Are You Flourishing or Floundering?

Eudaimonia.

It’s a funny word. And right now, it’s one of my favorite words.

In terms of etymology, eudaimonia comes from the Greek word e? (good) and daimōn (spirit). Or good spirit. In everyday usage, it generally translates to happiness, welfare, or flourishing.

Put simply, eudaimonia is the act of living well, of flourishing. Something we all hope to achieve.

So how do we do that? Well, that often leads to another funny Greek word – Areté. Areté translates as “virtue” or excellence,” but in the context in which it was introduced to me, it means expressing our highest potential. Or at least, trying to close the gap daily between where we are now and where our highest potential may exist.

It all starts with?Areté. As we know, the word directly translates as “virtue” or “excellence” but has a deeper meaning—something along the lines of “expressing our?highest potential.” When? Moment to moment to moment. When we express what we’re capable of in any given moment there’s no room for regret or all the other negative stuff. We feel great. We flourish. – Brian Johnson

Brian Johnson, whom I quoted above, runs an organization called Heroic (see heroic.us). He teaches that we have three fundamental aspects of living, or what he calls The Big 3, where we can most directly express our highest potential: Energy, Work (or Service), and Relationships (or Love).

Most of us get the work and love aspect of the Big 3. It feels good when we achieve, and when we connect. The rewards are harvested when we serve and when we are cherished.

But it’s that third concept of energy that needs to be explored.

The work and relationships aspects of our life demand the best of us, they require us to show up, and they often punish us when we fall short.?

Our work and our relationships can be both our most rewarding and most taxing aspects of life. Many times, they can be both on the same day.

The ups and downs accompanying them can leave us feeling anxious, abused, and unappreciated just as much as they can cause us to feel respected, adored, and celebrated.

It can be easy to let the undulations of those areas be the sole determinant of whether we have a good day or a bad day, or whether we are flourishing or floundering.

But it doesn’t have to be. Not if you place priority on the third aspect of living.

Each of us must learn to eat first.

Learning to Eat First

The key to all well-being is found in the energy bucket, this third dimension.

Before you can serve, before you can love, you have to fill your own cup.?

Unfortunately, many of us either do that not at all, not consistently, or not well.

We continually fall short of our potential in work and relationships because we ignore the foundational requirement of creating energy.

If you want to actualize your potential and truly serve, you need to become radically selfish at creating, harnessing, and leveraging your own energy.?

If you ever hope to realize eudaimonia, you must learn to protect yourself first.

This is admittedly easier said than done.

Making ourselves a priority can feel like an impossible lift. Our kids demand our attention in the morning. Emails have filled our inboxes before we’ve even brushed our teeth. The commute’s a bitch. The internet is slow. Interruptions prevent us from finding productivity, let alone flow. Life is a constant din of never-ending background noise.

We’re lucky if we eat at all, let alone eat first.

Can you relate?

Well, friend, I call bullshit on that.

Your inability to make yourself a priority is why you are floundering.

And the ability to change is both simple and well within your power.

The Four Creators of Positive Energy

Creating positive energy and emotion isn’t rocket science. It doesn’t take massive amounts of time, nor does it require you to turn your life upside down or sacrifice those who matter most to you.

Every airline reminds you on every flight that you have to put your own oxygen mask on first. This is the same idea.

It’s simple, but it does require some intention. The four activities of daily living that will most positively impact your energy are:

·????????Sleep,

·????????Eat,

·????????Move, and

·????????Peace.

None of these are difficult. None probably require much explanation. And for today, I’m simply going to make a single suggestion for each creator that you can begin with now.

Eat: Intentionally reduce your sugar (and fake sugar) intake. You know it’s not good for you. Stop putting less of that crap inside of you. This applies to fake sugar too.

Move: Walk more. It’s the simplest activity, and arguably the most beneficial, available. Open your fitness app on your iPhone and look at your daily steps. Set a goal to increase it by a thousand. How? Walk to the mailbox. Park farther away. Walk around the block.

Sleep: Most of us exist at an unacceptable level of exhaustion. We cannot show up at work and love when we are tired. The most universal suggestion I see for improving sleep is to turn off your phones/computers/TVs an hour before you sleep. That blue-light jacks with your head. Break the addiction.

Peace: Find silence. Meditate. Read. Turn off notifications. Sit outside. I don’t care how you do it, just make sometime every day to be where your feet are. Of the four creators, this is the one most available to you.

Everything that has to do with expressing our potential is firmly in our control. We just have to own it.

Are Your People Flourishing or Floundering?

That question posed in the title of this article was addressed to the singular you. But what about you as an organization?

Are your people flourishing or floundering? Are you creating a quality employee experience? Are you encouraging an environment that helps people flourish?

Given that our work is one of our big three, you impact whether or not your people flourish.

Organizations that create and promote an environment of well-being outperform those that don’t. It’s your benefits program. Your office layout. Your expectations. Your fairness. Your time off policies. Your vending machine offerings. Your kindness and your intentions.

You are an influencer of flourishing.

I am an influencer of flourishing.

We are all influencers of flourishing.

And that can be a heavy responsibility or a beautiful gift.

Your choice.

Will you flourish with that responsibility? Or flounder with it?

Please let me know if I can help.