How to Deal with Success Stories
We love success stories, particularly when success is hard won. Tales of triumph over adversity warm our hearts. Stories which confirm or strengthen our belief in the capacity of the human spirit to overcome setbacks can bring comfort and hope. This is particularly so when the adverse circumstances are undeniably severe. In less intense contexts, we are pleased to celebrate others’ achievements and successes in their personal and professional lives. Everyone loves a winner, right?
Shall I compare thee…?
But as we know, it’s not always as straightforward as that. Many of us grit our teeth as we break open the bubbly to toast a success which we secretly resent or think is undeserved. On the whole, we can get over it.
But sometimes the accounts of people’s successful lives can be hard to take because they lead to damaging comparisons and undermine our self-esteem and confidence. We can be led to question the validity of our own lives, the choices we have made and the paths we have followed.
The thing is, when we validate others’ achievements, when we praise them or speak of them approvingly, we reveal something about our view of the world and what we consider to be important. And however much we might believe in the right of individuals to lead their own lives and not be judged, it does seem there are common strands which emerge in the examples we are given of people who have ‘done well’.
Valid values
It’s hard to escape the notion that success involves being rich and famous and well-connected with a socially approved appearance, and having a certain lifestyle. Success gurus frequently display these characteristics.
You may or may not share this world view; what matters is being able to recognise which qualities are being validated when we exchange comments and judgements about other people’s lives.
What can help us to maintain a sense of balance and indeed control is having a clear sense of our own personal values, the concepts that really matter to us. When you hear success stories, ask yourself to what extent you share in the approval and to what extent the terms of the success apply to you. What would you feel if the story were being told about you? It might sit well, or it might not. If the subject matter does resonate with you, register that knowledge to yourself in clear, unemotional terms.
Try not to mentally diss the person whose success reflects your own aspirations. Just treat your response as useful knowledge. Sometimes our reaction can take us by surprise. If you recognise that the subject is irrelevant to you, or you reject its value, you could just share in the pleasure without endorsing it.
Having a strong sense of your own values and recognising the importance of self-validation is crucial to holding out against other people’s criteria. It can be difficult to remain immune from those marks of success which may be taken for granted in your family, social and work circles. You might come under scrutiny for your decision to go for promotion, or not to go for promotion. You might be seen as a ‘failure’ because you don’t earn a lot, or because you earn a lot but are constantly stressed.
Put your choices in context
What’s important to you can change. Your core values are likely to remain stable, but you might make different choices about the contexts in which you display them. Trust your ability to make choices which shape your life according to your personal criteria and which aren’t directed by external voices. If there are voices which matter to you, discuss your thoughts with them, and be prepared to have your actions endorsed or challenged.
You can take positive steps to communicate your own views of success without being drawn into conflict. One way is to be careful about what qualities you praise and endorse. For example, you can dissociate yourself from the rich, famous and beautiful syndrome by not talking approvingly of ‘achievements’ in these areas:
- Don’t speak admiringly of what a person earns, but do, for example, mention a quality which their financial success illustrates and which does matter to you — it could be, for example, perseverance, or tenacity, or creative genius.
- Don’t big up someone because of their number of followers or TikTok views, but do, for example, praise their communication skills.
- Don’t comment positively or negatively on someone’s body shape or physical characteristic, but do, for example, praise their sense of style or choice of colour.
Happy talk
Having well-developed ideas about what success means to you will help you to see when people pay only lip service to the same idea. For example, many of us would choose happiness as a key component of a good life. But sometimes the tone in which this quality is presented undermines its significance, as when a description of someone’s choices is followed by an ‘Oh well, as long as they’re happy’.
In response,you could just say something like, yes, that’s the important thing, or, if the people involved matter to you, you could take the opportunity to open up a discussion about their lack of conviction and their views on what does or doesn’t constitute happiness.
What about the success stories which really get to you? For years you have been an aspiring writer with a drawer full of rejection slips, and your friend’s first novel is being sold in a three-way auction. Your son works very hard but doesn’t do well in exams; his cousin does the minimum to get by and sails through with top grades. Oh, how you smile through gritted teeth. No matter how much you tell yourself it doesn’t matter and qualities other than this kind of measurable success are more important, it still hurts.
Gore Vidal said that when a friend succeeds, something inside him dies.
Ain’t that the truth. Sometimes we just have to suck it up.
