Do You Genuinely Thrive or Try to Survive?

by Ryan Biddulph

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Go to work. Leave work. Go to the gym. Come home. Eat dinner. Watch TV. Go to bed. Repeat the following day. Spend the weekends going to the gym, sleeping in and perhaps hanging out with my friends.

My life mirrored this experience for roughly 8 years. I tried to survive mostly because I gave a significant amount of my attention, energy and time to working jobs I disliked mainly to put a roof over my head, food on my table and to pay my bills.

I did not:

thrive
free myself
liberate myself
inspire others

on any type of scale because I lived predominantly to try to survive. Work a job to cover survival basics. Spend the remainder of each day working out and chilling in my comfort zone.

I felt depressed, bound and quite miserable because life seemed hopeless and flat out pointless. Life had to be more than working a depressing job solely to pay bills.

Do you find yourself in a similar boat? Do you live to thrive or just try to survive?

Pink Slip

My employer downsized me in 2008. I kicked around for a bit to chill. Feeling some freedom felt alien to me because I gave much energy prior to surviving, filling my days with keeping busy. I began to ponder the idea of living to thrive, to have fun, to free myself and to live my dreams.

Fast forward 12 years. I have circled the globe for a decade. I am a professional blogger. I largely live to thrive because I chose to thrive – not to try to survive – back in 2008. Freedom became my life. Fear arose in my being because I had to break free from survival mode ideals like:

working any job solely to pay bills
surrounding myself with people living in survival mode
mocking free, successful, powerful people
spending virtually all of my free time living in comfort, solely taking care of myself and my needs

I fell in love with freedom more than craving comfort. I chose a life filled with fun, freedom, fulfillment and quite a bit of fear-triggering too. Everything changed because I changed my values. People around me prior to 2008 simply chose to value surviving over thriving. But after 2008 I began surrounding myself with and learning from inspired, empowered, free human beings who chose to thrive.

Making the shift from surviving to thriving feels uncomfortable because deep fears need to be triggered, faced, felt and released for you to slowly but surely thrive. Welcome to being liberated. Welcome to REALLY living versus simply going through the motions to cover your survival needs.

Pay close attention to people who live their dreams from a liberated, compassionate energy. Follow their lead. Observe their habits. Pay particularly close attention to how top pros in their niches emit a generous, trusting, knowing vibe, and also dive into uncomfortable activity on the regular in order to be liberated.

Imagine calling the shots in your life. Being free is not for everybody until you realize how freedom is a mindset you can cultivate over a sustained period of time. Then, freedom *is* for everybody. Being free feels uncomfortable because free folk face, feel and release fears keeping them bound, locked into survival mode.

But is it really even a choice? Do you want to live life being bound, depressed and comfortable for 70 years? Or do you prefer to be free while having fun and making uncomfortable decisions from time to time?

Freedom wins when you give your attention and energy to freedom and starve the fears fueling your survival mode way of living.