We all seem to be running around our life like crazy and instead of living our life, we start to survive it. Today, I will be giving you signs that may allow you to see if you are just trying to survive and not living.
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Transcript
Chris LoCurto: Welcome to the Chris LoCurto show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are.
Welcome
Welcome to the show folks and welcome to a new year today. Uh, as you’re starting this year, you’re a little bit into this year. What we wanted to talk about today is how to make sure that you stop surviving and start living. Now as we get to the end of the year. It’s kind of pointless to talk about this. It’s not pointless, but you know, as you’re going into the crazy time around holidays and spending time with family and trying to wrap things up and all that kind of fun stuff, you probably find yourself, even if you’re living well, you might find yourself in a survival mode. For me around here, December is the time of year that I don’t do. I personally don’t do any events. We still do events here. Joel does events, we do events with clients and things like that. But I’m wrapping up a lot. I’m trying to get a bunch of stuff done.
I’m trying to wrap up the year here. I’ve got four businesses I’m trying to close out. All kinds of stuff is going on. So in that month, that’s a little crazy. But what happens when we turn the corner? What happens when we turn the year? We end that last year. You see it all over social media people talking about how, you know, posting funny means of how 2019 was and how fast and how excited they are to get away from it. The reason why can be, it can be a lot of reasons. It could be maybe you had a very tough time. It could be that maybe you’ve experienced loss in your family. It could be. There’s all kinds of reasons that you might want to be getting away from her, ready to get away from 2019 but here’s what I want you to think about.
Are you in Survival Mode?
How much of 2019 where you in survival mode, how much in 2019 have you been surviving? Now, I do not have a problem with you having to survive. There’s one of the, one of the sayings that I’ve hated my whole life is when people say we’re survivors. Listen, it’s okay to have survived. It’s okay to need to survive, but you don’t want to classify yourself as a surviv- or because what that means is, you’re constantly living in survival mode. You’re constantly having to survive something. And if you’re constantly in survival mode, that means that you’re not thriving. That means you’re not getting past it. So today I kind of wanted to talk about, uh, some of those signs that you might be in survival mode. So we’re going to hit those when we come back and right after this all right folks, we are back in. We are talking about signs that you might be in survival mode. So as I go through these, you know, if you just take one of these out of context, then you might be going, well, Chris, I’m doing really good in that one thing. I’m struggling with it right now. But does that mean I’m surviving? You may not be, but here’s what I want you to do. I want you to think through the things I’m discussing and think through the things I’m explaining and ask yourself the question, are you thriving in life? Are you thriving in all areas of your life or does it really feel like you’re surviving? If you’re doing okay, how’s your spouse doing? How are your kids doing? How, how’s your family doing? Is somebody struggling or is everybody struggling in being in survival mode?
Where is your energy focused?
So let’s just kind of take a look and walk through, uh, some of these signs. And this doesn’t mean this is everything. It doesn’t mean that this sums up everything and wraps up everything. But these are really good ways of looking at how you are and how you’re living life right now. So the first thing to take a look at is where is your energy focused? So is it focused on the next 24 hours and is it always focused on the next 24 hours? Now, I am not saying that you need to constantly be focused on a five year plan for your life. I’m not saying that you need to constantly be focused on dreaming about, you know, what life could be or where you should be. But my question is, do you spend a lot of your energy focused on what’s going to happen in the next 24 hours? Do you spend a lot of your energy worried, concerned? And for those of you that are high D’s that say, Oh, I never worry about anything. Yeah, you do. So we all do. Do you have a concern about what’s going to happen? Are you trying to control the next 24 hours? Are you trying to make sure that uh, you know, you don’t lose control in the next 24 hours? What is your focus on? What are you putting your mind to? What are you putting your energy to? If it is absolutely about what’s right in front of you, then there’s a possibility that you are in survival mode. I think this is going to sound like a Jeff Foxworthy show right here. So folks, listen to me. If you’re not eating or sleeping properly, you have to ask yourself the question, why, why are you not? I can tell you this, one of the things that we help people to understand here is what you’re putting in your body is absolutely affecting your mental state, your emotions.
Energy and your health
If you are somebody who eats sugar, and I don’t care if it’s a, you know if it’s a candy bar, if you find that you are going to sugar every day on a daily basis, there’s a reason for some of you, you eat a lot of sugar. It blows me away to watch people load their kids up with birthday gifts and, and you know, holiday gifts and it’s all this sugar and all this crap and all these cakes and all this stuff, and then they wonder why their kids are sick. They wonder why their kids can’t focus on stuff well. They wonder why their kids, you know, are struggling emotionally, are bouncing off the walls. Guess what? It’s the same thing for you as an adult. All right? If you are putting sugar into your system today, why? Why are you eating sugar? Now? I’m not saying that you pick up an Apple and you eat an Apple. I’m talking about going to just regular sugar a, on a consistent basis. There’s a reason that you’re doing that and a lot of you already know this, but a lot don’t. Sugar has the same response on the pleasure centers of your brain as cocaine does. We will find people a lot of times that come to Next Level Life or come to Stratline come to some of these really tough, uh, intense events and they want to eat a lot of sugar during the process because they’re trying to make themselves feel happy. Here’s the problem guys. What you don’t realize, what you don’t recognize is that sugar that you’re putting in your system on a consistent basis is destroying your gut bacteria. Yes, you’re feeling good at the moment. Yes, you’re feeling good for a time, but you’re actually causing your body to wear down and respond in emotional ways. You’re affecting the way you emotionally respond to stuff, the sugar high. It’s, that that description is there for a reason because there’s a time that you’re on a high and then what happens? You have this crash. It’s definitely a physical crash, but it’s also an emotional crash as well. You experience these ups and downs emotionally of how your body is responding to the crap that you’re putting in. Same thing for caffeine. Same thing for processed foods. All of this stuff that you’re putting into your body, if you’re not eating well, if you’re not eating properly, your body is responding to what you’re feeding it and if what you’re feeding it is crap, then you can’t be surprised that it’s responding in a crappy way. All of that is also very much so affecting your sleep, so taking a look at how you respond to eating emotional highs, and emotional lows, that’s going to affect how you emotionally go to sleep at night.
It’s going to affect what your brain is processing, and what you’re thinking about, but it’s also going to affect how you sleep. It’s going to affect the serotonin, which is 80 to 90% of that is created in your stomach for your brain. A lot of people don’t understand that it’s going to affect your melatonin. It’s going to affect the happy drugs inside of your body that your body creates, right? Folks don’t understand that when you dump a bunch of caffeine into your body, you’re actually telling your adrenals that create adrenaline not to because you have a stimulant. Well, guess what? Your adrenals are needed for healing. Healing your body. So when you’re sick and you’re telling your adrenals not to work, is it surprising that you’re sick? All of this stuff is affecting you. If we eat properly, if we put good quality, wholesome foods in our body, organic foods, get rid of the pesticides. Get rid of the GMOs. If you aren’t loading up on caffeine and listen, this is a place where we serve pretty amazing coffee here. We just don’t drink it like crazy, right? We don’t overload ourselves with caffeine. We don’t, you know, you’re hard-pressed to find a lot of sugar in this building. I mean, seriously. It’s so funny. We, we do have, uh, some raw sugar in the raw that we bring out every now and then for retreats. When we have a bunch of people show up, but on a regular basis you’re not going to find a lot of sugar in this building. Why? Because we understand this. We understand how much it affects us. We don’t want to light up our pleasure centers in a difficult time. Instead, we want to be able to deal with it. We want to be able to handle it properly.
Are you just wanting to get through the day?
We don’t want to survive. Another sign that you might be in survival mode is feeling like you just get through the day. If your day looks like you are running 90 to nothing, trying to get a whole bunch of stuff done and it just feels like you’re just making it through the day to end up crashing at the end of the day. Then you have to ask yourself, what in the world are you focused on today? What are you doing? Now, I’m not saying, you know, we have plenty of times on the Oxys in the ditch that the ox is in the ditch. We go get the oxide of the ditch, right? No matter what it takes you, you bust it to get it done, but you shouldn’t be running through your day, so frantic or so crazy or so out of control that you just feel like you’re just getting through- that you’re just making it through the day and you’re so looking forward to the day just stopping, right? That might be a sign that you’re in that survival mode of surviving the day, which means we need to make some adjustments to your day. And again, we’re going to talk about later on how to start thriving. Another sign is that you react to situations instead of thoughtfully responding. Man, Oh man. Oh man. Oh man. Our world is so moving in the direction of the reaction, that people are just reacting to stuff. Stuff is coming along and it’s coming at such a great speed in their life or so out of control in their life or so frustrating in their life that they just react where they don’t have good thoughtful processes. They don’t, respond in a way that really gains quality perspective about the situation that they don’t stop and go, how’s this going affect this? What do I think about this over here? How’s this gonna impact my family? Instead they just constantly react to situations as it comes their way. And in between situations they’re hoping and waiting for the next situation. They’re hoping that, uh, it doesn’t come along but their wedding for it to happen any second now. So if you find yourself reacting to situations instead of thoughtfully responding to them, you might be in survival mode.
If you find your tasks either mind numbing or overwhelming, if you find the things that you’re doing in the day and Hey, stay at home parents, this could be you. You might be in a situation where kids are running around like crazy, so much stuff to get done and you find you’re just constantly overwhelmed. If you experienced that, uh, leaders, team members, if you’ve got so much stuff in your task and it doesn’t even have to be so much, maybe it’s just that you find the things that you are doing in the day, um, overwhelming then you might be in survival mode, right? You might be struggling with not being able to prioritize well. You might be struggling with not being able to be proactive on your tasks. You might be experiencing the same tasks that once upon a time weren’t so terrible or so difficult. But now because of other things happening in your life, the tasks are, are struggling. They might be mind numbing. They might be the thing that helps you to not think about anything else, right? If you’re looking forward to the task that you have to do because it keeps you from thinking about anything else. You might be in survival mode. You might be running around like a crazy person but never catching up. So many times when we’re in survival mode, we spend a lot of time getting things done because we convince ourselves that if we’re running like crazy, if we are, you know, if we’re running around like a chicken with our head cut off, then we’re obviously doing things. We’re, we’re important, we have worth, we’re getting stuff done and we’re avoiding other things, but we’re never getting caught up. It’s a never ending cycle of doing stuff, not necessarily the right stuff, not necessarily the needed stuff.
It’s just stuff. And if you’re running around like a crazy person, once again, you might be stuck in that survival mode. If you have a loss of motivation, uh, if you’re feeling trapped, if you’re feeling helpless or if you’re feeling defeated, then there’s a really good chance. And again, take a look at the amount of time you’re spending in these, these emotions. If it’s just happened because something happened in your life, then that’s understandable, but that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about that this is just how you feel on a day to day basis. If you procrastinate. And a lot of people today are procrastinating on the more important stuff in their lives and going after stuff that’s just not important, right? It’s like spending time, you know, you’ve got to do a project for work or you’ve got to lead something at work and instead you spend your time going through pointless emails or you spend your time, uh, trying to solve a problem that really isn’t even important right now, but it’s helping you to not focus on the more important stuff. Why procrastinate? Why delay that? Why push that off? Because that thing most likely is conflict. Most likely it’s difficult. Most likely you may struggle in it, right? Instead of hitting it head on and getting it done, you end up procrastinating.
Are you isolating?
If you find yourself isolating, a lot of times people don’t recognize that they isolate themselves, they, they distance themselves from situations, from specific people. It could be people who hurt, are controlling, are manipulative. It could be people who would help in the situation. It could be somebody who’s going to tell you the truth and what you need to hear in the moment. But it’s the last thing that you want because you know, it means that having that type of accountability is going to reveal to you that you can do something about it. That you can fix something. So a lot of times we think if we just isolate ourselves from the world, from certain people, then it’s going to be better. We can, we can stop and just breathe for a moment. Well, how often does that actually happen? Unfortunately, um, isolating causes you to stay focused with one thing that is potentially hurtful and painful and that is your own thoughts. We were not created to be isolated. The first displeasure that we see from God when he creates this world is that man is alone. And that is not a good thing. We were created to be in community. We were created to be around people, right? I’m not saying that you should put yourself around and you know, toxic and unhealthy people. What I’m saying is if you’re isolating, that means that you’re also isolating from anybody who’s potentially healthy. You’re probably also isolating from anyone who’s potentially going to hold you accountable. And what are you leaving yourself with your own thoughts and feelings and emotions. And if you’re choosing to isolate, that means that you’re probably not in the best frame of mind.
So you’re probably in survival mode.
Urgent attitude.
If so much of your to do list at work or in life feels urgent, if everything feels like, or most of it feels like it is, there’s this incredible urgency that you must get this stuff done. That means day after day after day, you live in this urgent life, this urgent world of things that must get done. If that’s where you are, you’re surviving, right? You are. There’s a reason they are. Everything is so urgent because it’s feeding worth. It’s feeding this. Hey, I don’t like how things are. I’m struggling, but this makes me feel good about myself. So take a look at how urgent everything is in your life. If it’s urgent, then you’re surviving right now. Again, caveats are, we’re not talking about the oxygen in the ditch. We’re talking about this as a day after day after day thing.
Another sign is that you’re losing hope that you don’t have much hope in life and people and your situation and you’re feeling alone. So that could also be a great sign, a very realistic sign that you’re survive in if you don’t have hope, if your, if there isn’t anything that you’re really hoping for having hope in and you’re feeling so alone, then there’s a really good chance that you’re stuck in survival mode. All right. When we come back, we’re going to talk about how to start thriving and what to do.
Next Level Life
Next Level Life is our two day personal discovery experience. It’s a one on one personalized event where we guide you through a process to help you discover your root system, to get unstuck in life and to discover what’s holding you back from freedom and peace. Imagine this, what if you could wake up every morning with a clear purpose? What would it look like to have healthier relationships with less conflict? Where would you be in a few months, a year, five years if you had clarity, purpose, and peace? Probably a big difference from where you stand today. Now I know it’s possible because I’ve been where you are asking myself, is there more? There is and there is a better way and it starts with Next Level Life. You can go to chrislocurto.com/discover to take the next step. Now, if you’re struggling with this contentment, regret, or not feeling good enough, which most of you are, if you’re filled with anxiety or your relationships are lacking, don’t keep going through the same motions every single day. Learn how to move past the things, robbing you of peace. Go to chrislocurto.com/discover and take the next step.
Choosing God first.
We are back and we’ve been discussing being stuck in survival mode and now we’re talking about how to start thriving. First thing I want you to know and the first thing you will always hear from me is if you want to thrive in life, if you want to not survive in life, no matter what you’re experiencing in life, whether it’s the good stuff, the bad stuff, the alone stuff, the communal stuff, it doesn’t matter. There should be one focus. That is your number one focus above all things, no matter what it is, the thing that should be most important in your life period and where you spend a great deal of your focus, your energy, your hope is in the King of the universe, as in God, in your relationship with God. Now, I can tell you from having been on both sides, and when I say that, I mean living a life, you know, trusting God, believing in God, but really not spending a whole lot of time in God to wow. It’s such a big, massive part of my life. I spend a lot of time focused on my relationship with God every single day, the weekends, nights during the day. It doesn’t matter. God is the number one focus in my life. He is the center of everything before all people, before anything. Well before this business, right? Well before anything. If I don’t realize that He’s the one who’s created the opportunities for this business, then I’m really confused. If I don’t realize that I don’t own a single gift or talent, this is probably a first time for a lot of you to hear this. You don’t own any of your gifts or talents. You didn’t create anything. You didn’t come up with those gifts or talents. They’re not yours. They’re His, they belonged to Him. Right? So if I think that I own any of this stuff, I’m confused.
It has been a phenomenal life. Switching from relying on myself and believing in God, uh, but trusting in me and believing that I make all things happen and being able to, uh, go after my own vision in life to switching, to focusing so heavily on God. And yet the part of my life where I’ve thrived the most was when I decided that there was, it was enough of telling myself I needed to bury my face in God’s word, that I needed to spend more time in prayer, that I needed to do more of what he was telling me. When I finally stopped telling myself that I needed to do that and started doing it, that’s when I really started to thrive in life. And so the first thing you need to do is choose. Choose to understand that He owns you. God owns you. He made you, He created you. He is the one who’s in control of your destiny. He owns you. So since you’re owned by Him, shouldn’t you spend more time focused on Him in Him, in His word, moving in His direction. Think about it. He is a great Father who has great things for you, who wants the best for you. He is a God who has pursued you your whole life. So if you want to thrive in life, start by seeking your Father in Heaven. Start by seeking the God who created you. Start by seeking, seeking the Lord who has pursued you your whole life and ask him what he wants. Make him your priority. Focus on the things that He has for you. Well, I’m so busy with all of this life stuff. Okay, well then stay there. But don’t be surprised, right? Choose. Choose to make God a priority. Choose to make His will a priority in your life. Choose to make spending time with Him and listening to Him a priority in your life. Here’s what I can promise you. The moment you do, the moment you will start thriving. I’m not saying you’re going to be happy somebody posts. I saw something the other day that you know, you know, God allowed last year to be a struggle because He’s going to make you happy this year. He’s focused on your relationship with him because here’s what he knows. The more time you spend with it, the better your life gets. Not easier, not necessarily happier, but I can tell you, being able to walk through difficult times and painful times with God sure makes me a heck of a lot happier. Sure. Makes me more blessed. Sure. Allows me to focus on continuing to seek him instead of seeking my ways.
N.T. Wright in the book, Surprised By Hope. In the beginning of that talks about how there is, there are these road signs toward God and toward what He’s, what He’s doing. There. You can see the road signs, but they point towards a mist of fog. It’s like this fog that you’re walking into. And I could not agree with that more. When I was in control of my life and my vision and my destiny, when I was setting those destinations and it was all about me and it wasn’t about Him, I would pepper Him in because I’m so great. I could see my, I could see my next destination. Clearly I could see where I was going because that was my, that was the, the human capacity that I had to set destination, giving that type of stuff off and giving that type of stuff up and becoming really focused on the destinations that He’s setting for me, it’s amazing how much I see the road signs clearly, and they lead to a destination that I can’t totally see and it doesn’t matter because it’s what He has for me. And every single time it’s way bigger than I can focus on myself. That destinations are way bigger than any destination that I’ve set. So first thing, if you’re going to start thriving, you’ve got to focus on that relationship with God. When in your life are you going to make Him number one, when are you gonna make them more important than your spouse, than your kids, than everything else if you want to. in Next Level Life, one of the things we talk about, uh, uh, we call the, uh, the relationship circles where the most important, you can read this in Ephesians. God lays out and He talks a heavy portion on who He, the most important relationship should be.
And that’s with God. That should be your biggest focus, the next most important being is your spouse. Way more important than anything else. Not your kids are not more important than your spouse, folks, a lot of you have that so screwed up and so wrong. Your kids are not more important than your spouse. Eventually, they’re going to leave and you’re still with the spouse. Make that person the most important person, most important human in your life, then your kids. But God comes first. Here’s a surprising piece. Uh, it talks about it in the Bible. Uh, the fourth relations. So you have God, you have your spouse, they have your kids. Then it’s the employer/employee relationship. Now it’s talks about it as the slave master mentality, but a lot of Western, uh, believing people, uh, because of the crap that we went through with slavery here, don’t understand that that’s more of an an indentured servant, not the crappy slavery stuff that we’ve experienced here, uh, centuries ago or a century ago, whatever. Um, so what it’s talking about is understand those that work for you. If you’re the owner, they put food on your table, you know, they do the work that puts the food on your table. If you work for somebody, that person’s paying you to put food on your table. Believe it or not, that should be your next most important relationship. So business owners, it’s taking care of your people, not your best friends, not your extended relationships, but those that work for you. For those of you that work for somebody, it should be that owner, that person that that is paying you to come and do what you do. Now, a lot of you may disagree with that. A lot of you may not like it. Don’t blame me, blame God. He’s the one who put it in place. Go, go read it in Ephesians and you will see how God lays out those relationships. But if you ever want to show somebody that they’re not important to you, show them that somebody outside of their circle is in their circle or ahead. What do we show God all the time, that people are more important. For some of you, what do you show your spouse? That your kids are more important. So get those relationships correct and right and you will be surprised at how less surviving you do and how much more thriving you do. So next thing is understand that not all selfishness is bad.
Punching Self Care theology.
Now I am going to punch right in the face this self care theology that is going around right now, there are a lot of people who are preaching crazy selfishness and they’re saying that it’s not, Oh, it’s okay to take care of you. Oh, it’s okay to take care of you to the extent that all people do is look to self care, that they’re always focused on themselves.if you want to Jack yourself up, if you want to mess with your mind, make yourself the most important being, make yourself the focus of you and what you are going to find very quickly is that you become incredibly selfish. You will become somebody who does nothing but survive. So this self care thing is just a, it’s very deceiving. It is okay to take care of you. There are times we see that Our Lord and Savior went away and spent time away, but he did not make His self care more important than everything else. Okay? So don’t get confused with that. There’s even some preaching that says, if he doesn’t, if Jesus didn’t self care first, then he couldn’t do. No, throw that out. Get rid of that concept. Jesus was not more focused on himself than he was other people. He was not more focused on himself than his relationship with his father, Right? So please understand this. You know, get those pieces correct in your life. Not all selfishness is bad, but being self-focused is bad. So you’ve got to find the balance here. If you’re going to thrive, you have to understand that when you just focus on you, which is survival mode, believe it or not, a lot of that is focusing on your situations and where you are, but blaming it on other stuff. When you focus on you, then you can’t thrive because everything is based on you. So what should quality self care look like? Spend time with God. Focus on Him. Focus on talking to him. Back in my early days of ministry, one of the things we would teach people how to pray is, you know, take 15 minutes, spend five minutes praising God, spend five minutes praying for other people, spent five minutes praying for you. That’s not really though. That’s pretty good prioritization right there, right? But don’t go focusing on, you know, dial a Jesus, Hey Lord, give me this, I need this. Will you do this? When do you spend time praising God? The more thankful you are in life, the less you will focus on your problems in life. So spend time, self care with God. If you’re finding that you don’t have time to spend in prayer, spend in his word, adjust things, say no to other things so you could say yes to this right so that self care is great. Make sure you’re getting quality sleep. Now, some of you with newborns and all that kind of stuff, I understand right now’s not the time. You’re not getting the best sleep, but try and find some time. Try and find some time to rest. Try and find some time. For those of you who are reading the Bible and seeing that God, there’s a lot of things that God hasn’t changed. That man has. Take a really hard look at what the Sabbath is. There is a time that God asks you to cease. He didn’t ask you. He tells you to stop the creative work.Cease. The more you have to keep working during that time, you’re saying that his creative abilities are not enough, that you must continue to create and He knows you need rest, cease, stop, stop the creative stuff. Stop the work stuff, rest, rest in Him. Focus on that, right?,Make sure that you’re getting healthy. Eat healthy foods. Make sure that you’re taking the time in your day. Now does is every single day here, do I stop and take a lunch break and, no, but most of them I do. Most of them I do, right? I take time in the morning to eat well. I take time at night to eat well. I take my lunch, you know, I find there’s going to be time we, we are huge here for those that have been through two events here you will see that we are very communal around food. We share time when we have Next Level Lives in here, the team is eating breakfast with the clients, lunches with the clients, the facilitators are eating dinner with the clients. We’re very communal around that time and you see that that’s a very important thing throughout the Bible.
It’s and that, that the community in food draws you out of all of your focus on crap and junk and stuff, right? So find to make sure that you are feeding yourself well, that you’re getting proper sleep. Other self care things, you know, I mean it’s, there’s nothing wrong with going and getting a massage. There’s nothing wrong in going and taking some time just to make sure that you are not following this belief system, that it’s all about you because it’s not right. The more you focus on selfishness, the more you focus on being self centered, the more problems you’re going to experience in life and the more you’re going to survive. You can thrive way better when you put quality priorities in place, right? Priorities in place and focus on serving God, loving His kids. Take a hard look at what life’s giving to you and what’s not, what it’s not giving to you many times, victim mentality.
Victim Mentality.
So when you’re surviving, there’s a really good chance you’re also stuck in victim mentality. What is victim mentality? Victim mentality is basically this: I’m a victim to the things happening to me. All of this stuff is happening to me. Here’s something I believe. I believe you can’t be a victim without a villain. So take a hard look at your life and ask yourself the question, who is your villain? Who are your villains? Even if you blame life as being a villain, right? All this stuff is happening to me. When stuff is happening to you, you’re a victim, right? Because you have the ability to set healthy boundaries. You have the ability to set priorities, you have the ability to push back. All of those things are possible. So if stuff is happening to you, take a hard look at what you’re saying life is giving to you. Then take a hard look and say what it’s not. You know, I’m not a victim to this situation. This isn’t really happening to me. This is something that I have the ability to work around, put healthy boundaries in place, yada, yada, yada, whatever that is. So if you’re blaming life or blaming people for all the stuff that’s happening in your life, you are stuck in victim mentality. Start picking that apart. If you want to thrive, you’ve got to be very realistic on what’s happening to you as a do my air quotes and what’s not right? If somebody is coming along and you know being a total jerk to you and that’s realistic and that’s happening, okay? While we see that put in healthy boundaries, but if somebody is coming to you, they’re struggling with something and you’re receiving everything that they’re struggling with as it happening to you, then you’re stuck. But healthy boundaries in place. Get that off your plate. Look at it with good quality perspective in reality and choose health. Another thing you need to do if you’re going to thrive, find support in close, healthy relationships in healthy community groups, right? Choose to not isolate, choose to go be around healthy people. Now am I saying, you’ve got to swear off all unhealthy talks to people. That’s not what I’m saying, but you should really be choosing to spend a lot more time with healthy people than unhealthy people, right? Those you surround yourself with are going to have a massive impact on how your day goes, how your mind goes, how your emotions go. So choose healthy people, choose healthy community groups. Find a group of healthy people that you can spend time with studying the Bible, studying you know, other things, whatever it is. I don’t care if it’s finding a healthy group of people that, uh, are doing some, you know, a kayaking, I don’t care.
Whatever it is, find a healthy group and spend time in community I’m going to prefer that you find a good solid, uh, community like a home church or you know, a home ecclesia that you can spend time with people learning more about God. I think that’s going to be your best bet, but choose, right? Another thing is boundaries and not just boundaries, but healthy boundaries. You need to make sure you even understand what healthy boundaries are. You need to make sure that you understand that if somebody is truly being toxic, truly being manipulative, truly being controlling to you, that you have a choice. You have the ability to put healthy boundaries in place with that person. You just have to choose to do so. You have to make sure that, you know, you can’t tell somebody, I’m sorry, I’m not going to receive that crap. I’m not gonna receive that lie. You’re not going to set my reality in that way because that piece right there is not truth. I’m sorry. I don’t want that in my life and choose. Now, keep in mind, if you’re really being super selfish and self centered, then you may actually be hearing some truth from somebody and not wanting to hear it. Listen, listen to them. As painful as it may be, if they get unhealthy in the way that they’re delivering it, put healthy boundaries in place, but that’s not what’s happening. If it’s somebody who’s calling you out on your crap, they’re right. They’re doing it in a healthy way. Listen to them. The unhealthy toxic folks, put some healthy boundaries in place.
Seek your purpose.
Next thing, what is your purpose? Make a decision on why you exist. Make a decision on why you’re here. Is it so that you can run a 16 hours a day at work and then take your two kids to their seven different, uh, athletic programs every week and not have a good relationship with your spouse and feel completely worn down?Is that your purpose? Is your purpose to run 90 to nothing? Or is there a bigger purpose that’s got to have a bigger purpose for you to exist? Take a hard look and see what His word says, right? For me, it’s focusing on loving him with every bit of my, my mind, my soul, my resources, and loving you as I love myself. That is my purpose. My purpose is to put Him first. Focus on him, love him incredibly well with everything I got, and then be able to love me and love others as well. So make sure you’re deciding on what your life purpose is. If it’s to go do something that points back to you, selfishly, I bet you it’s not it. So take a look at that. Last thing I want you to do. I want you to give, and I say, last thing I want you to do, I’m out of time.
This is all the stuff that I’ve got for you for today. I want you to give from a healthy place, choose to focus on taking care of other people. I am not telling you to go and submit yourself to a controlling, manipulative person and be their punching bag. I’m saying, find a way to love people well from the gifts and talents that God has given you, whatever those are, from those resources, right? Take care of God’s people. Take care of God’s creation in that way. Find a way to give from a healthy place. Don’t go spending your time supporting somebody being toxic. Find the person who needs the hand up and reach down and lift them up. Help them righteousness, justice mish pot and Seneca and Hebrew. Pull them up. Lift them up. Help them to a better place, but do it from a healthy place.
Do not hear me say, keep running like crazy right now, and then add more stuff to your plate by helping other people put the right priorities in place. Prioritize correctly so that you can have a very healthy, thriving existence. Now, you can’t grow in a toxic soil and toxic influence. It’s just not going to happen. So do whatever it takes to get good soil around you so you can thrive. You can learn more about how to do everything I’ve talked about today by going to ChrisLocurto.com/nextlevellife. You know you need to be here. You know you need to go through this. Many of you been telling yourselves for years, you need to get to this event. Get your butt to it, ChrisLocurto.com/nextlevellife. Well folks, thank you for joining me today. I hope it has served you well. I encourage you to please subscribe, rate the show, share the podcast to help more people join this community and get their lives changed. And as always, take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life, and Jonas on the next episode.
