What your friends are really doing to you...

Your inner circle.

I have heard it time and time again. Who you surround yourself with is who you become. It may seem like another one of those corny, token quotes that doesn’t really mean anything but this one is legit. It’s so legit I consider it a law. I see it hold true time after time in my own life.

Look around. People that are always in trouble with the law, who do they hang around with?  Good valued people?  No!  How about people who have become successful with their careers?  Who do they hang with?  People that don’t have a job?  No!  The same thing with kids.  If your kids start running with the wrong crowd what is likely to happen to them?  That’s right. They become those kids and that’s a slippery slope and tough to get back from.

What I am saying here is that people will naturally gravitate towards and become what they surround themselves with. The greatest influences in your direct life are who you become. If you are around negative, pessimistic people all the time guess what…you will become that. If you hang around people that win all the time guess what…that’s what you will get too. It works all the time. It won’t be an instantaneous thing but it will slowly happen over time.  It’s no different than the person that gains 50lbs over 5 years. It happens so slow its sometimes not noticed until there is a wake-up call by someone or something.  

With that being said, be careful and be intentional with who you choose to hang with. Your choices are like seeds. Those seeds are either good or bad for your life. They will either take you closer to where you want to go or further away. People are either growing or dying. There is not coasting. In other words, there are no neutral people in your life. I’m talking about your family, friends, co-workers and anyone else you associate a fair amount of time with.  Even what you listen to and read. This is what you become. It’s all moving you one way or the other.

The first thing to do to take control over this is to take an inventory of who/what you surround yourself with. Are they positive or negative for you? From there you need to decide how you handle them. If they are simply sucking your energy you need to make some changes. If it’s family that is tough but if that is the case find ways to help grow them and move them in a better direction. If they aren’t willing to “move” then you need to move on and stop wasting energy. Finally, if you don’t feel like your inner circle is growing you to where you want to be you need to find new people!  Get out and network and meet people doing what you want to do, living the way you want to live, taking the risks you want to take, enjoying the life you want to live. You get what I am saying. To do this you will need to get uncomfortable and to do that you will need to take actions that you have probably never taken before.

At the end of the day, this process and actions will pay off. You owe it to your future and your family to pick the right people to surround yourself with. If you don’t you will be constantly frustrated as to why you aren’t finding what you want in life. Make it a priority to surround yourself with people that challenge you, that build you up and help you get more out of life. Before you know if you will be a different person. You become the contributor. You become the author of your life.