Thrive, Don't Just Survive!

Thriving versus surviving during your busiest work week is absolutely attainable. Simply living to get through the week short changes your ability to bring your best self to your family and professional life. Mentally putting your expectations on the thrive setting takes a little work in advance. But lucky for you, I’m here to show you how.

Pine Daisy House Shares ways to cultivate a thriving life, especially during busy weeks

I’ve spent spent nearly two decades in the field of education doing everything from providing childcare, leading classrooms full of children of all ages, facilitating adult training, and coaching other teachers. I have a bachelor’s in organizational management, a masters in education, have been married and cultivated a family for 18 years. So let me share some things I’ve learned along the way. Press in with me to these ideas and hopefully you can add them to your arsenal to equip you in advance of your next busy week.

What Do I Mean By Busy?

Let’s consider the word busy as an adjective for the sake of today’s conversation. A word that we use to describe our life sometimes. I love how Oxford defines it and I love their example sentence even more.

How perfect is the example? Am I right? Being too busy to enjoy ourselves. That’s the essence of what I mean by busy. It’s when your schedule, demands upon your life at home and work weigh down on you, and you can’t seem to come up for air.

This is when we need a game plan. A plan to equip us to thrive through the busy not simply survive.

Thrive in Your Life

We all have busy weeks as defined above. I even do, an organizational expert. So when life gets too busy, it’s important to lean on previously determined plans and skills so we can still thrive.

Here’s what I mean.

When you are at your most relaxed, that’s when you should put together a list, a journal page, or even a note on your phone of the things you know you NEED in order to stay in a thriving state. You may choose to carve out the self-reflection time while on vacation, laying in the hammock on a beautiful summer day, finding a quiet place to journal on a hike, in a coffee shop, or even as you process out loud with a loved one.

In your reflecting, I’d challenge you to take some time to be outside, and in a green space off an electronic device. Here are some of the proven benefits to being outside. The mental health benefits of being outside have been shown to reduce anxiety, and depression. It can even be a preventative task against those things.

Fight to Keep Margin

Lastly before we dive in to a few tips I’d like to share one more thought about this concept of thriving. Just because you have time for one more thing. Or just because you have room for one more mental task, doesn’t mean you SHOULD take it on. We all need to maintain a certain level of margin in our lives in order for us to thrive. I call this mental space or schedule space. Some need more margin than others.

The reason for margin is because life happens. Car accidents, illnesses, job uncertainties, or family adjustments. The unexpected is to be expected in our lives. And if we are too busy to barely survive, when an unexpected event happens it can put us into a damaging tailspin that can take a very long time to recover from.

So maintain some extra schedule and mental space in your life, it’s okay. Because when the unexpected events or big tasks of life show up you’ll be grateful for the margin you’ve created. I compare it to a financial emergency fund. You don’t know when you’ll need it, you just know you will. When the time comes to use, you are so thankful to have it!

Tips to Thrive

Alright, since we all have a firm foundation set on the reasons to pursue a state of thriving all the time, let’s dig into some tips.

Here are some practical ideas to add to your arsenal and busy week emergency fund

Have a premade grocery list, and menu, on hand and in reserve for when you don’t have the mental capacity to create one.
Reserve a few frozen dinners (pre-made or bought) in the freezer.
Do your best to reduce schedule commitments on bookending weekends around your busy workweek or weeks. This will allow you to rest up in advance and recover after.
Clean your living zones in batches. Ticking off the cleaning to do list slowly but effectively across days will give you positive mental momentum. Think 15 minute cleaning tasks.
Prep in advance, go to the gas station, grocery store, make sure kids lunch items are stocked and ready, do your laundry. Use your schedule margin time in advance because you know you won’t have it later.
Take care of yourself by drinking plenty of water, get outside a little, and prioritize sleep.
Flex your schedule keeping muscles. Sit the family down and walk through the schedule together, get everyone on the same page and make sure the family is clear on the dynamics of the week.
All hands on deck, everyone in the household should chip in during busy weeks. For a few reasons, a family is a team, and it helps spread the mental weight of the practical tasks amongst the household. You don’t have to do all the vacuuming and cleaning, everyone can help.

Seeking to Thrive

Seeking to thrive in your daily life even on the busiest weeks, doesn’t need to be a chore. Taking time, when you have mental margin, to reflect on what thriving looks like in your own life is the key for this success.

You can do it! And if you need any help, or have questions, please don’t hesitate to direct message me on instagram, drop a comment below, or send me a message here on my site. Cultivating a life where we live intentionally it not only gives peace to our families and to you, but fosters a deeper connection with those we love.

Here are a few more articles that may help on your journey

With hope for your intentional life and home,