Who’s sharing your burdens?

Recently, my journal offered me a prompt based on a quote from Winston Churchill: "Success is not final; failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."

As soon as I read it, and even as I’m reading it now, I felt exhausted, frustrated by the constant demand to do more, to push. It wasn’t about working hard, which I’m not opposed to doing, but the pressure that I felt behind this quote.

After all, I’m not trying to save humanity from Nazi oppression, as he was trying to do. I just want to be human, do good work, and contribute somehow to the world.

It struck me, too, how much my clients are struggling with the same questions, and how much they teach me. Because our struggles—to be seen and valued, to define our sense of purpose in life, to manage our complex roles and relationships, to navigate adversity and pain—are human struggles.

As a coach, I learn from clients because I often find they are handling things far better than I would have—things that would have made me crumble. In other words, they have courage in spades.

But with all respect to Churchill, courage isn’t enough. His quote assumes we’re all going it alone, pushing a boulder like Sisyphus up an endless hill. And it’s no wonder we all end up feeling exhausted, depleted, and hopeless.

You need someone to support you, give you space to breathe and think, and help you get back up.

Often, that’s where I come in, and I find playing that role in their story immensely fulfilling. But I also know it doesn’t have to be that way.

Courage to continue isn’t enough. We need others to share the burden.

Who is sharing yours?