Who do you allow to influence you each day?
The people that you surround yourself with have a large effect on your life. They can influence how you think and what you do.
Choose who you want to be around. What kind of life do you want to be involved in? Surround yourself with people that are related to the attributes of the life you want rather than what you don’t want.
Something I have told people for years. “I you don’t ever want to get into a bar fight, don’t go into bars.”
The places you frequent and the people in those places have an affect on you and your behavior.
Everything rubs off on you. Have you ever noticed how you will take on some characteristics of the people you are with and how this changes when you are with different people? You may act one way while at work and a different way with your mother or at a religious meeting. Who you are with and what you are doing has an affect on you at least while you are there. Think about this and what you want in your life, are you involved with the people and activities that are supportive of your deep desires for yourself?
Now you may be thinking, how can I surround myself with the people doing something particular when I am not yet doing it myself. Well sometimes this can be a challenge, but get as close as possible and continue to work your way closer, which you will be able to do as you meet more people and grow yourself.
First steps can be as simple as just spending more of your time doing something involved with what you desire rather than what you don’t. For example, if you work in construction and you normally stop by the bar after work and spend a couple hours commiserating with your work buddies and you really have a desire to be a big time stock investor, why not go home instead and get online and educate yourself and do some research. You may not be able to hang around current investors but you can prepare yourself to do so. Then you could join an investment club who welcomes beginners, and so on. You will start to meet more people as you place yourself in new situations.
In analysis, hanging out with the people at the bar will support you with what you now have in your life, if that is what you want OK then do it. But if you want something else, you must make the change, don’t expect it to just happen. The opportunity of meeting someone who could be a fantastic investment mentor is more likely to come up somewhere other than a bar, you need to put yourself in situations that are better for opportunities to present themselves. This is part of your responsibility in being ‘available’ for the opportunities that the Universal Spirit will offer you to move in the direction of your dreams.
If you keep on with things just as they have been in your life you will just get more of the same, but if you want things to change, you must change – your thinking, your behavior, your perspective, and the people you are around.
This may seem difficult right now from your current perspective, but as you spend some time with the idea, along with a feeling that there IS a way, you will gradually see things that you can do to change.
One of the potentially toughest areas to manage who you are around, is with relatives. Remember that it is ultimately up to you who you are around. You can choose how often and for how long you interact with a relative. If there are people who you see as not being supportive or even destructive to the life you want, reduce your interaction with them. You can even stand up to them and let them know that some of their behavior or what they say is not what you want to be involved. You can tell them that you don’t want to discuss certain topics when you are around. That you understand their views on the subject but that the two of you just need to agree to disagree without trying to convert each other every time you interact.
The bottom line is that just because someone is related it does not mean that you must interact with him or her. Some families seem to have a very caustic core component that is not supportive to personal growth and self-improvement, are you going to let the views of them guide your life? You may need to step away from most interactions with these people in order to get yourself free of their kind of thinking and allow yourself to change yours. The time not spent with these people can be utilized for your development into the situations of your deep desires- grows yourself.
Many successful people have noted that along the path of their growth they had to give up people that were no longer fit into the vision they had for their life. They had to find the people who did. This is part of the change process that some find difficult, leaving people who they know and are accustomed to along with trusting that they will find new people to associate with. WE do need to interact with others, that is part of our makeup, but you can go change period while you wait to discover the new people to relate with.
Another aspect of changing who you are around as you grow is with the people who become threatened by your new thoughts and actions. Many times people close to you will feel uncomfortable with the changing you and express this discomfort. They may try to negate what you are doing in some way or get upset with you because you are not interacting with them in the ways they are use to. Remember that just like you, they get are accustomed to the kind of interaction the two of you have in the past and will feel unsettled or disturbed by any change to that.
This is something that may occur as you grow and change. You must decide to let go of these existing relationships in their current form if you are going to move to a different place in your life, you can reduce your interactivity with a person, you can eliminate it or you can alter it. Much of how a relationship changes depends on the kind of relationship and the flexibility of the other person. But you must take command and do what is best for your continued growth, if that’s what you want.
The saying, “have your cake and eat it too” relates to this. You can’t change your life and keep the life you currently have at the same time, you will just remain frustrated. The inability that many people have with making this kind of change in existing relationships is what holds them back. This is where much anxiety, stress and depression come to be when you deeply want one think but are remaining in another. You may think that you can’t get out of your current situation but you can when you decide to face your feelings and the reactions of others.
Fearing the response of others can be daunting but it must be done for your life to go on. Remember that the reaction and opinions of others should not be taken as guidance for your life. Listen to your inner higher self for this. Of course others will have their opinions, they wouldn’t be human if they didn’t, but this is not the definition of who you are. A hundreds people will have a hundred opinions of you, but the only one that matters is yours.
When the wind blows, a tree will sway, leaves will come off and even branches may break, but does the wind define what the tree is?
Don’t let the ‘wind’ from others define you, go with your inner guidance, it is intended specifically for you. Take the steps you are guided to take and place yourself in position for the opportunities the universe presents you to further your expression of your purpose.
John
“Happiness comes from within. It is not dependent on external things or on other people. You become vulnerable and can easily be hurt when your feelings of security and happiness depend on the behavior and actions of other people. Never give that power to anyone else.”
— Brian Weiss M.D.
“That’s the risk you take if you change: that people you’ve
been involved with won’t like the new you. But other people
who do will come along.” — Lisa Alther
You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
— Marianne Williamson
“We need not be afraid to touch, to feel, to show emotion. The easiest thing in the world is to be what you are, what you feel. The hardest thing to be is what other people want you to be.”
— Leo Buscaglia
“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have and
only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest
you let other people spend it for you.”
—Carl Sandburg
“Do not choose bad friends.
Do not choose persons of low habits.
Select good friends. Be discriminating.
Choose the best.” — Dhammapada 78
“Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky
