Strive

Chapter 11Helping others strive

Striving should not be all about you. At many points of your life, you are going to have people around you who are striving and, of course, they will get their arse kicked by struggle. At this point, you want to support them in the process. This not only helps them evolve and become a better version of themselves but also provides an amazing opportunity to develop an incredible bond with them. Supporting people who are in the trenches with struggle builds deep, deep connection.

Supporting others in their strive

The striving support process is made up of a few different considerations, and I discuss these over the next sections.

Stop rescuing people

A key mindset is to stop trying to rescue people from struggle and challenge. One of the things that blocks people’s development is that we won’t allow them to sit with discomfort. When we see people we care about get into the trenches with discomfort our natural instinct is to want to make them feel better and fix the situation. However, this robs them of the opportunity to be courageous and evolve.

I frequently see this in leaders. When their team come to them with a problem, the narrative they have in their head is along the lines of, ‘If I am a good leader, I will solve this for them’, and ‘Leaders should have all the answers’. As a result, they solve the issue for them. The staff member is ecstatic because the struggle has been taken care of. But the leader will then complain that their team ...