3 Tips to move from Surviving to Thriving
The goal of business whether you are an employee or entrepreneur is to thrive and grow. If you come from a dysfunctional family like me then it will take extra work to adjust to learning how to thrive.
I’m a welfare kid turned techie who has made a career out of the skills I learned in survivor mode. It’s taken me ten years and more than $100K in personal development to learn how to center my needs and become confident in asking for what I need in my life.
These are my top three takeaways from moving from surviving to thriving…
Take care of yourself before everyone else
You can’t be fruitful if you do not take care of yourself properly.
This one is first because it was the hardest to grasp for me. I wasn’t raised by my parents. I bounced from house to house most of my life. This was the environment of dysfunction.
I learned about taking care of myself after I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia at 18. If you don’t know what it is, it means that my brain and body don’t communicate well because I was in fight or flight mode for too much of my life.
I learned to fuel my body properly by doing food journals and partnering with my healthcare providers to keep me off of medicine that would be a band aid fix. That’s why I created this wellness plan to track my vitals and have tangible medical records to advocate for myself in my doctors’ appointments. You should have up to a 60+ year health plan for preventative health treatment. Here is a carousel on the snapshot of a health plan and a 60 second video on why you should have a 60+ health plan.
Listen I know self-care is a trendy term right now and is in almost all of the marketing. I need you to cut through the noise and find out how to combat the dysfunction that you’ve experienced in your life to build an environment where you can thrive.
Your immunity depends on it. Our immune systems are like bank accounts. You can only withdraw the value that you have deposited in it. If you are running from an empty cup, then you are going against your purpose.
If you don’t know what you need you should start to figure out what you need to grow. As a human you are a living organism, so your basic needs have to be met to survive, and a consistent deposit of value needs to happen to reach thriving status.
Here are some tools that helped me get out of fight and flight mode. It took time from recognizing the information and doing something about it so go easy on yourself. Just commit to starting to learn how to separate your
Take a personality test to find out your strengths and weaknesses. Use the information that you find to start using your time to heal your weaknesses. I use 16 personalities.
Take an attachment styles test to understand what type of attachment you have to people, places and things. Use the information that you find out to build more secure relationships. I use the Attachment Project.
Once I was able to learn about what I needed to be in a thriving state I started to put value on what's in my cup.
Pour from your overflow
To keep the balance of what’s going on in your mind and the relationships externally it’s important to set and keep boundaries that help you thrive. If you don’t, you run the risk of getting warped into someone else’s reality and pouring out the parts of you that you need to people who don’t value your pour as much as you. This is the danger zone for resentment and disappointment.
I believe burnout is a result of giving too much of your power away. To avoid this trap, take your time to know the rules of your environment so you can figure out the best way to coexist with loved ones, your job duties, and live a happy life.
Source: Self Esteem Workbook
I am the capable one and the person that people don’t check on because “I get it” or “they don’t have to worry about me”. Because of that I was expected to take care of everyone first and then myself if I had anything left.
The part people don’t get is that being capable can be very lonely and difficult when healthy boundaries aren’t in place. I have said yes to help people just to have human interaction and doing that too much led me to lean into my anxious attachment style and cling to people just so they don’t abandon me like my parents did. This attachment showed up in my friendships, romantic relationship and business partnerships as disappointment, resentment, feeling undervalued and bitterness. I was always depleted because I didn’t put the right value on my yes and boundaries to support my yes.
What helped me go from people pleasing to healthy boundaries was learning about self-esteem. My therapist gave me this Self Esteem Workbook (affiliate link) to work through and build my self-esteem as I navigate the real world. Over the years working through the book, I realized that
What is happening is something I get to choose to interact with. It’s not happening to me anymore
No is a full sentence
My reaction to a situation is how I value myself.
When I learned how to manage my thoughts about what was happening on the inside, I was able to fill myself up first to withstand what was happening externally in my life. It helped me start building the right relationships in my family, personally life and business. I started operating from a place of security and not from my past dysfunction and insecurities.
Source: Self Esteem Workbook
Build lasting relationships from a place of security
The uncertainty of business or projects can bring out the insecurities in people. If you don’t have a hold on your self-esteem, you can get wrapped up in the chaos or the environment.
When you have a hold on your self-esteem you operate from a place of security no matter what is going on around you across people and projects.
To make the most of my time and energy in every scenario I take time to be curious and learn the ground rules of the environment, so I know how to navigate. I have to do what’s best for me to provide quality results with my skill set as a manager. Once I set the tone for my inner narrative I start building relationships professionally.
In my career I’ve scaled 5 figure businesses to 8 figure businesses using this relationship map. I even taught a class on it at DC Startup and Tech Week in October 2024. You can catch the presentation here and download the tools here.
Understanding how to move yourself from surviving to thriving will help you protect your biggest asset (yourself). When you have the tools to navigate your boundaries you’ll begin to exist in personal and professional relationships in a healthy way. Over time these boundaries will turn into your safety net to use while you advocate and navigate any environment.
