From Surviving to Thriving: The Ultimate Roadmap for Men in Hard Times

Men, are you ready to become the man you know you were meant to be? In this episode, we discuss how to transition from merely surviving to truly thriving in life as the man you want to be. 

We cover a four-stage roadmap to help you achieve your goals: Surviving, Stabilizing, Rebuilding, and Thriving. 

You'll learn how to address your mindset, eliminate harmful habits, develop healthy routines, build strong relationships, set and achieve goals, and deepen your faith. 

00:00 The Ultimate Roadmap to Thriving
01:39 Stage 1: Surviving
04:23 Stage 2: Stabilizing
08:38 Stage 3: Rebuilding
13:22 Stage 4: Thriving
15:19 Conclusion and Community Invitation

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Transcript

Don Ross: 0:00

Men, are you ready to thrive? Is it time to finally become the man that you truly want to be? I, I know that that's what you want. I know because I hear it from you and because this is why you are tuning into content like this on a channel called something like Manhood Tribes. You are looking for a way to be and to become the man that you really do want to be. That's great. I'm so glad that that's what you want, and I want to be able to help you with that. But I think if we're honest, most of us don't feel like we're in that place. We feel like we're doing more of just a little bit of surviving instead of thriving. And so today I want to try to help all of us, I wanna lay out a little bit of a roadmap on how we can go from that place of just surviving and getting by to really living and thriving as the kind of men that we actually want to be. So today here on the Manhood Tribes Channel, that's exactly what we're gonna do. I'm gonna give you something of an ultimate roadmap to show you how to move from a place of darkness to really, to into a place of light and health and overall goodness and achieving things in your life that you really do want to achieve. Okay, so let's get into it. First, I just wanna remind you that here at the Manhood Tribes Channel, my job is to try to do three things. I want to give you a clear vision of what it means to be a man. I want to give you a clear challenge to build strong male friendships, and I want to give you a clear path on how you can do both. And so really here today, we're gonna talk about that third thing, a clear path towards the things that you want to actually be and do as a man. Okay? Let's get into it. I am gonna talk about it in terms of four different stages, and the first stage is what I'll call the surviving stage. You're really just kind of getting by. You're doing your best to sort of hang in there, but life is not feeling like you want it to feel, and it's not moving in the direction that you want it to move in. You are just barely hanging on and just making it from day to day, from paycheck to paycheck, from one moment to the next because. Things just feel difficult. Maybe they even feel out of control, but whatever the feeling is exactly for you, y you know, your life isn't what you want it to be, and you're ready for it to move in a different direction. So what do you do when you're starting kind of from scratch when you're starting at rock bottom and you need to be able to find a way out. The first thing you wanna try to address in this surviving stage is your mindset, and in particular, the lies that you probably are believing about yourself and about your life. Because you're in this place, I want you to go back and watch episode 12 here on the channel, which will help you deal with confronting the lies in your life. You need to identify these lies that you're believing and how you can confront them with some truth so that you can start adjusting your mindset. You can start really paying attention to the things that matter and believing the things about yourself and about life that actually are correct. Otherwise, you're going to be stuck here at the bottom of the drain for a while. You need to confront those lies and help you get into a better mental space so that you can move in the right direction. The second thing you need to do in this surviving area is that you need to actually address the vices in your life that are kind of keeping you stuck in this bottom place. Okay? So I want you to also go back and watch episode 41 where I talk about some of the crutches that we as men tend to use for coping, the things that we try to use to avoid the pain in our life, guys. It's time to be done with those things, whether it's porn, whether it's weed, whether it's workaholism, whether it's video games, whatever it is for you. And it's a bunch of different things for different men, and that's okay, but it's time to actually address it in a way that you can move away from it. It's time to get some freedom from those areas so that you can start moving towards things that are gonna be bring real good and real value into your life. Okay, so in this surviving stage, those are the couple things that you need to try to address so that you can start moving away from the bottom of the drain. You gotta get your mind right and you gotta get some of your behaviors and your habits moving in the right direction so that you can take some steps away from this surviving stage. All right. The second stage that we're gonna talk about is what I'll call the stabilizing stage. This is where you just sort of start to get your life to a healthy baseline. You're trying to get your rhythms. Moving in the right direction. You're trying to get your relationships a little more healthy and you're just trying to, again, stabilize things. You're trying to get to a healthy baseline. So let's talk about rhythms. We've talked about that some before here on the channel, but what you want to try to do is just develop good. Daily habits. You need to be getting eight hours of sleep a night. You need to mostly be going to bed and waking up at the same time every day. You need to be limiting the amount of technology that you're exposed to, especially first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening. Take a break from that dang phone. It doesn't need to dominate your life the way that you let it. So set it aside. Develop some healthy boundaries and some healthy rhythms in terms of the way that you use technology. Develop your healthy habits around food and fitness. What is it that you're eating? How can you start, whether it's tracking your calories or just measuring your intake in some other way. How can you help get yourself to a place of eating the things that are actually going to empower you to be the kind of man that you want to be and not just. Fuel your negative emotions because you're sad or lonely or frustrated or just bored. And you, what you go to as your byproduct of boredom is food. Okay? It is time to lay that aside and develop some healthy habits around food and around fitness. If you don't go to the gym regularly, well that's okay if you're doing something else to be able to maintain a fit and healthy lifestyle, but you need to be doing something. One of the five marks of manhood. And especially kind of the core of what it means to be a man is this mark of strength. Men's bodies are meant to be strong. You need to be developing yourself physically. You need to be challenging yourself to be stronger and healthier than you have been. This is how you move towards a healthy baseline. All right. So getting some of those rhythms in place will help you be able to do that well. You also need to get your relationships to a healthy baseline in this stage as well. So whether that's your family relationships, which are probably your most important relationships, your wife, your kids, if you have them. Or if you're single and you're wanting to move towards those kinds of relationships, what do you need to do to do that? What do you need to do to start moving towards a woman who you could see her being a long-term partner for you? What do you need to do to actually approach the idea of marriage? If you've been dating for a while and you're not sure if you're the kind of guy who could actually be married, how do you become that? You need to start moving towards that as your healthy baseline. But, and maybe most importantly, for all of us as men, you need to be getting some healthy and strong male friendships in your life, okay? I say it over and over on this channel, you are not going to become the kind of man that you want to be without strong male friendships in your life. It is time to start putting some energy into developing those male friendships. All right. I've talked on multiple episodes on this channel before about how to do that. In fact, I did a whole series on developing strong male friendships. So go back and watch. That series that will help you figure out what you need to do to develop those friendships no matter what stage you're in. If you have no friends at all, and you need to figure out how you can get outta your house and start getting around some guys, I talk about that. If you want to talk about how to be able to take your current guy friendships. To a deeper and more significant stage of friendships so that those friendships are pushing you to be the kind of man you want to be. I talk about some of that as well. If you want to talk about how to bring your friends together into something of a tribe so that you're doing those kinds of things together as a group, I talk about that as well. Go back and watch those episodes as a way to help you figure out how do you develop the kinds of friendships that you need to have as a man. Okay, so this is the stabilizing stage, and this is how you get to a healthy baseline. You're creating the things in your life that are gonna help you get to where you want to go. I. The third stage is the rebuilding stage. This is when you're actually starting to put some scaffolding in place to start building the kind of life that you really do want to have. Stage two is probably more about building the foundation. Stage three is when we're actually gonna start putting together the building that you want to see. That is the kind of life that you want to be living. And so this is where you need to start doing some things like setting goals. It's time to actually figure out where are the places where I want to be succeeding? Where do I want to actually achieve some things in my life? Maybe that's relational goals. Maybe that's career and financial goals. Maybe that's friendship goals. Maybe that's retirement goals. Maybe you, you name it, whatever your goals actually are. Those are okay things, but it's time to begin putting those things into place and writing them down, put them on paper, and don't just set long-term goals. Set short-term goals as well. So maybe you've got a goal about your health and fitness, where you want to get to a certain body path. Body fat percentage and to be able to see your abs. Okay, great. That's a common goal for a whole lot of guys. That's no problem, but you're not going to accomplish that overnight. So what are you gonna do in the short term? How are you gonna set some attainable goals that are gonna help you be able to get there? Can you change what your food? Patterns look like. Can you increase what you're doing in terms of exercise or just change up the way that you exercise so that you're helping yourself be able to get to those goals? Here is where you start really building into those kinds of things that make a difference in your life for the long haul. You also want to start taking a look at some of the things that really matter more in your life than just some of those baseline things. So this is where it's time to look at those marks of manhood of things like honor and allegiance. To what extent are you being a kind of man who is honorable? Are you living the way that the group of men around you would encourage you to live? Are you upholding the shared values of that group and are the shared values of that group the kind of values that you want to prioritize? If not, maybe it's time to get some new friends. The point is, are you being a man of honor? Are you living in such a way that you are upholding the values of your peers, of the men around you so that you can be worthy of honor and that you can honor them as well? Allegiance, especially when it comes to ultimate allegiance. It's time to really take a look at your faith. What are you doing in terms of your relationship with God? Are you following God in the way that you actually want to? For a lot of men, I know that faith can tend to be a back burner issue. It becomes that thing that you sort of put off and put off and, oh, I'll get to it. But you know, I've got my career to have to focus on and I've got my family that I've gotta take care of and. You know, finances need to get an order and we're planning for retirement. And, you know, all of those things can feel like they are bigger priorities, or at least they're more urgent than dealing with your faith. But your faith is going to be the thing that all of those other things begin to orbit around when you get your faith right, all of those other priorities start to take their appropriate place in your right, in your life, and you get them. Aligned correctly, and you start actually succeeding in those places because you know what the goals are. It's not just about giving time and energy to your finances or time and energy to your family relationships or time and energy to your career. You start to have purpose. Those things because your faith is what becomes your grounding center, and it gives purpose to all of those other things. How much time and energy should you be spending on your career? Your faith will help you figure that out because God will help give you a centering place and a purpose for your career. Why are you working? Is it because you really love the thing that you're doing? Is it because you're making money that you can invest in other things? Is it because the difference that you're making in the world is something that you really want to do? Or maybe are you in the wrong job altogether? Is the purpose of what you're doing not lined up with any of those kinds of things? Only your faith is going to be able to help you. Understand that kind of purpose in your life, for your career, for your family, for your finances, for your health, for every area of your life. So it's time to focus on your faith, get right in your relationship with God. Find other men around you who are going to prioritize the same thing and hold each other accountable to growing in your faith of God. Alright, so that's the third stage, the rebuilding stage. And now the fourth stage is the thriving stage. This is when things really begin to fire on all cylinders. It's when you start to see all those goals begin to pay off. You've got some structure in place in your life that is helping you stay. Keeping on in the right direction, and you've got the relationships in your life that are helping you enjoy the life that you have and encourage you to continue getting better. Now, this is what a lot of guys would call rarefied air, right? This is the place that. All of us want to be, but I hope you can see that it doesn't happen overnight and it doesn't happen without a lot of other things in place. I'll be honest, I don't feel like I'm in this stage yet. I feel like I'm probably in stage three trying to help all of us be able to move towards that direction of being in stage four. I would like to be thriving. But I know that I've got some work to do when it comes to continuing to set the kinds of goals that I want to accomplish and building the things in place that are gonna help me accomplish them. Okay, so I wanna encourage you to do those same things as well so that you can move on to that stage four, that you can get to that place of thriving where you feel like you have the things in place in your life to help you actually enjoy the life that you are living, to being the kind of man that you truly want to be, and to seeing your life count for the things that you want it to count for. Joy comes when you feel like you are living out your purpose and you're able to see the fruit of doing that. This isn't about living a perfect life because that's not a thing. No man lives a perfect life, but it is about making progress. With purpose. And as you begin to build those right relationships and those right rhythms and those goals and your faith and all of those things start to align, that's when you get to a sense of, yeah, I am becoming and I am being the man that I truly want to be. I hope this roadmap has been of some help to you and that you've got some ideas of things that you want to do to help yourself move from surviving to thriving. Guys, if you have enjoyed this content, I would love it if you would like this video and if you would subscribe to the channel just to help us get in front of more men and to encourage. Other guys with this kind of content. Guys, we need to be helping each other out right now. This is a season where men are struggling and we will struggle less if we can come alongside each other, but we've got to do that. So like and subscribe. Yes, that will help me, but mostly you're helping other men by doing that, by being able to get them in front of some content that will make a difference in their lives as well. I would also encourage you to come check out our Manhood Tribe's community. If you want to connect with other men who are enjoying this type of content, that's the place to do it. If you're wanting to get better at being a man, if you're wanting to get better in your relationship with Jesus, and if you want to connect with other like-minded men who are doing the same, the Manhood Tribes community is the place to be able to do that. So just go to manhoodtribes.com community and you can sign up for joining the community when we. Are able to launch it and there are some spots that open up. I hope that you'll do that because I would love to connect with you inside our Manhood Tribes community. I wanna leave you in this video by encouraging you to comment below. Just say, what is one area where you are wanting to grow and get better as a man? What's one area that you want to try to improve at as a man, I can't wait to read your comments and to engage with you there, and I look forward to seeing you next time right here on the Manhood Tribes Channel. I'll see you then.