encourage or challenge?

I have discussed this in the chat but I want to make this a subject.

I have noticed that there are two ways you can make somebody do something ( I am not saying there are only two, but these seem to be common)

we either challenge them or encourage them. I think we can all admit that encouragement is harder, it takes effort to humble yourself and place emphasis on the potential somebody has, it is easier to insult somebody and say they owe it to themselves to try again.

from what I have seen in my own behaviour and the behaviour of others, encouragement works ten times more than challenging them, so why do we challenge more than encourage? yes, I realise you can involve both.

but rarely is encouragement seen in the challenge.

I just wish more people would encourage than challenge people

I'll give you an example, I have a friend and for his privacy, lets call him Jeff

Jeff is very socially inept, he has difficulty reading others emotion and is often sarcastic and rude, I became his friend I noticed at a point where I had influence over him. I used this opportunity to challenge him to be more than he is, to stop judging and insulting people, he never responded well with this, I left him feeling sad and insulted, and so did everybody else who challenged him

recently I took a different approach, I did one simple thing, I plainly encouraged him, I pointed out to him how beautiful his heart was that he disconnected from himself, I told him he had so much potential, and love and passion to share with everybody, I told him that his passion for people nobody would refuse because he had the potential to act on his heart, and after that he began to change, he stopped being sarcastic and judgemental, I encouraged him along the way of course, but I did it.


challenges work on the worthy, but encouragement is what brings courage from the nobodies, strength to the weak.

as a child, I made mistakes, I was lectured by my mother and teachers and challenged with weird philosophy

but my father never did that, he encouraged me, he took me in his arms and as a weak child I was, he told me that he saw nothing but strength, and that I had the strength to be brave and act on my own heart, he showed me there was a way to be a great man in this world even if you are broken.


I don't remember my mothers lectures
nor the pastor's sermons
and definitely not the lines from the teacher's detentions


I remember my father's encouragement


I guess I just want to say this

that I know it's harder to encourage people than it is to challenge

but as somebody who was broken and saw broken people

nothing helps except just encouragement

because where else is courage found but in nothing?

I think many people challenge, threaten, yell, etc. because it's easier to do those things.

To encourage, strengthen and be compassionate takes a lot more work.

I'm not surprised more people take the former route. It's a credit to you that you realized the better way in encouraging your friend.

(I will add that some aren't encouraged by being encouraged. Sometimes it's the brute force that motivates them.)

Encouragement and challenging are just 2 forms of manipulation...like any form of manipulation you need to know people, how they react, how they think, etc..then you will know which form of manipulation works best on a particular individual at a particular time...it pays to know many forms of manipulation in case your preferred form doesn't work...my stepdad continually challenged me...sometimes too extremely, but I always rose above...my mom always encouraged me...sometimes I rose above sometimes not...the soft approach only had moderate effect, while the harsh approach always had resounding effect...it drove me to achieve when I was told I could not achieve...I'm defiant by nature, tell me I can't do something, and I'll put everything I have into proving I can...for some people encouragement works better...for others challenging works better...know who you're dealing with before choosing your method of manipulation....

I think both fall under a larger category of manipulation and my personal favorite- find out what a person is emotionally invested in and exploit it by any means necessary to reach your goals, even if it's something relatively innocuous like making them succeed.

To me, between these two, if I was choosing just them, it wouldn't matter which one is easier or more difficult or anything as weak as that. I would use whatever worked, regardless of them remembering it later or thinking fondly of it. If making someone feel bad because they didn't give it their all is the better way, I'd do it. If it was more efficient to gently build them up, that's what I'd do.

End result matters. Whatever gets you to that without obviating the goal itself is fine, and one should pick the most effective means to achieve their end.

RyuJin wrote: Encouragement and challenging are just 2 forms of manipulation...like any form of manipulation you need to know people, how they react, how they think, etc..then you will know which form of manipulation works best on a particular individual at a particular time...it pays to know many forms of manipulation in case your preferred form doesn't work...my stepdad continually challenged me...sometimes too extremely, but I always rose above...my mom always encouraged me...sometimes I rose above sometimes not...the soft approach only had moderate effect, while the harsh approach always had resounding effect...it drove me to achieve when I was told I could not achieve...I'm defiant by nature, tell me I can't do something, and I'll put everything I have into proving I can...for some people encouragement works better...for others challenging works better...know who you're dealing with before choosing your method of manipulation....

this is where I disagree with you

I don't think you can call encouragement a "soft tactic"

it takes effort

and there are different ways to challenge and to encourage

and they fit different people

to say that only one method suits a person is wrong

it's easier to challenge somebody

so if you put all your heart into it

the encouragement will have a more profound affect


and if that happens, it isn't manipulation

manipulation means to twist somebody to your goals

it wasn't my goal to help Jeff

I wanted to hate him and forget him

manipulation implies there is a change

this is where it is not encouragement

encouragement is finding something in nothing

but it is always there

Bluesummers wrote: I think both fall under a larger category of manipulation and my personal favorite- find out what a person is emotionally invested in and exploit it by any means necessary to reach your goals, even if it's something relatively innocuous like making them succeed.

To me, between these two, if I was choosing just them, it wouldn't matter which one is easier or more difficult or anything as weak as that. I would use whatever worked, regardless of them remembering it later or thinking fondly of it. If making someone feel bad because they didn't give it their all is the better way, I'd do it. If it was more efficient to gently build them up, that's what I'd do.

End result matters. Whatever gets you to that without obviating the goal itself is fine, and one should pick the most effective means to achieve their end.

exploit their emotional investments to attain your personal goals?

this is exactly what I was trying to say

it doesn't matter if it works or not

thats what true encouragement means

to say you still have potential to be stronger even when things become their darkest

everybody needs it

and everybody needs challenge

what I am trying to say is that people have no encouragement.
it's a dying art, sadly

I like the word persuasion over manipulation.

And I don't believe the ends justify the means in this case; achieving a goal while boosting another person is far better than just achieving the goal itself. Again, at least in the case spelled out by the OP and "Jeff".

Ah, my definition of manipulation differs from yours...for me it means eliciting a response....if you smile at a baby and it smiles back or laughs, you have successfully manipulated it into action, if it cries your attempted manipulation backfired...anything you do to get someone to take action IS manipulation...

Now when I refer to encouragement as being the "soft" approach, what I mean is there is no negative/aggressiveness to it...it is a kind/gentle form of manipulation... whereas challenging is an aggressive/negative(not necessarily always though) form of manipulation...both forms can take as little or as much effort as you're willing to put in...I utilise both depending on the individual in question because I know different people have different needs...

Persuasion/manipulation....tomato/tomahto...one sounds nicer than the other, both are essentially the same...we're all manipulated/persuaded to think or act on a constant basis...

I'm not sure whether you can say that one is always preferable to the other...

In my experience it depends very much on the person (or group of people) being encouraged/challenged...

And to an extent it also depends on the skills and personality of the person doing the encouraging/challenging...

I would put myself in the catagory of people who achieve much more through being challenged than through being given encouragement.

Often I think elements of both are needed, but which is given more weight should be determined by the personalities of the instigator and the receiver.

like I said in the OP

they can be one in the same

if the challenge does motivate you, isn't that encouragement as well?

I wasn't saying don't challenge

I am saying that people don't encourage

their challenges are simply " you did so horribly wrong and failed"

this use to motivate me, but the people who are this blunt are prone to stubborness

so when you do tackle their challenge and succeed they rarely acknowledge this


another example and for their protection, lets call them Belinda

Belinda almost recieved no love from her parents unless she did something right

even if she did it began to fade

after a while this challenge never motivated her because proving her worth to be loved didn't seem high in value

because they would soon start ignoring and in some cases hating Belinda.