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“Life is a series of steps. Things are done gradually. Once in awhile there is a giant step, but most of the time we are taking small, seemingly insignificant steps on the stairway of life.” ~Ralph Ranson.

There are many good reasons why the title above is so, and one really good reason. Here are a few of the good reasons:

• Genuine success at anything requires understanding your fundamental purpose in trying to do the thing and then finding the best perspective to carry it out. These places in time and space aren’t easy to spot and take lots of hunting time and effort.

• What you really want and how you define things like success and failure and surviving and thriving, are usually done by the trial and error method and are forever growing. Also, sometimes you really don’t know what you want until you have enough of what you don’t want to know the difference.

• In order to graduate from surviving to thriving you have to become a master reality repairer and that requires knowing and acting on the truth about how people and life actually operate, apart from what you think you know. Obviously getting to this level of wisdom doesn’t occur overnight.

• Negative thoughts and failures are permanently perceived realities that aren’t so easily “deleted” in your mind and heart; subtle negativity is even harder to “catch and release.” We all have blind spots that are invisible to us.

• We have much more experience at failing to survive than succeeding to thrive, which is most often a entirely new and unfamiliar experience, requiring dedicated experimentation and practice. And, the proper feedback only comes in the form of later consequences of the results you get.

• Most people fail to survive because they quit too soon (instant need gratification), and this is even truer with the journey to the door to thriving. This last door is often just around the next corner you are most likely to give up on getting to.

Now the one really good reason why it is so difficult to go from surviving to thriving has to do with a very fundamental belief we all have about life. We can either believe: (a) There are two opposite and warring forces in life—good and bad—that work for or against us, or (b) There is really only one force in life that is good as the ultimate reality and we wrongly interpret and act on it as having an ugly twin.

At best, the first belief can only lead to a 50% survival success rate, whereas the second belief is the only reliable path to thriving. What is most amazing is why it takes so long for this second belief to surface and gain the following it deserves. That is a question for all time.

Practically speaking, many of us lean towards the single force belief. However, true thriving can’t involve even subtle doubts that creep into occupying the space between you and your noble goals. The leaning has to let go to a full and “hold-back nothing, close your eyes, hold your breath and jump in with all fours” kind of embracing. That sort of total commitment isn’t so common because it is putting all your eggs in one basket; we generally don’t think that is such a good idea so we hide a few reserve baskets. Consider this story:

A pig and chicken were walking down the sidewalk of main street one Saturday morning. They both noticed a sign in the diner window that read, ‘Ham and egg breakfast—all you can eat for $ 1.50.’ “Wow,” said the chicken, “That’s quite a deal!” The pig responded, “Well that is easy for you to say.” “After all, all you are doing is making a small contribution, but for me it is a total commitment.”

The outcome of having single-mindedness about life is never disputable. Anything less than a full and utter commitment to single-mindedness gets half-baked results in the big scheme of things. This is in spite of the convincingly compelling case for sticking with the dual, good vs. bad belief.

In a paradoxical way, understanding the reasons for the difficulties that confront us in first trying to survive and then eventually thrive, makes them a little easier to overcome. Thriving is the most difficult thing to do in life, but it is not impossible.

Written by William Cottringer


Author's Bio
William Cottringer, Ph.D. is President of Puget Sound Security in Bellevue, WA, along with being a Sport Psychologist, Business Success Coach, Photographer and Writer living on the scenic Snoqualmie South Fork River and mountains of North Bend. He is author of several business and self-development books, including, Re-Braining for 2000 (MJR Publishing), The Prosperity Zone (Authorlink Press), You Can Have Your Cheese & Eat It Too (Executive Excellence), The Bow-Wow Secrets (Wisdom Tree), Do What Matters Most and “P” Point Management (Atlantic Book Publishers), and Reality Repair Rx (Publish America) This article is an excerpt from an upcoming book Reality Repair.