I recently wrote a blog on the concept of “mental association”…our mind controls our behavior in many instances based on premature associations we make in our earliest stages of life. Some of those associations are superficial at best but left undisturbed can create havoc in our life. We are almost on “automatic pilot” in our responses until we go through an awakening and discovery process on how these early “programs” we adopted truly are not serving us.
This blog is about our physical association…equally important in our lives if we choose to “be our best” or at least establish “being our best” as a standard in our lives, understanding that we each define for ourselves what is “best” based on our individual belief systems including how we are lead spiritually.
Today, we actually live at a time when “who you know” can be more powerful than “what you know.” The influences in our lives come from those who we spend the most time with. So, in looking at those “influencers” in our lives, we start as children, and as we grow up the greatest influencers are our parents and our siblings (or, if we are the eldest we probably are more “the influencer” than the “influenced”, good or bad). Some of those influencers are such that we have no control or are not at choice. Family is typically our greatest influencers in our youth, our most formative stages.
But as we get beyond those formative years, we start attracting or being attracted to other people whether in school, work or the dating environment, who become new influencers in our lives. Cutting out negative influences in our lives is critical to moving forward with our goals and achieving the success we may be committed to create. At times, that can be harder than it seems in that our emotions are involved, as well as the fact that we can get enamored by people who appear to us to have greater intellect, business sense, experiences upon which their opinions have been formed. We look to them in order to “shortcut” the process of having to have like experiences just to get where they are. Good strategy, but the downfall occurs in knowing whether they are people we can truly trust? Being impressed by a person’s credentials will teach you it is not always what it “appears” to be.
Over the years I came across a number of people who were quite rehearsed in what is referred to as “get rich quick” schemes, but the values they had also reflected values that I was definitely averse to. If we fail to understand the influences in our lives, we will soon find ourselves in places we never wanted to be. Those with whom we spend the most time with are the ones that will have the greatest influence on us both businesswise and, most importantly, our core values. Your “feelers” should be on alert when you make decisions on relationships, and have utmost clarity on your critical values most important to you so any disappointment is not too great to overcome.
A great way to determine who you give your most limited asset to (your “time”), starts with committing to one of the great quotes by a philosophical writer, Jim Rohn, who said almost 100 years ago, “You will become the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.” This immediately should cause you to make a list (by the way, this is not telling you to leave your family out of your life so let’s except them out of this analysis). So, outside of your direct family, who are those 5 people you spend the most time with?
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Once you complete your list, make a determination if these 5 will truly bring you the success you want to achieve in your life. Then, assess whether you need to “upgrade.” This is not about deleting people from your life if you get some value from them, rather evaluating the amount of time you are spending with those who are in your life, and positioning yourself to maximize the results you are looking to create. All of us have numerous people we spend time with. Surrounding yourself with people who elevate your level of thinking, habits and results is a WIN WIN. This all gets down to the bottom line: time is our only limited asset. So, to truly enjoy success in our lives we want to spend our “only limited asset” in a very effective way! Start choosing today and start reaping the rewards soon.