Today I Choose to be Flourishing – How to be Flourishing

Flourishing isn’t about financial success or checking boxes off a to-do list. It’s about feeling deeply alive, engaged, and aligned with who you’re becoming.

Three years ago, if you had asked me if I was successful, I would have said absolutely yes.

I had a good job that paid well. A nice house, a reliable car, money in savings. My kids were thriving, my marriage was solid, and I was known as the person who had it all together.

By every external measure, I was winning at life.

So why did I feel so… empty?

It wasn’t that I was unhappy, exactly. I was grateful for all I had. But there was this nagging sense that I was living someone else’s definition of success, going through the motions of a life that looked right from the outside but didn’t feel right from the inside.

I was successful, but I wasn’t flourishing.

The difference became crystal clear to me six months ago when I tried my first Dutch pour painting.

The Dutch Pour Discovery

I’ll be honest—I stumbled across a video on Dutch Pour Painting. Then with amazing serendipity, my chiropractor later that day asked me if I did art.  I said “Heaven’s no! My stick figures look like they would do well in the Special Olympics” She suggested that I might like to try some chaotic painting to which I responded “Wow that weird i was just watching a video on Dutch Pour Painting.”  Thanks to Amazon and my A type personality, I had all the supplies by the next day.  My first attempts were actually not bad!  Moreover it was the first art I had created in my adult life – I was captivated.

The technique is simple: you mix acrylic paints with a pouring medium, layer, squirt them on the canvas, and use a hair dryer to blow the paint into organic, flowing patterns.

You can’t control exactly what happens. You can influence it, guide it, make choices about color and movement, but ultimately, you have to let the paint flow where it wants to flow.

As I watched those colors bloom and blend and create something I never could have planned, I felt something I hadn’t experienced in years:

Pure, creative joy.

Not accomplishment. Not productivity. Not checking something off a list. Just the deep satisfaction of making something beautiful with my own hands.

I was flourishing.

The Difference Between Success and Flourishing

Success is external. It’s about meeting standards, reaching goals, earning recognition, accumulating achievements. Success asks: “What have you accomplished?”

Flourishing is internal. It’s about feeling alive, engaged, and authentic. It’s about growth, creativity, meaning, and connection. Flourishing asks: “Who are you becoming?”

You can be successful without flourishing—going through the motions of a life that looks good but feels hollow.

And you can be flourishing without traditional success—living with passion and purpose even if your bank account or résumé doesn’t impress anyone.

The magic happens when they align, when your external life reflects your internal aliveness. But if I had to choose one, I’d choose flourishing every time.

What Success Looks Like:

• Meeting external expectations and standards
• Accumulating achievements, money, status
• Being recognized and respected by others
• Checking items off your to-do list
• Feeling accomplished and capable

What Flourishing Looks Like:

• Feeling deeply engaged with your daily life
• Growing and learning in ways that matter to you
• Creating meaning through your work and relationships
• Experiencing genuine joy and satisfaction
• Becoming more authentically yourself over time

The Enlightenzz Awakening

That Dutch pour painting was just the beginning. Over the following weeks, I found myself looking forward to art time like nothing I’d anticipated in years.

I bought supplies. I watched YouTube tutorials. I experimented with different techniques, different color combinations, different ways of moving paint across canvas.

Some paintings were gorgeous. Others were complete disasters. All of them taught me something about color, flow, and the beautiful unpredictability of creation.

But more than that, they taught me about myself. About my hunger for creative expression. About my need to make things, not just consume them. About the part of me that had been dormant during all those years of focusing purely on external success.

That’s when I started thinking seriously about Enlightenzz. I had the image of Enlightenzz (and the website) for more than 10 years but had did precious little with it. Someday, I said.

For months, I’d had this vision of creating something that would help other women discover who they were meant to be. Not who they should be or who others expected them to be, but who they authentically were when they stripped away all the external definitions.

I wanted to write books that would give women permission to flourish, not just succeed. To become, not just achieve.

My practical, success-oriented mind immediately jumped to the business plan. How would this make money? What was the market? What were the revenue projections?

But my flourishing mind asked different questions: Who would this serve? What transformation would it create? How could I share what I’d learned about living with authenticity and purpose?

The Revolution of Not Caring About the Money

Here’s the most liberating thing I discovered: I don’t care if Enlightenzz ever makes a dime.

I mean, I hope it supports itself and grows and reaches more people. I’d love for it to become financially sustainable. But my sense of flourishing doesn’t depend on its profitability.

What matters is that I’m creating something meaningful. I’m sharing hard-won knowledge about transformation and becoming. I’m contributing to a conversation about what it means to live authentically.

Every day I work on the website, write content, develop the books, connect with readers—I feel more alive. More myself. More aligned with my deepest values and passions.

That’s flourishing.

The Scarcity Versus Abundance Mindset

When you’re focused purely on external success, you operate from scarcity: there’s only so much money, recognition, opportunity to go around. You’re competing, hoarding, protecting what you have.

When you’re flourishing, you operate from abundance: there’s infinite possibility for growth, creativity, meaning, and contribution. You’re creating, sharing, expanding what’s possible.

The shift changes everything.

What Flourishing Actually Feels Like

Flourishing isn’t a constant state of bliss or excitement. It’s more subtle and sustainable than that.

When you’re flourishing, you feel:

Engaged with Your Days

You’re not just going through the motions. You’re present, interested, invested in what you’re doing. Even mundane tasks have purpose when they’re connected to something you care about.

Connected to Your Growth

You’re learning, evolving, becoming. Not because you should or because someone expects it, but because growth feels natural and necessary.

Aligned with Your Values

Your daily choices reflect what matters most to you. There’s congruence between your inner values and your outer actions.

Energized Rather Than Depleted

Yes, you get tired. But your work energizes you more than it drains you. You feel fed by your efforts, not exhausted by them.

Proud of Your Progress

You celebrate growth, not just achievement. Learning something new, trying something different, becoming braver or kinder or more authentic—these matter as much as external accomplishments.

The Practical Side of Flourishing

This all sounds beautiful, but how do you actually cultivate flourishing in real life?

Start with Curiosity, Not Goals

Instead of asking “What should I achieve?” ask “What am I curious about?” Follow your interests, even if they seem impractical or random.

My Dutch pour painting had nothing to do with my career goals or life plan. But it reconnected me with a part of myself that had been dormant for years.

Create Something, Anything

Flourishing requires active creation, not just consumption. It doesn’t have to be art—you could:

• Start a garden
• Write in a journal
• Cook experimental meals
• Build something with your hands
• Teach someone a skill you have
• Organize community events

The medium doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re making something that didn’t exist before.

Measure Energy, Not Just Output

Pay attention to what gives you energy versus what drains it. Flourishing activities might be challenging, but they’re energizing. They feed your soul even when they tire your body.

Embrace the Amateur Mindset

Give yourself permission to be bad at things while you’re learning them. The goal isn’t mastery—it’s engagement. My first Dutch pour paintings were objectively terrible, but creating them felt amazing.

Share Your Hard-Won Knowledge

What have you learned through experience that might help others? Sharing your knowledge—whether through mentoring, writing, teaching, or informal conversation—is deeply nourishing to the soul.

Flourishing in Different Life Areas

Work and Career

• Look for ways to bring creativity and growth to your current role
• Seek opportunities to learn and contribute beyond your job description
• Consider how your work connects to larger purposes you care about
• Don’t wait for permission to flourish—create pockets of meaning within existing structures

Relationships

• Invest in connections that challenge you to grow
• Share your authentic interests and passions with others
• Support other people’s flourishing, not just their success
• Create space for deep conversations about meaning and purpose

Personal Growth

• Learn for the joy of learning, not just for practical application
• Take on challenges that help you become who you want to be
• Celebrate progress and growth, not just achievements
• Give yourself permission to change and evolve

When Flourishing Feels Selfish

Let me address something that might be nagging at you: doesn’t all this focus on personal flourishing seem a bit self-indulgent?

Here’s what I’ve learned: when you’re truly flourishing, you have more to give, not less.

When I was just successful—when I was going through the motions of a life that looked good but felt empty—I was constantly depleted. I gave to others out of obligation and guilt, always feeling like I was running on empty.

Now that I’m flourishing—now that I’m engaged with work that matters to me, creating things that bring me joy, growing in ways that feel authentic—I have genuine energy and enthusiasm to share.

My flourishing doesn’t take away from others. It adds to the collective energy available for good in the world.

The Long View of Flourishing

Flourishing isn’t a destination you reach. It’s a way of living that you cultivate over time.

Some days, you’ll feel deeply engaged and alive. Other days, you’ll feel like you’re just getting through.

That’s normal. That’s human.

What matters is the overall direction of your life. Are you moving toward more authenticity or less? More engagement or less? More alignment between your values and your choices?

Are you becoming more yourself, or more what others expect you to be?

Your Flourishing Starts Now

You don’t need to quit your job or overhaul your life to start flourishing. You can begin exactly where you are with what you have.

This week, try this:

1. Notice what energizes you. When do you feel most alive and engaged? What activities or conversations leave you feeling fed rather than drained?
2. Create something small. It doesn’t have to be artistic—organize something beautiful, write a letter, cook an experimental meal, start a small project.
3. Learn something for pure joy. Watch a tutorial on something you’re curious about. Read an article about a topic that interests you. Ask someone to teach you something they’re good at.
4. Share something you’ve learned. Offer advice based on your experience. Teach someone a skill you have. Write about something you’ve discovered.
5. Measure meaning, not just productivity. At the end of each day, ask: “Did I feel engaged and alive today?” not just “Did I get things done?”

The Paint Pour Metaphor

I think about that first Dutch pour painting often. How I mixed the colors with intention but couldn’t control exactly how they would flow. How I had to trust the process and let the beauty emerge organically.

That’s what flourishing feels like. You make intentional choices about how you want to live, but you can’t control exactly how your life will unfold. You have to trust that when you align with your deepest values and passions, something beautiful will emerge.

Maybe not what you planned. Maybe not what others expect. But something authentically, uniquely yours.

Something that makes you feel deeply alive.

That’s flourishing at its best: creating a life that’s not just successful by external standards, but beautiful by your own.

Susie Adriance is the founder of Enlightenzz and author of “Today I Choose to Be.” She discovered the difference between success and flourishing while creating art and building a purpose-driven business after 50.

Ready to start flourishing?

• 📚 [Get the book on Amazon]
• 📧 [Get a free week of daily prompts]
• 👥 [Join our Facebook community]
• 📌 [Follow us on Pinterest for daily inspiration]

Comment below: What makes you feel most alive and engaged? I’d love to celebrate your flourishing with you!