The People Around You Determine How Far You Can Go

Read this quote from Abraham Lincoln and reflect its meaning:

"Give me six hours to cut down the tree and I'll spend the first four of them sharpening the ax."

What do you think was the meaning of these words?

Their meaning is that if you decide to achieve something, then it may make sense to spend some time and effort preparing to achieve this goal and gaining the knowledge and tools you need for it.

• But what should you do if your main goal is a fulfilling and wonderful life?

• If you're trying to apply Lincoln's life lesson to this goal, how do you do it?

The answer to this question may come as a surprise or may upset you.

The quality of your life depends on your philosophy of life

So what tools are available, in principle, to improve your life and how can you spread them to clarity?

The most important tool that can help you tell the life you have always dreamed of is the people around you!

The people around you, and especially those you leave in your inner circle of friends, have an incredibly strong influence on your behavior, character, and what you accomplish in this life. Those with whom you walk the path of your life - what thoughts, words, and deeds push you - set the course on which the ship of your life moves.

In the words of world-renowned motivation guru Jim Ron:

"You - you are the average value of the five people you spend the most time with."

The people you spend most of your time with determining who you are and who you can become. They determine what issues and interests are at the forefront of your attention. They affect what patterns of behavior and beliefs you are constantly dealing with. Sooner or later, no matter how strong and convinced you are, you begin to think and behave exactly like them.

As Darren Hardy wrote in The Cumulative Effect:

"According to a study by social psychologist David Mcclelland of Harvard University, the people you deal with regularly determine about 95 percent whether or not you will succeed in your life."

This is a lot.

This very, very strongly affects your life, whether you notice it or not.

Your deepest dream could be much higher and there are more people around you right now. And sometimes, to see this dream come true, you can't do without a radical change in this environment.

By changing your environment, change yourself

When you want to reach a goal, you talk a lot about how to set a goal for yourself correctly, motivate yourself and improve yourself, but at the same time, you often forget about how big a role your environment plays in everything. these. You act as if your personal growth takes place in a vacuum and is not affected by anything. Unfortunately, nothing can be further from the truth than this statement.

The extent to which you can realize your full potential depends entirely on the type of people you surround yourself with.

Don't underestimate how profound the impact of your inner circle of friends is on your performance and motivation, well-being, happiness, and success.

And this has two consequences that simply cannot be ignored.

First of all, cynics never give up on their final (and very limiting!) The belief is that people never change, so there is no need to try. In this sense, they are wrong. As Harvard psychologist Sean Aycor noted in his book "Great Potential," "this is not scientifically supported." People constantly convey their emotions, moods, and beliefs to those around them. Constantly. We are constantly changing the people who are with us and we are changing ourselves. Change your social circle and change yourself.

Secondly, the best thing to do to maximize your potential is to surround yourself with people who will contribute to this. Take an active part in creating your social environment. Don't let it depend on your usual closeness or familiarity, but consciously determine for yourself what opinions, patterns of behavior, and philosophy of life you are ready to see in the people around you that you are not ready to you don't see them at all.

Take control of the environment around you

The truth is, if you don't control your environment, it will control you.

Each of us knows that some people pull us back and some help us move forward. This is how life works, and instead of resenting it, you should accept it as a fact and learn to consider its impact.

For example, you just can't communicate with negative people all the time, while you expect your life to be positive.

Moreover, even if you do your best to succeed, but you are surrounded by people who convince you that you will not succeed, in the end, they may be right.

Lately, we often say that we all live in our own "bubble", not especially in contact with others. But if so, why not make sure your bubble is invariably raised - high enough to reach your goal.

Creating your team

And now let's take the last step.

We started by comparing the good life and realizing your dream with the tree Lincoln wanted to cut down, but now you can rethink your goal: instead of wanting to cut down the tree, try to live as well and interesting as possible, and therefore in instead of sharpening your ax, you put together a team that can help you with that.

At this stage, you will most likely want to know how to select your team members - what criteria you need to use to create your immediate environment.

This should have made you think, but because all people are different and my goals may differ significantly from yours, I can't share with you a specific plan and clear criteria that you can use right away. and unconditionally.

I am convinced that only you can become an incredibly successful and happy person and no one will do this for you… and, consequently, only you can understand which people can help you with this better than anyone else. It's up to you and only you.

However, I can give you one more principle for choosing the closest circle of friends, which works for almost everyone and in any situation…

Surround yourself with people you admire.

Inevitably you become like the people you constantly communicate with and spend your free time with. This means it's about to be the most delusional time of the year, as well.

So, you will "capture" from them those patterns of behavior and perspectives on life that have helped you succeed, and this will make it much more likely that you will get similar results in the future.

So ask yourself a few simple questions: Who do you spend the most time with? Which person do you know that you admire the most? Are these two categories of people the same? And if not, why not?