Telling your story to uplift others!!!

”IF I DID IT, YOU CAN ALSO DO IT. NEVER LET SOMEONE TELL YOU THAT YOU CAN NOT MAKE IT. TELL THEM, THEY ARE WRONG.”

How often have you ever told your stories to other people who needed to hear them the most for one reason or another, do you remember an occasion in your life where you managed to do something because someone uplifted you emotionally and motivated you when you were almost giving up, or just that he was experienced and you needed a start up? Well that is what we are going to talk about today.

But first, let’s look at the process of motivation in brief. In psychology, it is called conditioning and to be specific, it’s called vicarious conditioning. I bet you have always experienced this a lot but you might just have no idea it’s what you are experiencing. To make it sink faster, do you remember anytime you saw your friend falling down and hurt his leg and you also kind of imagined the pain he was feeling and could even feel it but you are not hurt? That condition is what we call vicarious conditioning. It is basically feeling the same experience -through imagination- that someone is going through, if it was something hurting, you can imagine the pain, saddening, you also be sad, happy, you also feel the joy. It is just an observational process of learning to respond in a particular way by watching others, who are called models. And that is why it is called vicarious conditioning because it involves learning by watching others acquire responses through classical or operant conditioning and through it, you are able to learn various attitudes, feelings, beliefs and emotions, not through direct exposure to a stimulus, but through observing how others have gone through a whole experience. That was just a brief introduction of how the process of motivation comes about, I would not go deep into it, maybe if you want a full review, comment down below so that I can know and make it.

Anyway, back to our story, motivating someone is often not that easy as people might think it is, in fact, they do fail a lot because people usually start by giving a lengthy speech without minding about the specimen, the one getting motivation. But this rarely works because motivation has to start inside others, you have to accept yourself challenged and the person motivating must also accept to fully share their story with no bias at all. And according to me, the best way to motivate others is to start by listening to what they want to do or what happened to them. Find out what the person’s goals and dreams are since it would be better and easier if you were in the same school of thought together for something positive to come out. But always just for the benefit of the masses, never shy away from telling your story to people to. You never know how many people want and would make use of your piece of advice. It is also a chance to them since the they might have personally wanted to meet you but they don’t have that access to you.

Before you inspire others, you have to know the essence of your inspiration, what it will create to those you are trying to inspire. You first have to know if it hold any substance that can impact something positive to somebody else out there who is listening to you. To me, I think that we tell our stories to others to uplift them, to educate them, to warn them against something, to tell them real life stories that are full of truth and should also be justifiable among others. The person you are inspiring should be able to automatically see truth and sync it with his/her own wish experience. Do not just create own fictional and emotional stories because here, you are talking to at least mature people who knows how to make sense out of something and may judge your story to see if it hold any truth in it.

They say experience is the best teacher, in the world of today, there are those who have experience a lot and have been exposed to a lot and if you are that person, you are the one who should uplift others in any way applicable. You see, motivation does not entail talking only, it comes in many ways as long as it is associated with a positive reward after. Use whatever you have experienced as an example and have a teaching for them through making a very close and an open relationship with them so that they can learn your trust, not seeing you as just an impostor into their lives.

Again, on a personal level, at some point, your past experiences should also uplift you individually if you view them positively. Be someone who learns from the environment. Behavior is learned, view things positively and remember not to move too fast in making decisions because you might just be messing up. The world is full of good positive things, make use of them, be positive yourself since in mathematics, I was told that a plus, plus another plus, equals a plus (+) + (+) =+. The same theory would apply in real life.

Just to use myself as an example in relation to the writing world, when I was starting, it was not easy, a lot of people criticized me and even told me that i was wasting their time but i never gave up, the few people who kept commending are what became my strength and I’m now gaining recognition and people are liking my stories, just that brief today, moral of it being; nothing comes easy, even the things that people despise the most. I always try to make sense and respect people and things that I interact with and they teach me a lot. Up there, I just talked about vicarious conditioning and through the consequences of other people’s behavior, I learn something new from them. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you are but at some point in your life, you always feel so low that you need someone to lift up. Age also doesn’t matter when it comes to motivation and inspiration, even a young kid can motivate you, I mean anyone can motivate you, even the most looked down upon can motivate you but, only depending on your perception.

I believe sharing is caring and I had to throw this here, so on this day, I am leaving the house heading to town to check up on something, I’m in the bus, then a man enters carrying a back pack but he is not sitting down and there were just empty seats there. Then I saw him opening his bag and I quickly concluded that he was a hawker and he wanted to start hawking. I really hated hawkers so, I put on the other earphone on my other ear and increased the volume to the max. That is how hard I hated hawkers. He removed one book from the bag and started talking, I never bothered to listen to what he was saying. The bus was also playing some music so not everyone could hear him but he was so determined. I could steal some glances at him I noticed that he was constantly looking at me while talking because I was the one not cooperating the most. I still did not remove my earphones. He picked another book from the bag and came straight to me and I heard him tell me ‘’… bro, I know you are enjoying your music and you won’t mind listening to me but please, just take this book and go through it quickly, you might learn something new today. Please.’’

I felt so shy so I removed my earphones and took the book and I remember the first thing I saw was the tittle of the book, wow! It just caught my attention and it read, ‘’You Are Not Too Far From The Finish Line.’’ What a title of a book! So I decided to give the book a little more attention and turned to the back to read about the author of the book and the first thing I see is the photo of the author and he is exactly the same person giving me this book to go through. Digging further to read through his profile, he is a graduate from the renowned University of Nairobi with Degree in Agricultural Biotechnology and this is the interesting part, he achieved this while serving his conviction in prison, he was serving his jail term and at the same time, schooling!!!! Wow!!! That was a blow to me. Clearly, that man definitely have experienced a lot than I have and he is so humble with his life, not that he has made it but he is now trying to recollect his life in another way since he was given another chance to live and the world actually welcomed him into the free wold from prison, he was a completely changed man and meant only good to this world.

So in brief, he was basically talking to people about his past experiences and telling us that life has another chance and that we should not just give up because of what we are going through, we won’t go through them forever, we will progress if we are humble and putting in more work. And that was not his only book, he have authored other books too which are really doing well. I know you might not see the essence of this story but let me just tell you. you should not and never look down upon someone because you never know what made them the way they are, you don’t know why or even what they are going through. You are but may not be the best. Respect others. Tomorrow might just be their day and you have no idea how they will treat you.

In summary, everybody successful we see out here did not achieve them overnight, they started somewhere and gradually, they reached where they are today. I think in our today’s generation, we don’t see the need for patience and working hard to achieve success but we just wish to achieve them instantly as soon as possible so that we can be on the same level with those successful people we see and admire. We are even willing to engage into anything that puts us close to wealth even if it’s risking your life, all you think about is wealth. This will never work and even if it works for you it will not last longer unless luck was on your side. Plus, do not depend on motivation only such that the only thing you are looking for is motivation but still sit there doing nothing, you will just be the same person you were before. If you have always experienced something and banked some good experience with it, please, do remember to share your story, it might be helpful to someone out there, show them the way and how it should be done, it uplifts them somehow and to the person being motivated, always remember that failing to try is trying to fail. Get out of the comfort zone.

Also read my related story Are you moving too fast!

As always, God bless you.

Simon Ouma