Surviving to Thriving

Life has come at most of us and we have had to stand up and fight for our survival. Challenging times are no strangers to us. We have made it this far and have developed resilience and a persevering attitude.

This is a wonderful testament to you and your strength and resolve if you can say this, and most likely, those reading this today can relate to the idea of being a survivor.

However, I want to propose a new ideal for you, the strong and determined survivor. This ideal is taking the next step beyond a survival mentality.

We did not survive to just stay in this place of being able to say that I made it against all odds. Why did we fight through so much to get to today?

I want to suggest that we can build a very powerful life on top of this foundation, that is moving from surviving to thriving! Let us pull out all the stops now. Let me take the strength that we have built as survivors and use it to thrive.

The word thrive means to "grow or develop well or vigorously." I want to share a few steps that you can take to move from surviving to thriving:

First, become future-focused and not past-focused. So often when we are survivors, our life story is based on what we have come through, when we think about or talk about our life that is usually the theme. This is for good reason, we are proud of or at least grateful for what we have fought through to get here. Yet to move from surviving to thriving we must change the focus from the past to the future. What might you be able to become? What cause can you devote yourself to based on your experience? What is your mission in life that only you can fulfill and you know you have what it takes to touch the world in this way because you have been there!

Second, determine that you are a victor, not a victim. Yes, I survived but sometimes I feel sorry for myself that I had to go through what I did to get here. That is self-love and self-preservation at work and that is ok. But there comes a time when I must drop the mindset of the victim and consider myself a victor. I am, after all, here to tell about it and life has had its shots at me, and yet I am standing tall! I am a victor, I have won and will continue to win, so my attitude is proactive from now on instead of reactive. I know who I am and will be that person no matter what!

Third, I must trust and be courageous. To thrive I must take risks, step out and be vulnerable to change, and take a chance. The survivor in me wants to be cautious, but to be cautious we will thwart thriving. To thrive we must be bold and stand on the pinnacle of opportunity as it presents itself to me. This is my chance to change the world. I am going to take it!

Today, I will stand up as a survivor and declare that I am going to thrive! I hope you will join me.

Tony Gilotte