How to build a life you can thrive in
Tired of stumbling through the same mundane motions? Build yourself a life you can thrive in.
by: E.B. Johnson
We all deserve to thrive in this life, but too many of us spend all our time and energy surviving instead. Whether through mishap or design, we find ourselves struggling and never really able to make it to the next level of health and happiness that we so desperately crave. In order to get there, we have to make dramatic shifts in both our patterns and the way we think and believe. If your goal is to thrive — rather than survive — then you have to figure out what that life looks for you and pursue it with the wholeness of your being.
What a thriving life requires.
While thriving in life looks different to all of us, there are a few core ingredients that all successful lives share. The truly happy person is someone who is always pursuing the endless opportunities around them. They have loving relationships, a calm stability, and a secure material world that allows them to pursue their happiness and their healing with a singular focus.
Bustling opportunities
A thriving life is one that is filled with bustling plethora of opportunities. Not that you have to have a thousand job offers on the go. This simply means that you have ability (and options) to grow in the directions that suit you. You need to have the mental, emotional, and material flexibility to follow your passions. We can’t thrive without filling our lives with purpose.
Loving relationships
As humans, most of us need close interpersonal relationships in order to feel supported and connected with the world. We like to share our lives and our emotions with others. They help us to understand ourselves, and they help us stay engaged and moving in a world that’s challenging. When we build truly loving relationships, they help us thrive.
Calm stability
It’s really hard to say that you’re living a life you’re thriving in if there’s no emotional stability. Our emotions can be a whirlwind. When we’re dealing with a lot of pain, stress, and pressure (be it current or tied to the past) it makes it really hard to make sense of where we are or what we want. We need a stable and calm emotional state that allows you to think clearly and interact rationally with the world.
Material security
Like it or not, material security is key in manifesting a life you can thrive in. You need to have a roof over your head and food in your belly. It’s imperative that you have a safe and comfortable base from which to pursue your healing and your happiness. Want to thrive? Don’t play yourself. Material security has to come into play at some point.
Internal wellness
We need a certain level of internal wellness in order to full embrace a thriving life. That means you have to confront your past and all your personal hangups and inabilities that are holding you back. We don’t thrive or fail solely because of our environment. We are our own environment, and we have to take accountability for the way we feel and the way we want to feel.
How to build a life you can thrive in.
Do you want to build a life that you can thrive in? Do you want to be happy in the environments that you manifest for yourself? You have to be brutally honest about what a thriving life looks like for you. Then you have to reconnect with your joy, build better relationships, and consciously change the way you engage and invest in the wider world.
1. Figure out what thriving is for you
It’s important to remember that thriving looks different to every single one of us. While to some, thriving might look like starting a business and acquiring material success — to others, it may be creating healthy friendships and a bustling family. There’s no one way to find fulfillment in life. What matters is that we are honest with ourselves and about ourselves. And we have to be serious about visualizing a life that’s entirely our own.
Define what a thriving life looks like for you. Do you need to be surrounded by a lot of close relationships? Do you want a high-powered career? The big house with the big family? There’s no right or wrong answer. This is the moment to be crystal clear about what it is that makes you happy.
Sit down and visualize your future. Close your eyes and clear your mind. When you imagine the “perfect tomorrow” what do you see? Be descriptive and specific. How do you feel about this future? What are you doing? Who is around you and what are they doing? The more clear this vision becomes, the easier it becomes to execute. Shed all those things you’ve been told to want and focus on yourself. What is your truth? What will thriving look like for you?
2. Reconnect with a sense of joy
Thriving lives require balance. That’s just the way it is. We can’t always be trapped in the rush and stress of responsibility and negativity. It’s important to let ourselves breathe and find the silver lining in life. We do that be re-engaging with our joy. When we’re in survival mode, we lose touch of this joy. We stop looking in the little places and appreciating the small opportunities and moments that make us feel connected and in love with life.
Reconnect with your sense of joy and pursue your passions. They were put there for a reason. What piques your curiosity? What makes you excited? Look for the experiences, people, and things that make you talk faster; the things that make your heart race. These are a great starting place in finding the natural flow of a thriving life.
You can’t build a happy and thriving life when it’s only full of strife, suffering, pressure, and responsibility. You remember that there’s a lighter side too. There is also laughter, lightness, and silliness in the world. There are situations and experiences that exist to bring us nothing but pleasure. We have to pepper our lives with these experiences so that we don’t forget that a truly happy and aligned existence is equal parts light and shadow.
3. Build the right relationships
Relationships play a big part in happiness in the lives of many. We humans are social creatures. We like to be surrounded by people who can support us and lift us up. We like to talk to them, and we use our relationships as sounding boards to figure out who we are. All of that comes crashing down, though, when we surround ourselves with toxic and abusive relationships. To truly thrive, we have to attract the right people into our lives with boundaries and a strong sense of self.
Build the right relationships and stop investing all your time and energy into things that don’t work out. You don’t deserve abusive partners, friends, and spouses. You deserve to be loved and supported by someone who has the same vision that you do. That person exists, but you have to make room for them.
Clear your life of all the negative people that tear you down or otherwise make you feel bad about who you are. To thrive, you need to be lifted up by the people you choose to surround yourself with. They need to want the best for you, and they need to see the best in you. Give your time, your love, and your energy to people you can open up to; people you can trust, and people who can trust you. Building the right relationships is a powerful tool in boosting our journey to personal growth and thriving.
4. Pinpoint your ideal purpose
We all have a purpose in this life, and this purpose drives us toward futures and relationships in which we can thrive. Our purpose is inspiration. It is one of the main motivating engines that helps us to stay focused when life becomes a major challenge. It takes time to figure out what we want to do with our lives, but when we discover it, we really experience that “lightbulb moment”. Our purpose is tied to a thriving lifestyle and has to be a foundation.
Pinpoint your ideal purpose. What do you want to do with your life? What makes it easier for you to get up in the morning? Our purpose drives us from within. We all have one. Your job is digging deep and questioning yourself so that you can figure out what your life’s meaning is.
Who are you? Who do you want to be? Look at your life and all the things you enjoy doing. Our passions and our interests are a great place to start when we’re pinpointing what we’re meant to do. What brings that spark into your life? Listen to your curiosity for a change. Follow it and allow t to lead you to those things which make your heart sing. Authentic lives require authentic people. Draw a line between you and your purpose and you will find your authenticity somewhere in the middle.
5. Start making intentional moves
Nothing in your life is going to change until you consciously change your life. It’s like having a clean house. You can walk around and wish for a clean house all day, but nothing is going to happen until you get up and do the laundry and the dishes. Your life is your dirty home. This is the moment that you have to stand up and decide to clean house so that you can have a clean house. Want a different life? Make intentional and proactive moves to give yourself a different life.
Start making intentional moves to change your life around. It’s time to do things differently, but that will only happen when you commit to do things differently. Sit down and make a list of all the things you’re not happy with in your life, then write all the steps that would have to change those things.
This is where you lay out the plan. How are you going to stop being the person you are right now? How are you going to get the life, the house, the job that you’ve been dying for all along? Start with the smallest possible step. Take an online class. Focus on rebuilding your self-esteem. We take small steps so that we become strong enough to make big leaps. Write out an incremental plan that will allow you to strive toward a life you can thrive in day-by-day.
Putting it all together…
Are you really spending your time and energy creating a life that you enjoy? When most of us break it down, we realize that we’re simply treading water and surviving. That’s not a way to live. True happiness doesn’t come when we manage to survive in a world that’s battering us. It arrives on our doorstep when we get proactive and set on a life that allows us to thrive.
Figure out what a thriving life looks like for you. Do you need close relationships? A successful career? There’s no right or wrong answer. Reconnect with your sense of joy and find a way to pursue your earnest passions. When you are authentic, you align yourself with a purposeful existence. Invest in the right relationships and stop selling yourself short for all the wrong people. Pinpoint your purpose and figure out what it is you want to do with the time that you have here. Then make mindful and intentional moves toward a future that’s aligned with your true needs. You deserve to do more than struggle in this world, and you can when you make the choice to do things differently.