“You’re going to succeed, for sure!” I have lost count of how many times those words moved me one more step forward. The people who said that to me, when I had no position and no reputation to my name, surely had no evidence and no reason for it at all.
You decide, yourself, whether you are a success
When someone I care about is taking something on, working towards a goal, I always say the same thing to them.
“It’ll be fine. You’re going to succeed, for sure.”
I will never forget the people who kept saying that to me. Because I have met people who say it, I am someone who can believe, now, that I will succeed without fail.
I meet a great many people in life called “successful.” Often it is because something visible marks them as such. Which is exactly why, asked “are you a success?”, most people would answer, “me? not at all.”
But I answer: “yes, I am a success.” Because nobody can judge the success of being happy. Nobody can measure its size or its worth.
More than that, I am grateful to the people who told me “you’re going to succeed” — and because I met people who say that, I can believe I will succeed.
Five words that grasp success
There are words I love very much.
- Use your heart to understand other people’s pain
Seeing someone well known, someone shining, can bring up envy — a feeling of “I wish that were me.”
But look behind that person, and there is surely hardship and difficulty beyond anything you imagined, which their success grew out of. Thought of that way, gratitude rises instead — for the shape of success being shown to you, and for what it stirs up in your own heart.
- Use your hands and feet to help other people
Looking back on raising my children, I have no memory of raising a hand to teach or discipline them.
There was exactly one time I raised a hand. That was when they had caused someone else trouble, and it was only necessary to show that what hurt, that time, was my own heart.
- Use your ears to hear someone’s words all the way to the end
The more experience you have, the more tempting it is to jump in with advice. But hear someone out to the end, and what you hear is not the need for advice — it is the real heart of what they feel.
Very often, someone did not come to talk to you wanting advice or a decision made for them. They simply wanted to be heard.
Your ears also pick up things that do not need hearing — speaking ill of someone, for instance. Abroad, where I cannot understand the language, I notice that not feeling bad is exactly because I cannot hear it. So I decided to use my ears for something good, something of use to other people instead.
- Use your eyes to see the good in people
People’s eyes naturally go to what is missing, what is lacking. But shift how you look, and what is missing can turn out to be wonderful, or good precisely because it is missing.
So finding the good in someone makes for a meeting worth so much more.
Use your mouth to encourage people and say thank you
“You’re going to succeed, for sure!” I have lost count of how many times being told that let me get back up.
When my head was down and my eyes were on the ground, that is what taught me to look up and raise my sights again.
Success, maybe, is failing when you lower your goal, and succeeding when you raise it.
