The Keys to Thriving vs Surviving

Would you like to thrive rather than just survive? Do you want to feel energy, excitement, focus, commitment, ease, and confidence about your life and its direction? Do you want to love your life?!

Here are the keys to Thriving

Thrivers live their VALUES. They live authentically. Do you know what your values are? Take 2, 5, or 15 minutes and make a list. Just write down words that resonate to you. For example, here are a few of mine...accepting responsibility, simplicity, courtesy & respect, adventure, nature, playfulness. To thrive, you must understand your values. It is important to think what your values really are, not what you think they should be, what someone else thinks they should be, or what you wish they were. There are no right or wrong answers….this is an exercise where being authentically you is the perfect answer. What does your heart say your values are? If you try to live outside your values, you feel “off”, out of sync, unbalanced, out of control, unhappy. We can all remember situations where we felt this way. To feel “on”, in the zone, energized, and confident, we must identify and live our values. Identify your values and think about how you want to align your life to live them. Turn them in to powerful questions to help you make decisions and take action. For example, How could I do this more simply? How could I do this more playfully? Do I feel the courtesy and respect in this relationship....if not, time to let it go.

Thrivers TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for their lives, careers, health, and relationships. We can all choose to do this. I’m sure you’ve taken responsibility for a car trip, holiday vacation, a work project, child care, getting to an appointment on time, etc. Why wouldn’t you take responsibility for the MOST important things there are….Your life? Your work? Your health? Your relationship with the most important people in your life? Taking responsibility means taking time to think, plan, and work at these areas of your life. They don’t just happen. You need to think about what you want them to look like. Where are you now? What steps will you take to move you towards thriving with them?

Thrivers work in HARMONY WITH OTHERS – they respect and honor differences. We all need to get along with others in our lives, at work, at play, and at home. Courtesy and respect go a long way in creating harmony. And, we thrive more with the support, encouragement, and help of others. What perspective can you adopt to help you create more harmony, respect, and courtesy in your life?

Thrivers anticipate and ADAPT TO CHANGE. They LEARN and GROW. Hmmmm, this gets us out of our comfort zone. Learning, growing, and change are about things we don’t know anything about yet. This can be really scary. A tree or flower thrives as it grows if nourished properly. Why should we be different? Your nourishment is the learning. You get boring, stale, and stagnant if you don’t learn and grow. Your self confidence grows enormously when you are presented with a problem, aren’t sure how to solve it, but figure it out anyway. Because, we all have the ability to figure it out, don't we? Thrivers learn and grow this way. So, if you like learning and growing, go for it!  Pursue it. Celebrate it. If you don’t, what could you do to make learning and growing an adventure? More playful? More comfortable? Find groups, teachers, mentors, clubs, reading, role models to help you learn, grow, and change.

Thrivers do the things that INSPIRE them. Listen to your intuition. Ask yourself, What does my heart really desire to be the outcome of this action, exercise, discussion? What could I do differently to feel more joy, delight, or energy, surrounding this goal? What do I really want to happen in my life, work, health, and relationships? Take 2, 5, or 15 minutes and make a list of what you really want to Be, Do, or Have in this life. Use it as your inspiration. Use it as your roadmap.

You may have found you are not far off shifting from SURVIVING to THRIVING. What small steps (or large steps) do you want to do today, this week, this month to move yourself towards a LIFE YOU LOVE?! Well, make your lists. Then, just start. Begin. Take one step.

As always, let me know how it goes….I love hearing from you.

click here for the designed pdf of this article.