It’s your choice.  You decide everyday if you are going to survive or thrive, perhaps many times per day.  If you woke up this morning and decided ‘I just don’t feel like going to work today’, you made a choice between surviving and thriving.  When you do go to work, take a long lunch hour just for the heck of it, spend more time socializing than working, put off tasks that you just don’t want to do, you have made another choice between surviving and thriving.

Surviving means doing the minimum required.  It could be the minimum required to keep from getting fired from your job or it could be the minimum required to keep your relationships above water.  It means you are expending a minimum amount of effort toward succeeding in your job (and your future) or your relationships (and your future).  There are many reasons that we chose to conduct our life this way.  They could range from sheer boredom with your job to physiological disorders. 

Thriving means putting your heart and soul into your efforts because you value your reputation, you want more from your life than just hanging on, and you are not willing to let circumstances determine your fate.  Thriving means taking advantage of the circumstances instead of the circumstances taking advantage of you. Thriving means you are willing to take risks.

Fear of failure and fear of success both have a way drawing us into this survival mentality.  Many of us are afraid to try something because if we fail, there is a potential that we could be embarrassed or lose a lot of money we can’t afford to lose (another embarrassment).  Fear of success is similar except that we fear what would happen if we did succeed.  We become fearful that someone would figure out that we don’t truly deserve to be in this position and will expose us as a fraud.  For whatever reason, we don’t feel worthy of being successful. 

So what is the down side of just trying to survive?  It’s two fold – a loss of earning power (money!) and a loss of self-esteem.  By just surviving, you are not likely to get promotions and / or significant pay raises.  Your self-esteem will suffer because you are not doing anything for the betterment of your life. 

But guess what – it is still your choice!