What Does Thriving Look Like to You?
When I work with clients, I sometimes ask this question:
What does ‘thriving’ look like to you?
It can be a challenging question since it’s sort of adjacent to success. It’s perhaps the opposite of struggle. Or at least exclusive of it.
I think of thriving in the metaphor of a garden.
A thriving garden is flourishing, with healthy plants, producing plenty of fruits and vegetables or flowers. It is a picture of life working in alignment, in balance. And while natural ecosystems often flourish on their own, when we try to ‘manage’ them, we can run into problems.
Anyone who has ever tried to plant a garden knows that there is a learning curve. You have to start with knowing your conditions, the soil, the climate, the time of year. You have to make sure that the soil is well prepared, with enough nutrients, not too acidic, not too sandy. Then you have to know how to plant seeds at the correct depth, and how often to water them. Lastly, you have to take care of the garden, watching over it, pulling weak plants to make room for the healthy ones. You have to pull invasive weeds and prevent damage from insects.
All this is in the role of support.
We don’t make the garden grow. Only nature can do that, life living. But we create conditions for thriving.
Our lives are the same.
We can’t make ourselves healthy or successful through willpower. But we can create conditions that allow us to thrive.
We can start projects, then eliminate the ones that are weak, that are stealing time and energy from the strong ones. We can make sure we have good nutrition and enough sun. We can make sure we take time to rest and to recover. We can be sure to create and care for relationships that help us grow, and we can prune those that hold us back, that are unhealthy.
The question we should ask ourselves periodically is this:
”What would help me to thrive?”
You know the answer to this if you look and listen closely. You’ve done things in your past that left you feeling great, that you look back on fondly, that had you growing and learning. And you’ve done things that left you feeling weaker, angry, disappointed, etc. You can’t always know what will leave you feeling bad, but once you’ve experienced it, you can avoid repeating that mistake.
A thriving life is healthy, it works like a well-balanced system. It is productive but from a place of health and joy. It’s full of life.
So what does thriving look like to you?
John McKay is a business and personal coach in the Seattle area. If you’d like to chat about what thriving looks like for you, you can reach him at http://jpmckay.com
