Striving to “succeed” without regard for who and what we trample along the way all but guarantees we’ll be swept aside when the next tide recedes.

I have found that many clients greet the end of the year with a keen focus on where they believe they fell short this past year. And, as they face the New Year, they promise to double down, try even harder, and seek to make up for perceived “lost time,” as though we can ever regain what is already done and behind us.

Nature has a lesson here. Nature’s tides rise and fall. They come in and they go out. There is a rhythm to them that is regular and reliable. There are rhythms to our days, too. When we are out of sync with our natural rhythms, we open the door to anxiety, depression, anger, sadness, and more. We develop ideas and make promises rooted in these negative states. Our plans go awry, precisely because they are based in this negativity. We keep repeating the past because we drag it around like a burdensome albatross hung around our necks.

One of the most powerful and ancient ways of truly creating new possibilities that fulfill our yearning and yield greater contentment is in the way we care for others. Our caring, sensitivity, concern, and compassion for others, our daily choices in ways small or large, are a timeless way of relieving ourselves of burdens we carry.

So, rather than perceiving others as obstacles blocking our path forward, as barriers to be shoved aside, pause, consider, and offer a helping hand. Paradoxically, this can boost and bolster your efforts to reach your goals, with less fear that once you do, you’ll be swept out and away with the next retreating tide.

If you shove others aside on the way to success, then you will be pulled under once the tide changes.