The Best Way to Succeed

My husband and I were talking recently and he made a comment that has stuck with me. He said:

“The quickest way to succeed is to help others succeed.”

I thought about this for a long time and I think he’s really right. Of course, there are a lot of different ways to “succeed” and not all of them involve helping someone else succeed. But, meeting a need for someone else, helping them to be successful, well, that is a pretty good, and often very quick, way for you to be successful yourself. Maybe there are times when it’s not the “quickest” way to succeed, but I think it might just be the BEST way to succeed.

So often, I think we compete with each other when we should be helping one another. I know that I don’t usually think about how I can help someone else succeed. Instead I think about how I can succeed – how I can succeed at blogging, at being a mom and wife, at teaching yoga, or at whatever other projects and interests I’m currently trying my hand at. But, how different would my relationships be if instead of focusing on myself and my own success I focused more on others and THEIR success. And, at least according to my husband, doing that could very well lead to the success I want for myself. Even if it doesn’t, by focusing on others and their success I would have improved the world just a little bit by making it a more compassionate, gracious, and relational place. And isn’t that a beautiful form of success in and of itself?

What have you done today to help someone else succeed?

Rejoicing in the journey - Bethany Stedman