“I just want you to succeed” — the back-handed compliment
“I just want you to succeed” — the back-handed compliment
Why do others say this?
Humans enjoy endorphins. We seek emotions that make us feel good. We look to the ideologies taught to us as we’re young- to discover and achieve ‘happiness’ and ‘success’ in our short life on earth. Particularly when it comes to the case of loved family members, humans may not necessarily know what makes that family member happy or tick — but we will do or say anything to help that human achieve ‘success’
The Problem
Your definition of success is not my definition of success.
The Underlying Problem
Some of us grew up believing success is getting married to a heterosexual mate, retirement at 55, a paid off mortgage, and a couple kids making it past college.
Just from the examples above, you can permeate millions of variations for success- anything from becoming a billionaire to getting food on the table for dinner tonight to even getting pregnant.
This also helps explain how relationships can fail when one human is only focused on their idea of ‘success’ and decides not to empathize with the other human.
The *actual* definition of Success
Outcomes drive the definition of your success. You aren’t successful because somebody said you are. You’re successful because the outcome you’ve achieved satisfies the requirements for the original goal. You’re ‘successful’ because your endorphins are saying that you are closer to the original goal- which is great. Do not confuse this achievement for the finish-line of a race. Checkpoints within defined parameters can also yield endorphins of ‘success’.
This means when you see darkness or failure on my path, I may be seeing success and checkpoints — because the original goal was structured to yield growth at each checkpoint as opposed to a ‘finish-line’
How do we solve?
Don’t delay empathy — building opportunities to learn HOW to help the other human get closer to their idea of ‘success’
Replace
“I just want you to succeed”
with
“I want you to be happy. What does success look like for you?”
Resources
Maslow hierarchy of needs — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
The five levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs — https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-4136760