Are You Thriving
Do you ever feel like you are just existing, nothing exciting going on, or the same humdrum days? Have you gone through seasons of life where you don’t feel resilient? The dictionaries definition of ‘thrive’ is ‘to prosper, be fortunate or successful’ and also ‘to grow or develop vigorously; flourish’.
We first want to focus on how thriving is learning to become more flexible and resilient in thinking and action. This means being positive and pro-active every day of your life, in your attitude and health. Thriving is being open to challenges and making opportunities to learn and grown. Thriving means being able to manage challenging situations. Thriving means being able to take an opportunity that has presented itself to us, make it work for you and be successful.
I keep a copy of an article I found from years ago about opportunity and fits well with how we can take this opportunity and thrive.
Opportunity:
“The air we breathe is so freely available that we take it for granted. Yet without it we could not survive more than a few minutes. For the most part, the same air is available to everyone, and everyone needs it. Some people use the air to sustain them while they sit around and feel sorry for themselves. Others breathe in the air and use the energy it provides to make a magnificent life for themselves.
Opportunity is the same way. It is everywhere. Opportunity is so freely available that we take it for granted. Yet opportunity alone is not enough to create success. Opportunity must be seized and acted upon in order to have value. So many people are so anxious to “get in” on the “ground floor of opportunity,” as if the opportunity will do all the work. That’s impossible.
Just as you need air to breathe, you need opportunity to succeed. It takes more than just breathing in the fresh air of opportunity, however. You must make use of that opportunity. That’s not up to the opportunity. That’s up to you. It doesn’t matter what “floor” the opportunity is on. What matters is what you do with it.” –Author Unknown
How do you thrive? How do you use opportunities that are given to you? How do you manage challenging situations. How do you thrive through adversity? Just last week one of my friends said they train new nurses to “get comfortable with being uncomfortable” as a nurse going into different patients’ rooms, you never know what you will walk into. This is like life. We don’t always know what is going to be around the next corner.
The second set of skills we need to focus on is: knowing what your purpose is in life and moving toward that purpose. I would say that my purpose in life has changed over the last 20 years. The first season of my life was focused on raising my two boys to be strong independent and successful supporting citizens of society. After they graduated and proved themselves to be productive and independent, I started focusing on what brought me joy. After they graduated from high school, I didn’t feel as connected to all the activities going on in the school system, so when my husband was transferred to another state, I decided not to re-enter the education system as I had always wondered how the business world worked and how it was different than the education structure. One thing I did like about moving 19 times, is that if forced me to adjust and adapt to different situations. I directed my attention towards my areas of success and the sources of motivation that drove me.
After having different jobs and reflecting on what I enjoyed, I realized that I was most successful and thrived the most when I had to take disorganized information and create a clear, organized system. Things we enjoy and things that bring us joy, are naturally our strengths.
I didn’t start out thinking organization was my strength, I chose to obtain my education degree because I knew that at some point, I wanted a family and I loved that my mother, being a teacher, had the same school breaks as we did. She shared the same daily schedule and enjoyed summers off with us, which was something I really appreciated growing up.
I never had to worry about what I would be doing and where I would be going in the summertime. I did have to do jobs in the summer I didn’t particularly like, but I made the best out of something I didn’t enjoy, knowing I was working toward what I wanted in getting my degree. Towards the end of my teaching career, I worked as a transition specialist in a school district then transitioned to working for a company to streamline the process to get new hires onboarded as quickly as possible, it was through these tasks I learned what I enjoyed and was good at streamlining processes and procedures.
Our third key to thriving is learning how to set goals that prepare us for success. Like many areas of self-improvement, it’s essential to write down our goals and create a plan that provides clear direction for shaping our lives.
But sometimes life throws you a curve ball and you have to make a plan on the move, or life slaps you in the face and you have to show resilience to pull yourself up by the bootstraps and take control of the situation. I was thrown a curve ball when my mother-in-law was put on hospice and my father was not doing well and living on his own at 89. I was faced with a challenge of continuing to work or resign from my job so that I was available to help take care of our parents. I felt that our parents took care of us; now it was time for me to help take care of them. I knew I was going to need something to keep me focused and challenged, as soon as I resigned, I started painting full time as I had started out to be an art teacher and had studied under David Kitler while living in Canada. But this was not where I needed to be and soon found out this was not challenging enough. It is challenging in times of change because of uncertainty. Certainty makes us feel powerful, without it, we don’t know what is coming next or what we need to do next.
Step 4: Being proactive and taking control of your life. You cannot be a victim of your circumstances and be able to thrive. Where you are and what you do in life is a result of your choices you have made or are going to make. If you give others the moment to control your life, you have lost the responsibility for finding your objective and fulfillment.
Those who thrive can bounce back from mistakes and failure faster than others – your first reaction to a negative outcome is to dwell on what happened, but how you can learn from this and make it better is how you learn to thrive and adapt.
Don’t focus on things you cannot control. If you focus on things you cannot control, you will feel stressed and overwhelmed. A vice principal I worked for shared on the white board a column of “what we can change, what we can’t change” and we added our concerns appropriately under each column, amazing how this practice put things in perspective. Why waste your time on things you cannot change. Putting items in the cannot change and focusing and making action items on how we can make those pain points easier to handle or processes we can put in place to make it easier. We were focusing on how we can restructure processes to make them easier to reach the goals and changes put in place by state and federal education systems.
To thrive, you need to take control and challenge yourself to continually focus on learning where you thrive. Learn to find that passion and how it fits in your life. Don’t be a victim of your circumstances, take control and if you can’t change or have an influence of what you don’t like, then maybe you need to pivot and change the direction of your life. This is for you to decide, not anyone else.
To recap:
First: Remember that to thrive is to learn to become more flexible and resilient in you’re thinking and action. Use opportunities that are presented to you and recognizing those opportunities.
Second: Thriving is knowing what your purpose is in life and moving toward that purpose.
Third: Make Goals – As in many other self-improvement topics, we need to put our goals in writing and make a plan that gives us direction.
And Fourth: Be proactive and take control of your life. You cannot be a victim of your circumstances and be able to thrive. Where you are and what you do in life is a result of your choices you have made or are going to make. If you give others the moment to control your life, you have lost the momentum to thrive.
As we wrap up today, remember that thriving isn’t just about good fortune falling into your lap—it’s about being proactive, seizing opportunities, and building resilience. The way you respond to life’s challenges, and the control you take over your own path will determine whether you just exist or truly thrive. Every day brings new chances to grow, pivot, and create the life you want, but the key is action. Don’t wait for circumstances to change—you have the power to make the changes that will help you flourish. So go out, embrace those opportunities, and start thriving today!