How to Move from Surviving to Thriving [Part 4 of 4]
For the last few weeks I’ve posted about what it takes to invest in your Overall Well-Being. I’ve been working on this intentionally since 2009, so I’m an expert on it by now… right?!
I wish that were true. Recently, I’ve been humbled and had to take my own advice. 2025 has already kicked my butt and there are days when I have had to rate my Daily Wellbeing at about 1.5. From witnessing the trauma of the Southern California fires in January (where friends lost homes) to unexpectedly becoming my mother's estate executor, to navigating the rollercoaster of the current administration and how it is already impacting some of my coaching clients already…
This leads to days where I feel unsettled. Moody. A little blue when it all feels like too much.
So writing this series has been personally helpful as a reminder of what practices to pick up again in order to not merely survive, but thrive. And (not to get too “rhymey”) feel alive.
Series Review
On February 12, I posted about Daily Wellbeing as the first step in your Overall Well-Being journey. Recently, when I reviewed a week’s worth of journal entries, I came to see I was starting to go in the wrong direction emotionally and mentally. As a result, I intentionally brought up a conversation with a good friend to let them know that I was struggling, and we talked about it.
On February 25, I wrote about Authenticity: the process of establishing and maintaining a strong sense of self-worth and self-awareness. Whenever work-related stuff gets a little wobbly or unsure, I find myself having to have another conversation with myself about where I find my identity. This has been part of my journey in early 2025. It is crucial to find our identity in who we are, not in what we do or produce.
On March 12, I shared about Resilience, reflecting on my own experience in having to recover from job loss, rebuild and redirect my career and what I learned from that process. Whether we like it or not, change and transition are inevitable, and we have to learn how to recover from setbacks and not be crushed by them. Developing resilience is absolutely core to moving forward from those experiences.
The Fourth Element of Overall Well-Being
Which brings me to thriving. Another word for that is flourishing. I must admit, when I really started digging into the material about overall well-being a few years ago, this concept was new to me. My trusty resource on well-being, Dr. Matt Bloom, states that “Thriving has very ancient roots, going back at least to the Greeks in the fourth century BCE and perhaps to Jewish culture even earlier. Aristotle is regarded as the first person to formally study and write about this dimension of well-being, so researchers have adopted his term eudaimonia as our technical term for this dimension.” Then he goes further:
… more literally translated, “eudaimonia” is having a good indwelling spirit. Philosophers often translate this as living a meaningful and purposeful life.
What Qualifies as a Meaningful and Purposeful Life?
Once I encountered this concept of thriving, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. More specifically, I wanted to check myself and figure out if I was seeking to thrive and not just survive.
Right away, I discovered that a key step to thriving is one of taking the initiative to seek it out. As the esteemed positive psychology researcher Martin Seligman puts it, “Well-being cannot exist just in your own head. Well-being is a combination of feeling good as well as actually having meaning, good relationships and accomplishment.” Like the other three elements in this series, thriving will not simply drop into your lap. You have to pursue it intentionally and consistently. What I came to realize is that I needed to pull the camera back and not solely focus on my present circumstances.
As a pastor friend frequently reminds me,
This is part of the story.
This is not the whole story.
Thus in order to move beyond surviving into thriving, I had to find my footing in my values, not my circumstances. I had to make sure I was playing the long game, keeping my “eyes on the prize,” focused on my long-term goals and commitments.
For me, that is pretty simple:
I want to be a person of character. In other words, a person of substance, depth, and integrity. This is an ongoing process; I will never “arrive.”
I want to be a person who encourages depth of character in others. Fortunately, I get to do that nearly every day in my coaching conversations with clients, but I also seek it out in my close relationships.
Value-Centered Living
What I realized today in writing this was that I’ve really got to remain vigilant in who and what I surround myself with in order to adhere to those core values. I make it a habit of reading something that stimulates my thinking and reflection each morning and this is what I read this morning, April 1, from The Daily Stoic:
"If you bend your body into a sitting position every day for a long enough period of time, the curvature of your spine changes. A doctor can tell from a radiograph (or an autopsy) whether someone sat at a desk for a living. If you shove your feet into tiny, narrow dress shoes each day, your feet begin to take on that form as well.
The same is true for our mind. If you hold a perpetually negative outlook, soon enough everything you encounter will seem negative. Close it off and you’ll become closed-minded. Color it with the wrong thoughts and your life will be dyed the same."
What immediately comes to my mind is that I would be a FOOL today if I let myself keep slipping into a perpetually negative outlook.
However, that does not mean that I can just slap a smiley face on everything and pretend like nothing is difficult. That is simply not true. Conversely, it does not ultimately help to take a gummy and tune out either.
So this morning, after reading this quote from the Daily Stoic, I took a few moments to remind myself of the good things in my life, of the times when life was much harder and I still was able to not to merely survive, but thrive. With the benefit of hindsight, I am able to see how I have grown in depth of character and in quality of relationships through many of the hardships that I have lived through. Rather than experiencing long-term post-traumatic stress, I have often been able to turn those experiences into post-traumatic growth. That, to me, is thriving: moving from a negativity bias to a flourishing mindset.
Daily Well-Being Practices
I have mentioned a couple of strategies that have worked for me, but I will collect them here and add a couple more:
What are your values? This is no casual, simple exercise. It is one that I think you should actually struggle with. Dr. Matt Bloom says that we are created as human beings to grapple with two fundamental questions: “Why am I here?” and “What should I do with my life?” It might seem a little daunting to consider your answers to those questions, but I sure would define them sooner rather than later. As I often say to clients, I bet you don't go on vacation by getting in your car one day and then decide where you're going to go! Rather, you set aside a date on your calendar, you reserve lodging, you get the maps, you set the reservations. Make sure you know what is the direction you are heading in your life. If you need a jumpstart to this process, I highly recommend the “Values in Action” Survey. It is highly regarded and heavily researched and best of all, it is free!
Do the work. Not only do you want to clarify your values and convictions, you want to revisit them and reflect on them on a regular basis. As I mentioned earlier in this post, for me that is a daily exercise of 30 to 45 minutes. And every other month, I take a half day and go to our local botanical garden for a longer walk to ponder, check in on myself, and look back on how things are going. Additionally, at different times in your life, you may want to meet with a wise advisor: a mentor, a counselor, a spiritual leader. I'm doing that right now and it is proving to be very helpful.
Find conversation partners who can go there with you. As the quote from the Daily Stoic reminded me, it is important who we surround ourselves with because it shapes us greatly. Find people who are on the same journey that you are on in looking for meaning and purpose, seeking to thrive and not just survive.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this 4-part series. It has emerged out of years of work experience and coaching with hundreds of clients.
I've created a special 15-minute video that captures much of the content from this series, and I want to make it available to my email community.
It offers:
A practical framework to rediscover career fulfillment
Actionable steps to cultivate wellbeing at work and in life
Strategies that have helped my clients transform their relationship with work
Here's how to get it:
Simply email me at kelly.soifer@ksleadershipdevelop.me with the subject line "Video Request" and I'll personally send you the video resource. I believe in real connections over automated systems, which is why I personally respond to every request.
By reaching out, you'll also join my community of professionals committed to creating meaningful careers and receive occasional insights, resources, and guidance to support your journey. I look forward to connecting with you!
