You Don’t Know Your Own Impact

“Rash, you don’t know the impact you have on other people’s lives.”

A friend said this to me last week and it stuck in my head. Not the compliment part. The not knowing part.

Because she’s right. I don’t know. None of us do.

And we just have to live with that.

You’re not thinking about your impact

You’re too busy living inside your own head. Replaying the thing you said wrong. Worrying about whether you came across okay. Dealing with your own mess and doubt and getting through life.

You’re not thinking about the person who’s still carrying something you said five years ago. You forgot it the moment it left your mouth.

Other people see something else entirely. They see the day you spoke up when everyone else stayed silent. They remember the text you sent at 2 a.m. when they were drowning.

You see your struggle. They see your strength. You feel your fear. They witness your courage.

And you’re completely unaware of any of it because you’re too busy being inside your own experience.

The impact you can’t track

The advice you gave while waiting for coffee. The observation you made that you thought was obvious. The compliment you offered without thinking twice.

To you, these are just words. You’re just being honest. Just saying what you see.

To someone else, you just gave them permission they didn’t know they needed. You just named something they couldn’t name. You just showed them a version of themselves they’d stopped believing in.

You’ve forgotten. They haven’t.

Years ago, a complete stranger shared their umbrella with me in the rain. I still remember that moment. And it’s inspired me to do the same for others. An old gentleman stopped me in the street one day and said “You walk very proudly. It’s wonderful to see.” I still carry myself taller because of it. A friend who said my anger was valid when everyone else told me to calm down, she didn’t realise how much I needed to hear that.

Did they know how they impacted my life? Probably not.

And somewhere, someone is building on something I said that I don’t even remember.

None of this comes back to you. Just ripples moving through lives you’ll never know about.

Your worst days count too

The moments we showed everyone we’re human and messy and sometimes we don’t have our shit together might be the most important thing we ever do.

The day you cried in front of your team could have been the day someone realised they don’t have to be perfect to matter. Your admission that you’re struggling might have given someone else permission to ask for help. Your messy handling of a crisis showed someone that you can be valuable without being perfect.

I’ve always pushed back on things everyone else accepted. Refusing to pretend everything was fine, showing people I wasn’t ok when I wasn’t. I wasn’t thinking about impact. I was just doing what felt true.

What I didn’t see was that my discomfort with injustice forced other people to look at their own silence. My refusal to disappear gave others permission to stop disappearing too.

Your cracks don’t make you matter less. They’re often the realest thing about you.

The scars we leave

We’ve also wounded people without knowing it.

The comment that came out wrong. The time our absence mattered more than we realised. The moment we were careless with someone’s trust. The day we were drowning in our own storm and couldn’t see someone else drowning next to us.

Those ripples are real too.

We don’t get to know our full impact – good or bad. We just live with knowing we matter without knowing how. We affect people. Change things. Sometimes break things without meaning to.

No scorecard. No measurement. Just the reality that we’re all walking around reshaping each other, whether we’re paying attention or not.

So what do you do with that

My friend was right. I don’t know the impact I have. You don’t know yours either.

We’re all carrying pieces of each other. Words someone said. Gestures we witnessed. Silences that spoke louder than sound. Shaped by moments the other person has forgotten. Building on foundations someone laid without knowing they were laying anything.

You matter in ways you’ll never see.

You’re already living with not knowing. That’s not a choice.

You’re going to affect people either way. The choice is whether you’re careless or careful with it, whether you leave more scars or more of the good stuff.

You won’t see the ripples. But you can be more intentional about creating them.