Celebrating Success – Mitchell News

Humility is not about playing down our achievements

In the last couple of weeks, I have been aware of a number of articles on humility. I don’t know whether this has become a hot topic or if it’s just that for some reason I have a heightened sense of awareness about it.

What I have realised when reading the articles is that the interpretation of what humility means varies. It’s a complex topic and of course how we see it will be impacted by numerous factors including culture, beliefs and preferences.

In what I am going to call the “Western World”, what many would regard as humble is a sort of grovelling person, who is always telling everyone that, of course, they are nobody.

Conversely, a conceited person is deemed to be the one that is always telling everyone how great they are and how much they have achieved.

If these are the definitions, which one do you think is better? Which person do you aspire to emulate?

Let’s look at it slightly differently.

If you heard someone say “I ran a marathon last week and finished in 10^th position”, what would you think? That they had obviously worked really hard, put in a lot of effort and been rewarded with a great result? Or that they were boasting at doing so much better than others? Which one is true?

What if you yourself said “I have lost 10kg in the last year, something I’ve been trying to do for years. I worked really hard at it and it paid off? Would you be boasting? Or is it just a statement of the truth?

What if we reframed how we think of humility:

❌Humility is not about playing down our achievements

✅ Humility is about playing up the achievements of others

❌Humility is not about failing to own or celebrate our success

✅Humility is about helping others to celebrate theirs

❌Humility is not thinking less of yourself

✅Humility is thinking more of others

Put simply, perhaps if we are truly humble, we would not be thinking about humility as we wouldn’t be thinking about ourselves at all.

Imagine if we all focused on encouraging others, we would all be encouraged. If we aimed to celebrate the achievements of others, we would all be celebrated (providing we did something that deserved celebrating)

Owning and celebrating our successes does not need to be arrogance, bragging or boasting. We shouldn’t be tempted to see that in others. If we actively look to help others to celebrate their success they won’t need to brag or boast. If others actively look to celebrate our success, we won’t need to boast.

If we play down our achievements, we are robbing ourselves of the opportunity to reward our hard work. Not allowing others to celebrate their successes is denying them the reward they have earned.

Celebrate with and for others and they will do the same with and for us.