“If you feel there’s more meant for your life than what you have today, there is. Trust that.”
“How do I know if I’m just surviving vs. thriving in my life?”
It’s a question I’m asked constantly in my coaching practice and it’s a great question to ask.
It’s not like we’re taught in school how to determine if we’re living our best life.
Instead, school’s focus is to get us to graduate so we can go to college and get a decent job. Then, the goal is to start living the cookie-cutter “good” life by doing things like getting married, having kids and buying a house. Getting to travel and feeling happy from time to time are added perks.
You’re likely someone who’s followed that system to date…you’ve checked off life’s customary boxes, so in essence, you could be defined as “thriving.”
Yet, you wonder if there’s more out there for you.
This “thriving” life of yours feels like you could be and have more. You know you’re very blessed though so you feel a bit guilty asking for more. There’s so much suffering in the world. Who are you to “have it all?”
You have a decent job, you have some decent if not good relationships, your health is pretty good, you’re making money and you feel pretty good about yourself most of the time.
Is there really more to have?
I’m here to tell you there is.
There’s a LOT more you can create with your life to truly feel like you’re thriving (without it being overwhelming).
Today I’m going to break it down for you so you can see clearly and easily if you’re surviving vs. thriving in all areas of your life.
The tool I share with you today is one that you’ll be able to use time and time again to give you the on-going clarity you need to continuously stay in a state of growth vs. ever being stuck again.
Listen to this impactful episode via the link above.
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
→ Continue the conversation in my free online community
→ Get The 4-Day Accomplish Your Dreams Free Training
→ FREE Authentic Self Assessment
Full Transcript
This is the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast with Lindsay Preston Episode 42,
Surviving Vs. Thriving.
[music]
Welcome to the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast, the show for goal-getting, fearfacing women for kicking ass by creating change. I’m your host, Lindsay Preston. I’m a wife,
mom of two, and a multi-certified life coach to women all over the world. I’ve lived
through enough in life to know that easier doesn’t always equate to better. We can’t fear
the fire, we must learn to become it. On this show, I’ll teach you how to do just that. Join
me as I challenge you to become even more of the strong, resilient, and powerful woman
you were meant to be. Let’s do this.
[music]
Lindsay: Hi there, Ms. Unstoppable woman. Welcome to the show. So glad to have you here
as always. As this episode is going live, it’s mid-April 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic is
happening all over the world. If you’re listening to this episode, when it goes live, hope
you’re hanging in there. Hope you’re getting through this. Today, I want to offer you a
resource and a tool to help you understand a little bit more about when you’re surviving
and thriving in life. Right now, you may be more in survival mode, because so much has
changed for you. I’m a big believer that when unexpected things happen, it really is just a
way for us to see an amplified version of problems that are already there to begin with.
It’s a great opportunity for us to really sit down and say, “Oh my goodness, there are some
areas of my life that need changing.” To give you an example, if you are in quarantine right
now, with a partner, or you’re married or whatever, and that person is driving you crazy,
they’re likely driving you crazy in ways that probably bothered you before this whole thing
happened and now those things have just been amplified. If there’s been certain areas in
your financial worlds that have been impacted by this, well, that’s just been amplified,
maybe you’re not able to work, or maybe you don’t have enough savings. That’s just being
amplified right now, with everything that’s going on.
Again, it’s a great opportunity for us to look at ourselves and say, “Well, we can’t really
avoid some of our problems, right now it’s time to go in and really face this stuff head-on.”
We can’t avoid it anymore. Instead, we’ve got to learn how to problem-solve them. Now, I
think today’s episode is a great one, regardless of if you’re listening to this live or not
because it’s a great way to understand if you’re surviving or thriving, because who would
know if they’re one or the other? It’s not like we’re sat down in school and we’re taught
this stuff. I really want you to understand the difference between the two today so you can
avoid staying stuck, and instead be in a state of continuous growth.
I hear from so many women that I coach or in my personal life, that their problems in life
have been there for years, sometimes even decades. I think, “Oh my goodness, I wish you
would have gotten a wake-up call many years ago because you didn’t need to stay stuck
this long.” I’m hoping you get that wake-up call today to say “Whoa, okay, it’s finally time
to change some of these things in life.” Or you may get a pat on the back of some
reassurance of, “Wow, I’m actually doing a lot better than I thought I was.”
I’m going to introduce you to a tool that’s called the wheel of life. This tool is out there in
the personal development realm. I’m going to walk you through it just in case you’ve never
seen it before. The way that I do it is a little bit different, so stay with me. I’m going to
have some visuals of what I’m telling you today on the show notes, so if you’ve never seen
the show notes before you just go to your podcast player, and you’ll click wherever you can
see a little snippet of what the show was about. To see the episode title and then probably
a sentence or two with a little bit more information and then below that there’s a link that
says “this originally came from–” I think Lindsay Preston’s website or something like that.
You’ll click that link, and it’ll go to my website and that’s where you’ll see the full show
notes. You’ll learn even more about the episode, you’ll get all the links, you’ll get pictures
like today, you’ll see pictures of this tool I’m going to walk you through them. That’s how
you can go and see show notes. As I said, we’re going to do this wheel of life exercise.
What you’re going to do is you’re going to get a piece of paper, and you’re going to draw a
big circle on it. Then what you’re going to do is you’re going to determine what areas of
life you want to measure. The areas that you want to measure are the ones that are
important to you.
To give you some examples of ones that either I’ve put on mine, or I’ve had other people
put on theirs, things like health can be an area of life, and you can even say physical health
and then you could say mental health is another one, emotional health, it’s up to you
again, but you can bunch it all as one or separate it out. You can also put one as marriage
or whatever you call your partner, a significant other, or even you could say, your dating
pattern, if you’re not with somebody right now. Just typically, what kind of people are you
meeting when you’re dating? How fulfilled are you in that area? Again, is what we’ll
measure here in a bit. You could also have an area for friendships.
Then you could have one for family and you could separate out family and do kids, if you
have kids and then do extended family. Again, this is your wheel, you can do it however
you want. Some other sections, you could do work/career and if you have a day job, and
then maybe a side hustle, you could separate the two out. In mine, I almost did mine
where I had my life coach as me as a coach as one area and then me as a business owner
in the other area, I ended up not doing that, but I could have and I thought about it.
You may be in that similar boat. You could also do finances and then you could even
separate that out if you wanted to to smaller sections of your saving versus your spending
or just encompass it on one. Your spiritual life. Your relationship with yourself is another
one you can measure. Your emotional or mental health, as I mentionedm fun. For some
people, they want to put sex and measure that separately. Personal growth plan. Again,
this is going to be your wheel and you’re going to determine what areas you want to
measure on that wheel.
For mine, I came up with eight things that I wanted to measure on my wheel and that was
how fulfilled I was in my finances, my career, my marriage, with parenting, with my
physical health, with fun, with spiritual connection, and then my mental and emotional
health. When you have your big circle on your paper, you’re just going to then figure out
how many sections you want. For me, I had eight. What I did is I started to separate out my
circle into eight different sections. Almost like I was a pizza cutter and I start cutting
pieces of pizza. You’re going to do that with your pen, pencil, marker, whatever you use,
and separate out that circle. Again, I have visuals on the website, if you need it.
I’m a visual person, so you may be too. Then, when you have however many pieces you
need, you’re going to then go around on the circle and write what each slice or section
represents. Like finances is this one slice and career is this other slice and marriage is this
other slice. Then, you’re going to go around, have all your slices labeled. Then you’re going
to sit down, and you’re really going to think about that one area, one at a time so if the
first one is career, sit down and really think how fulfilled you are in that area.
Fulfillment can mean different things to different people. I define fulfillment as how close
am I to living in my ideal self in that area? Am I showing up in the best way that I think I
can? Now, Webster defines fulfillment as something pretty similar, but it’s the achievement
of something desired. Again, you define what fulfillment means to you. I’ll say it again, for
me, it’s really am I living close to my ideal self in that area? If we’re going back to career
and we’re going to measure that one first, and you’re looking at that slice, I really want you
to think on a scale of like one to 10, 10 being the highest, where am I on that scale? Then
fill in that slice as much as that number represents. If you’re filling in for an eight, that’s
where you fall in that one to 10 scale, you’re going to fill in your slice a pretty good
amount because a 10 would mean you fill on the whole slice. Right, makes sense?
Again,
just go down all the different areas and start to rank them between one and 10. Okay? Fill
in those slices. Then, after you’ve done all that, kind of step back and say, “Okay,” you
know, “What areas am I doing pretty well in and what areas am I not doing well in?” If
you’re like, “Well, how do I know an area I’m doing well in or not?” the way that I kind of
define it is, if somebody is below a seven, then that is telling me they’re likely surviving in
that area and they may be on a trajectory of growth. They may have taken their physical
health, for example, from a three and now they’re at a seven and they’re on their way to a
nine.
The number may not always reflect exactly if someone’s just surviving in that area or not,
but typically if someone’s at a seven or below, like I said, they’re typically surviving.
Surviving to me means that they’re encountering the same problems over and over again
and they may get a little resolution here and there, but it’s still like the same problem
comes up. I’ll give you an example in my personal life. When I did this exercise, I had my
marriage as one of the slices and I ranked my marriage as a nine. A couple months ago, it
would not have been ranked that. It probably would have been ranked around a six or a
seven. My husband and I just kept getting in the same arguments over and over and over
again.
They weren’t these big blowup arguments, it is was just like the same thing. Every time we
would go and resolve it, we kind of would, but then I would tell him, “I feel like we’re
speaking two different languages here and we’re not really getting to the core heart of the
matter.” Then, sure enough, a couple weeks would come and go, and then we’d have a
similar argument again and step on our toes in the same way. I told him, I’m like, “Listen,
we’re doing some sort of dance with one another, and the dance is getting really old, and
we’re just encountering the same problems.”
We invested in a marriage coach, we did some marriage coaching for a couple sessions,
and now we’ve broken those patterns. We were on this trajectory of growth, right? That’s
why we’re at a nine now. Now, when I did this wheel exercise, I had physical health as one
of mine, as I told you. Right now, I’m at a six in that. The reason I ranked myself a six is
because my physical health is actually declining. I had a son, as many of you know, two
years ago, and I nursed him solely from my body. I didn’t even pump for a year. In that
time, I had to keep a certain amount of the baby weight on in order to nurse.
I actually intentionally had to eat a certain amount of extra calories every single day
because I was just losing the weight so quickly. Whereas that was great, and I’m so glad I
was able to nurse, my body got really used to having on those 10 pounds and I haven’t
been able to lose it in this past year since I’ve stopped nursing him. I’ve had these periods
where I’ll start working out, and then something will happen and I can’t really work out
anymore, I just don’t feel all this motivation toward it, so it’s just going up and down.
Maybe even a couple months ago I would have ranked it as a seven or eight, just thinking,
“Okay, I just need to get in a consistent routine with working out,” but since this whole
COVID-19 stuff has happened, this past month I’ve actually gained anywhere between
three and five pounds. You know, those two pounds sometimes is like water weight and
not, but I’ve gone in the opposite direction of where I want to go and I’m realizing, as this
whole crisis is happening, that I’m turning to sweets a lot. Every day is like, “Ooh, well now
we have this candy,” or, “We’re going to have these cookies,” or, “Let’s go get ice cream,”
and I’m looking forward to that.
I’m realizing that this is actually a bigger problem than what I thought it was. That’s why
right now I’m ranking it a six, because I’m actually, again, encountering the same problem
of, “Ugh, I need to get rid of this weight,” or, “I want to get rid of this weight, but I’m just
not able to do it.” In essence, I’m actually moving backwards. If you’re have some areas of
life where the number is about at a seven or an eight or below that, and you’re realizing,
“Okay, either I’m staying somewhat stable but it’s kind of a rocky stable where I’m moving
backwards,” that’s definitely a sign that you are surviving in that area of your life.
All right, if you’re an eight and above, that tells me you’re likely thriving. That means that
you’re on this trajectory of growth, and even if you’re not growing right now, then you
probably have a really stable foundation in that area. For example, for me, I ranked fun as
a number eight. The reason I ranked it this is I feel like I can find a fun moment at any
moment of any day if I wanted to. I’m not at a 10 because my husband and I aren’t getting
a lot of date nights, not only just because of all this quarantine stuff, but before that, we
were just always trying to get the appropriate sitters and make it happen, and it just wasn’t
happening.
Even when we would go on a date, sometimes he’d be so exhausted or, like I mentioned
earlier, we’re kind of working through some problems we were going through so it wasn’t
always the best date. Right now, we’re on a trajectory where we’re growing in that area,
but we’re kind of stuck, but it’s a stable stuck. It’s not like a, “Ooh,” bumpy road kind of
stability, if that makes sense.
I’m hoping this gives you just a really clear and easy picture for you, a very visual picture
of, “Woah, okay. So these are the areas I’m doing really well in, and I’m on this trajectory of
growth, and I’m, you know, quote-unquote thriving. And these are the areas where I’m not
really growing, if anything I may be moving backwards, and these are areas that I’m quoteunquote surviving in and I’m needing some help to get me moving forward, or maybe I just
need to prioritize the area of my life more and really focus in on it.”
As I mentioned, the one area of mine that I’m really surviving in right now is physical
health. I’m realizing, like I said, I’m needing some help here either from a trainer, or I need
to do some coaching on it with my life coach to figure out what is going on here, why am I
turning to sweets? Why am I just not prioritizing this area of my life even though I really
want it? There’s some kind of disconnect here with this. Hopefully this tool really helps
you. Again, I have a visual on the show notes for you to see, and you can see all of my
scores as well.
The other resource I want to give you today is an assessment I created a long time ago.
Goodness, I think like five years ago. This assessment just asks you a couple questions
about how close you’re living in your authentic self. If you have ever heard me talk about
an authentic self, that is the highest version of you. We all have these two beings, in
essence, that live inside of us. Which I know it sounds weird, but one being is our inner
mean girl. Or in the psych world, they call this the ego. This version of you is the
conditioned part of you. These are all the negative things that you’ve heard in your past,
and it’s come together and it’s that inner critic voice or that inner perfectionist or that
pleaser part of you or that part of you that’s kind of this rollercoaster ride like you’ll be
really happy and then you’ll be really moody, and really happy and really moody.
Or this is the part of you that wants to avoid things, or it doubts you. You know, lots of
different voices going on there within that inner mean girl voice, but that’s just that
negative part of you. Your authentic self part of you is a part of you that’s really positive
and strength-focused and action-oriented and gets you moving and grooving. This
assessment really tests, pretty quickly, how close are you living in that authentic self? You
can go take this free assessment at Lindsay, L-I-N-D-S-A-Y, epreston.com/asquiz. Again,
link in the show notes. You can go take it, and that assessment, again, will tell you how
close you’re living in that authentic self.
The reason why this can be beneficial for you, in regards to seeing if you’re surviving or
thriving, you’re going to get one of four answers on that assessment. If you’re anything
below what the assessment calls “Authentic Amy,” that tells me you have some room for
growth. Again, you may be on a trajectory of growth, of getting closer and closer to that
ideal way of being and showing up as your best self and that’s great. If you’re not in a
place where you are actively growing in those areas to get you on that trajectory toward
being your best self, I really want you to consider hiring me as a life coach.
Because no matter what area of your life right now you’re struggling in or you’re just not
thriving in, be it finances, career, marriage, mental, emotional health, spiritual connection,
fun, physical health, parenting, whatever it is, I can help you thrive in that in that area
simply by going through my neuroscience-backed process. I have people come in with all
different kinds of goals all the time. You’ve heard some of the stories on this podcast of
their coaching journey, of losing weight, getting better physical health, getting better
emotional health, improving their relationships, improving their finances, improving their
spiritual connection, which is not a goal a lot of people come in with. It’s just like an added
bonus of them doing this work. No matter what it is you need, that coaching process can
really help you.
I really want to encourage you to look into– If we’re a good fit to coach together, you can
go and take my free assessment to learn if we’re a good fit. You just go to
linsayepreston.com/assessment to go take that– Again, it takes a few minutes. You’ll see
that some of the questions on that assessment and my authentic self assessment are very
similar because it just gives me an idea of where are you in life right now.
The assessment will also tell you, “Hey, maybe you’re in a place where you need more
therapy.” I’ve been getting some of that lately of people who were saying life is horrible
for them, they can’t get out of bed or they just have a lot of things that are holding them
back. That is a huge telltale sign that therapy is a better fit for you. A lot of people think,
“Oh, I just must go to therapy if I’m not thriving in my life,” and you can, but coaching can
also be a really good fit for you. Coaching is actually a better fit for me and for a lot of my
clients. They say they got more in coaching with me and just a few months, than years of
therapy.
Just something to consider to get you there and I know with this whole pandemic going
on, there’s a lot of variables, there’s a lot of things that are unknown. You may be feeling
scared to invest in anything, including coaching, but again, as I started out this podcast,
things like a pandemic or just unexpected things that come our way, just magnify
problems that were already there. I’m really fortunate and I’m grateful for the coaching
that I’ve been able to do.
Not only recently with my marriage, but on myself over the years, because I can only
imagine the amount of anxiety I would have right now and how bad my finances could be
in right now and how bad my marriage would be right now had I not done that coaching.
Really want you to consider thinking about coaching, taking that assessment, really sit
down with this wheel exercise, take that authentic self-assessment. It just takes a few
minutes to do these exercises, my friend. That’s why I’m keeping this episode pretty short
to give you some time to go do this at some point and feel free to reach out to me.
I have a free online community, where we can talk about the episode behind the scenes
and go deeper and talking about the content specifically in your life so that you can really
maximize this content and get some individual feedback from me, all for free. All you do to
join that community is go to lindsay, L-I-N-D-S-A-Y, epreston.com/community to join. I
know I’m giving you a ton of links right now and a ton of things to look at.
Again, go to those show notes, just click wherever you’re listening, click that link of, this
comes from Lindsay Preston’s website and you’ll see all the notes there or you can just go
directly to my website, lindsayepreston.com/unstoppable41 to see all the show notes
directly there as well. All right. I promise that’s all my links for today, that’s all my content
for today. I hope this exercise helped you. I know it really helped me.
I hadn’t done this exercise in a while and it’s just a very black and white way to see, “Wow.
Okay. I’m thriving in these areas. Pat myself on the back and woo. I need some work on
these areas. Let me get my booty in gear to make this happen,” because we never know
when our life is going to end. I know that I don’t want my life to end one day and say, “Oh,
I wish I would have”, right? I always want to say, “Man, I did it all.” That’s why investing in
myself with things like coaching is what keeps me coming back for more because I know
that I want to give this life my all.
Every time I invest in myself, it comes back two, three, four fold, especially financially.
You’ve even heard from the last podcast episode with Ooma. She talked about how she got
a new job and she’s already paying back her coaching investment with that new job. I
know money can be on everyone’s minds right now, but rest assured many times when you
make this investment in coaching, it will come back to you, my friends. Not to mention the
quality of life you can gain from this can be exceptional. Thanks again for tuning in and I’ll
see you next time.
[music]
Hey there, Miss Unstoppable. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. If you enjoyed
it, share it with a friend. Send them a picture of this episode via text, via email, share it on
social media, I’m sure they would be so appreciative to know these strategies and tips on
how to accomplish your dreams. If you are ready to guarantee you’re going to accomplish
your goals and dreams, then it’s time to start coaching with me.
In my nine-month simple success coaching system, I am going to walk you every single
step of the way to ensure that you get the goals and dreams that you want. The first step is
to apply for a free 60-minute consult call. Just go to LindsayEpreston.com/apply to get
started. As always, my friend, remember, you’re only as unstoppable as you believe you can
be, so believe in yourself. You got this.
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