If you wish to thrive in life, you need to challenge your 'survive only' mindsets
Are you worried about keeping your job, even if it is not such a great job? Do you struggle to make the bills at the end of the month, and are you just grateful each day you arrive home without being attacked, hijacked or worse? Do you feel like every day is a struggle and a slog?
If so, you're in 'survive' mode. And join the club, so are millions of South Africans! Too many people are simply not living life, let alone taking full advantage of a journey that's meant to be exciting, enlivening and thrilling.
Whilst our apartheid past, current crime levels, and economic realities are valid reasons for falling into survival mode, there are no valid reasons for staying this way. Living in survival mode is a waste of your talents, and the gift of life. It's an insult to your ultimate purpose for being on this planet.
Years ago I faced the same situation as a young single mother. Working for a miserable boss, paid a lousy salary and just battling to get through each expensive and overloaded day, I looked at my life and asked 'I am going to continue to live like this, or am I going insist on a better life?'
What a question! No way was I going to just get by. I had plans. I had hopes. So it was that I became focussed on thriving in my life. I had accessed this universal principle: life will give you what you expect life to give you.
If your expectations are to merely to survive, surviving will be your life. Each day will continue to be a bleak landscape of trying. On the other hand, if you expect joy, abundance and expression, you position life to give that to you. It's time for you to ask yourself this question 'do I want to survive or thrive?'
As I chose a life of thriving, I set out on a journey of personal development and discovery. The first thing I discovered was that when we insist on living life first class, life insists that we change and grow and upgrade ourselves. The two go together, and if you want the one, you have to embrace the other.
The first aspect of yourself that you will be required to upgrade is your understanding of how life works. As I embarked on this rethink I became fascinated with this 'how' of success, and if you wish to thrive, you too need to become a student of success.
To get your life back on the upward track, you should be filling your mind with success strategies and concepts. You need to understand the process of life and it's great mechanisms. You should be socialising with successful people, and listening to their thought processes and conversations, saying 'what can I pick up from their ideas today?'
If you have slipped into survival mode recognise it as such. Challenge yourself to thrive. Don't waste your life. Choose. Survive or thrive - it's up to you.
Want to learn more about how life works, and how to start thriving? Attend Catherine's talk 'Survive & Thrive' on the 23rd October in which she will share the 7 principles to success. Treat yourself, uplift a colleague, enrich a client. For more details call Arlene 021-465-5647 or e-mail motivator@mweb.co.za
© Catherine M Glennie
