccesant complaints, confusions, criticisms and fault finding. All which can in turn affect the relationship they have with others causing negative reactions. However, one can also decide on being a positive influence which is encouraging and impacting others to thrive and reach their full potential.
Power of Positive Influence
An individual who has a positive influence on others has mastered the act of inspiring and motivating others and making positive changes in their lives. Being a positive influence involves helping others to foster the desire for progress, inspiring a sense of purpose, and encouraging positive engagement in others around you. Also, it involves offering constant feedback, acknowledgment, and support.
Why Is Positive Influence Important?
A positive influence is important for individuals’ careers, families, and community success. Having a source of positive influence helps a individuals find happiness in life leading them to be more effective in their work and improve their interpersonal skills. Also, these individuals are less prone to stress, give their best, and make others around them more joyful.
What Are the Benefits Positive Influence?
There are various things positive influence can do. They include the following:
- It creates a desire for improvement and enables people to recognize how their skills, talents, and abilities may help in specific situations.
- It encourages others to share optimism, creating a virtuous circle that can lead to a brighter future for everybody.
- Everyone needs someone to look up to and respect, as it helps them grow and be successful. People around us can teach us valuable lessons through simple words of encouragement or advice and their willingness to help others.
- A good impact can push us further than possible and make everyone around us more kind and understanding.
- Being around upbeat people can make us feel better about ourselves and have more faith in our abilities.
- Research shows that people with strong social support networks can deal with hard things like worry or illness better than those without these networks.
- A good attitude can help us see the best in people and events, leading to a better outlook on life, finding solutions, learning new skills, and making connections.
- Making someone else happy can make a big difference in someone’s life, giving us a feeling of satisfaction beyond self-gratification.
How Can I Be a Positive Influence on Others?
Being a positive influence is achievable with training and practice.
#1. Be Authentic
To positively influence others, you’ll need authenticity. People love authenticity. They seek stability; hence, they admire and will gravitate toward those with agreeable private and public lives. Basically, you must avoid being contradictory, as this can indicate disorientation, untrustworthiness, and inauthenticity, which are not conducive to positive influence.
Do you want to be a positive influence on others? Then find out what your unique quality is and adhere to it. What has helped people be influential is that they have known thought patterns or approach issues in a new or distinctive manner.
#2. Set the Example
Enthusiastic and talented individuals are highly motivating to observe. Human nature generally appreciates the remarkable achievements of others. Honoring those who have achieved extraordinary things demonstrates that even if we don’t do same, we can still do great things in our lives.
Hence, o have a positive impact, you must set good exampltes, lead intentionally, and carry out whatever your responsibilities are well. Don’t tell; show. Instead of just telling people what they should do, try to give them choices and explain why you think those choices are better.
#3. Develop Expertise
Most individuals are inclined to adhere to, if not respect, authority. If you wish to positively influence others, establish yourself as an expert in the field in which you wish to influence others. Research and read everything you can on the subject, and then seek opportunities to apply what you’ve learned.
You can’t be a positive influence if you speak without knowing the facts behind topics and situations. THerefore, regardless of what you’re talking about, you should have the facts to back up your point. Ensure you’re not giving out wrong information as much as possible. That way, you can be a positive influence.
#4. Be a Good Listener
A good listener understands a person’s perspective, character, desires, and requirements. To be a positive influence, you must listen to spoken and unspoken words and understand people. Listening includes understanding what individuals require to feel validated, supported, and seen.
If a someone is difficult to talk to and they treat others as if they invisible and make they feel unheard, they are less likely to be a positive influence. Hence, listening attentively and demonstrating genuine interest satisfies a person’s primary need for acceptance and validation, thereby generating positive influence.
#5. Acknowledge the Efforts of Others
Another effective way to exert a positive influence is observing the efforts of others and acknowledging them. You should look for things your colleagues, subordinates, and superiors do that make the work more effective and enjoyable but are often overlooked, then compliment them for it, acknowledge their efforts and celebrate their accomplishments.
Also, demonstrate an interest in the success of others, as this will positively affect all the personal and professional relationships you intend to establish. A valued person will be more willing to go above and beyond to complete any task you assign.
#6. Be Kind Rather Than Correct.
While trying to be a positive influence, it is easy to become trapped in a cycle of demonstrating oneself. You might feel the need to always be correct as it give you the validation you need to be seen as a positive influence. However, while trying to be right, you may cause harm to others and incite resentment. And when you have harmed someone by trying to be right , it becomes difficult for them to see you as a positive influence. Therefore, to be a positive influence, you should prioritize being kind over being correct.
#7. Recognize Your Role
To be a positive influence, you must recognize your position and role and operate within your area of influence, area of expertise, and what you can not do, you delegate to others. Being a jack-of-all-trades is not admired, hence, it won’t make you a positive influence. You cannot positively influence others if you are preoccupied with what others do well instead of what you do well.
#8. Think Positively
People generally are put off by others who often show anger and negativity. They want to enjoy themselves, so they will naturally gravitate towards those who have good attitude and show all round positivity. To build a positive influence, you would have to be someone who is known for being upbeat and positive.
You can achieve that by focusing on setting and achieving small goals. Focus on what is important, look at the big picture and make peace with the things that are out of your control. That way you can stay positive and also be able to be a positive influence to others.
#9. Avoid Being Judgemental and Be More Open-Minded.
Being a positive influence will require you understand the reason why people do what they do. Don’t be too quick to judge the lifestyle and thoughts of others, they might have something or someone they are honoring. Or maybe they are speaking as their experience and exposure allows. You should be open minded and correct with kindness where necessary. Accept them, but do what you can to give them the push they need to live for something bigger.
#10. Practice Self-Reflection
Make it a habit to self reflect on your actions, it is one of the ways for ensuring your personal growth and development. Self reflection involves looking inward and analyzing your ideas and feelings. Check the motives behind your actions and behaviors, also ask yourself what you inspire in others and what comes to the mind when they think of you.
With self-reflection, you will be able to develop a better understanding of who you are as an individuals, what drives you, your abilities and what your limits are. Also, it allows you discover new opportunities that will push your personal growth and development.
#11. Surround Yourself With People Who Share Your Values.
It will benefit you greatly to associate more often with people who share the same values as you do and they can inspire you and encourage you as you build positive influence. When you surround yourself with such individuals you share insights and tips with can help your broden your knowledge and perspective. Also, it will assist you become more conscious of yourself.
Positive Influence Quotes
- “When you are enthusiastic about what you do, you feel this positive energy. It’s very simple.” Paulo Coelho
- A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events, and outcomes. It is a catalyst, and it sparks extraordinary results.” Wade Boggs
- “Positive anything is better than negative nothing.” Elbert Hubbard
- “In every day, there are 1,440 minutes. That means we have 1,440 daily opportunities to make a positive impact.” Les Brown
- “To carry a positive action, we must develop a positive vision here.” Dalai Lama
- “Send out a cheerful, positive greeting, and most of the time; you will get back a cheerful, positive greeting. It’s also true that if you send out a negative greeting, you will, in most cases, get back a negative greeting.” Zig Ziglar
- “It takes but one positive thought when given a chance to survive and thrive to overpower an entire army of negative thoughts.” Robert H. Schuller
- “Our chief want someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.” Ralph Waldo Emerson.
- “The most important thing is to try and inspire people to be great in whatever they want to do.” Kobe Bryant
- “Winning is fun, but those moments that you can touch someone’s life in a very positive way are better.” Tim Howard
- “When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That’s when you can get more creative in solving problems.” Stephen Covey
Conclusion
In conclusion, to be a positive influence on others, you need to inspire and motivate them. To them, you become a source of motivation making them want to improve. You give them feedback and support them all the time. Having positive influence around one can be important for success in both personal and work life as it leads to overall happiness, better relationships, and less stress.
