What does it mean to Thrive? In a recent post titled “What Does It Mean to Thrive”, I started to examine this question. I discussed the impact environment has on thriving, both from an internal and external perspective. From an external standpoint it’s the availability of the external resources necessary for something to thrive such as nutrients makes a big difference. However, it does not stop there. There is an “internal process” that plays an important role in thriving, specifically when it comes to people and teams. We start here this week.

In my previous post, I used the picture of a flower to help describe thriving. In the case of a flower, the desire to thrive does not play much of a role. If the necessary resources are there, chance are good that the flower will reach its potential. This is not the case for a person or team. At times, despite the availability of resources, people and teams do not thrive. In fact, they have the ability to decide to ignore the opportunities available to them. Why would someone make that choice?

There could be many reasons for this, but in my experience it comes down to a person’s, or group of people’s, internal narrative. To say it another way, the story they tell themselves about themselves plays an enormous role their ability to thrive. I talked about my experience with this when working in communities impacted by poverty in my book, Hope Realized, but it is not unique to poverty. As humans, we have the ability to tell ourselves how we believe our lives should go. Often this is not a conscious act but rather something that slowly develops in our minds as we go through our lives. It is influenced by our experiences, the voices we listen to, and our own self-talk among other factors. Whether we realize it or not, we believe we know how our story should go and it influences the life we choose to live.

This is why we as humans, and groups of humans, sometimes decide to ignore opportunities to thrive. We do not believe we are the kind of person who thrives. Instead, we have written a story of a life of struggle and hopelessness. This may not be our fault–our experiences and people in our lives may have reinforced this story–but it is our reality to address. We are very partial to our own stories. If the story we tell ourselves says that our life is worthless and destined for less than, we will live into that, even self-sabotaging when the opportunity for a different story presents itself. I have seen this play out many times, and even experienced it myself. There have been seasons in my life when I struggled to see a story that ended with me thriving, and I made choices that left me just surviving. Maybe you have been there too.

The good news is the opposite is true as well. As much as we have the ability to write a story of hopelessness for our lives, we also have the ability to write a story that leads to hope and thriving. The caveat is this takes much greater intention and is not grounded in the temporal things of this life.

When we drift through life, allowing our story to be influenced by whatever or whoever happens to be closest to us, it often doesn’t end well. It is when we are intentional about who we choose to listen to and how we choose to define ourselves that a story of thriving can be written. Does this mean it will be easy? Not at all! I am not saying you can or should just “manifest” the future you desire. Regardless of your internal narrative, life will be filled with ups and downs. The truth is we live in a broken world and experience brokenness on a regular basis. The key is to not be defined by the brokenness and to choose a different story, even in the midst of the brokenness.

How do you do this? You have to choose a different lens. We will start there next time, but in the meantime, take a look at the story you are telling yourself. Does it point to a life of just surviving and less than, or a life of thriving and purpose? Understanding your internal narrative is the first step toward writing a different story. Will you choose to take it today?

James Belt

Click here​ for more information on my book Hope Realized and resources to help you bring hope to others!