The People Around You

“You are only going to be as good as the people you surround yourself with”

Go back and read that again please….. Ok now think about that for a minute.  This is a quote I definitely have heard before, and time and time again, I definitely put on the back burner.  Recently, in my life, I have been going through a lot of changes. Changes about how I view myself, changes in my career choices, changes in my lifestyle choices, changes in how I choose to follow Christ, and changes about who I spend my time with.  I never realized how much people affected your life, until I started changing who I associated my time with. Believe it or not, even from when we are kids in preschool, every single person we associate with in life can have an impact on our life. These impacts don’t have to be huge, it can be as simple as a stranger saying hi and smiling to you at the grocery store, or maybe in grade school a friend let you borrow their favorite lucky pencil for a big test day.  Maybe because of that stranger saying hi, there is a young kid who decides to not cut themselves today, and maybe because of that generosity of the lucky pencil you grow up and decide to be a humanitarian. This may seem like an exaggeration, but these things have actually happened to people. Every person surrounding you in life can make an impact on your life. Scary  

So now I want you to think about the people you hang around with, that are your support system, your friends, family, co-workers; also think about your goals, dreams, desires.  Do they help you towards your targets or are they dragging you further away? Maybe, they aren’t doing either, you are just stagnant. Like I said previously, I have changed a lot about who I spend my time with, and only then did I realize how stagnant I was being in life.  My goals weren’t being met, my targets weren’t coming any nearer, my mindset was all off and my anxiety was at an all time high. The way my lifestyle was going I felt trapped and confused, constantly worrying about fitting in with certain crowds. This is not what I wanted out of life or how I wanted to handle my average day to day.  This was in no way the fault of the people surrounding me; this was me making my own decisions, choosing the actions I took, and I am solely responsible for the outcomes, but I will say that the people surrounding me affected how I made certain decisions or choices.

The people I spend most of my time with now, are affecting my life in a more purposeful way.  I have been working out with more determination, being more aware of my mindset, overcoming some uncomfortable shit, diving deeper in to my faith, making the most with my time available, and overall I feel happier and on track with where I want to be in the future.  I am making decisions to go to bed early because I know it will be beneficial for my health, wake up early so I have time to get things done, be sure to schedule my Jesus time every day so I can grow in my faith, I am staying on track with nutrition and constantly being inspired by those around me, and I don’t feel the need to suppress or sedate my feelings because I feel more comfortable sharing them.  I don’t feel like I have to act a certain way depending on who I am with, I don’t have to worry or be anxious about saying something weird or out of the “norm”, and I know that the people I have in my corner will certainly hit me with some hard love if they see me slippin or doing something that doesn’t align with what I am working towards. I can just be myself, take off the mask I was hiding behind before, and be who I truly am and not have to act to “fit in”.  THAT is what I mean when I say people can affect and have an impact on your life.  

In order to succeed in anything you need a strong support system and you need the people surrounding you to be making you better.  You need to find people who make you feel like the best and most authentic version of yourself . This is definitely not an easy task, and there will come a time when some people who were once that person are no longer, and you have to muster up the courage to let them go.  I am not going to lie, I struggle with this one, but I have been working on my courage to do so, and it definitely pays off to have peace with the parting. At the end of the day this is my life, my dreams, my goals, my success that I am trying to build. If you have people you associate with who aren’t helping you get closer to these things then you need to put distance between yourself and them. Think again about the people you surround yourself with.  Are they successful, hardworking, dreamers, visionaries, strong, capable, vulnerable, patient, respectful, confident, faithful, wise, honest, willing? 

“You are only as good as the people you surround yourself with”