How to thrive in 2025 🎉

Happy New Year! 🤍 🎆 

I took a break from writing to be present with family. We also experienced two deaths in our family during this season. Life has a way of bringing perspective, doesn't it?

As we step into 2025, this isn't your typical "crush your goals" or "10x your business" message.

There's enough of that rhetoric out there.

Instead, let's talk about what it means to truly thrive.

My definition of thriving has radically shifted. Let me explain...

The more internal healing I experience, the more I realize abundance isn't what I thought it was. Those fancy things I used to chase? They're like trying to catch the wind - always just out of reach, leaving us disappointed and disillusioned.

Here's the shift:

Thriving (then): Get as much as possible as quick as possible.
Thriving (now): Having margin to love and serve well with what I have.

What does real thriving look like?

• True soul-rest

• Discovering and cultivating your gifts

• Being present with family without checking your phone

• Taking time off without anxiety eating you alive

• Creating your "art" without seeking validation

• Having enough to share with others

• Not needing achievement for acceptance

I was talking with an entrepreneur this week about taking time off. He found it incredibly difficult to not be "busy." Why? Without the distraction of work, he had to face the inner noise. “Why aren’t you producing, working, busy?” 🥹 

Sound familiar?

So how do we thrive in 2025? Here are six keys…

1. Let Go of the Past - Those mistakes you're not proud of in 2024? That failure that still stings? It's a new day. Give yourself permission to release it.
   

2. Stop the Comparison Game - Coveting what others have comes from a scarcity mindset. Focus on what you've been given to cultivate. That's where joy lives.
   

3. Daily Mind Renewal - We're shaped by our environment and what we allow in. For me, this means daily silence, solitude, and meditation on the Psalms (and other scripture). It means catching those negative thoughts before they run wild. Or if they are, grabbing them and slamming them to the ground.
   

4. Create Your Art - You're a creator. What lights you up? What does the world need?
   

   One example for me, it's creating strategy and solving business puzzles. I spent years building multiple 8-figure companies, but I was missing something crucial. I was creating from force, not flow. I was building what I thought I should build, not what brought me alive.
   

   Here's what I learned the hard way: Sometimes your true art emerges after you strip everything away. If you’ve lost, or things haven’t worked out, take that as a sign to discover your art.
   

   This happened when I stepped away from my business in 2022. Now I spend my time reading, thinking, exploring ideas, and helping others find creative solutions that actually fit them. They’re created with intentionality.
   

5. Focus On the Work that Serves - Self-absorption can lead to self-loathing. Want fulfillment? Help solve someone else's problem.
   

6. Reset Expectations - There's this thing called the Yerkes-Dodson Law - it shows there's a sweet spot for expectations and performance. Expectations too low? Boredom. Expectations too high? Anxiety.
   

   The key? Match your expectations to your current resources, skills, and knowledge. Stay in that optimal zone.

   
   Remember: Focus on effort, not outcomes.

   Building from joy and service will always be more satisfying than chasing arbitrary goals.

Here's to thriving (the real way! 😊) in 2025.

This idealogy here is to create more margin that creates a richer life. Spiritual, emotional, physical and financial margin

To the Overflow,

Chris

P.S. Does this resonate with you? Hit reply and let me know your thoughts on thriving in 2025.

Or hit this poll. I read them all. 😉