Choose Your Friends, Change Your Life
I’ve been told “surround yourself with good people” more times than I can count, but doing this is easier said than done. While most of us know that choosing good people to keep close in our lives is beneficial, many of us don’t truly understand the full extent to which the people around us affect our progress, success, and fulfillment. And even if we do, it seems rare that anyone explains how to assess our own relationships and gain the courage to raise our standards.
Why We Have a Hard Time Picking Better Friends
Usually the younger you are, the harder it is to intentionally choose your friends. For example, as a middle schooler, you likely had few options to choose from. Naturally, there were clicky groups at school and only so many seats at the lunch tables. Back then, you either found a few friends or a small group of people to spend time with, or you didn’t.
Even if you did find friends, it was unlikely you’d find ones who truly and completely accepted you as you were.
For the people who didn’t find many friends, you likely learned to be fearful of not being accepted by others. Social interactions involved trying to be the kind of person that other people would like instead of allowing yourself to just be you.
For most people, it gets a little better in highschool. But even then, the same people come to the same building every day. So unless you were enrolled in an activity external to your school, your pool of available friends to fish from was still small and limited to people who had mostly grown up in the same community.
Because of the friendship limitations of our early years, many of us learn to not be picky about who we keep close to us.
Unfortunately, this means a lot of us hang out with people for not-so-great reasons. Instead of hanging out with people because we think they’re good for us, we hang out with them for reasons like “that’s just who I’ve always hung out with,” or “they’re available,” or “other people like them.”
If this is you, then you can do better than that. Each of us deserves to be picky when it comes to something as significant as our closest relationships. More importantly, our lives can get so much better if we are willing to consciously choose people who truly offer us joy, support, and acceptance.
But as I mentioned earlier, adjusting our list of close friends is more difficult than it sounds. So I’d like to offer you a simple self-check to help you recognize whether or not you are content with the people you currently have in your inner circle. Then, I’ll map out a strategy for choosing better friends, and improving the social influences in your life.
Why Choosing Your Closest Friends Intentionally is Essential
Before you check in with yourself and your own relationships, it’s important to get an idea of how deeply the people in your life can affect you.
You’ve probably noticed it’s really common to pick up sayings, behaviors, and even interests from your friends. But your friends’ lifestyles can affect way more than just little mannerisms. They can affect major outcomes in your life too.
According to a U.S. study involving 12,000 people, if a person had a friend who gained a lot of weight in a short period of time, their own chances of gaining a lot of weight increased by 57%. If the associated person was a sibling, the likelihood increased by 40%. While this study focused only on weight gain, similar studies were done on smoking and other habits. Overall, the same principle follows for anything else in your life.
If all of your friends like learning new things, you’re more likely to learn new things. If you hang out with people who are smart with their money, you’re more likely to be smart with your money. And if you spend time with people who are actively trying to improve themselves, then you’ll be more likely to improve too.
Long story short, if you want to get closer to the person you want to be, you have to be intentional about who you spend time with (and who you keep close to your heart).
Disclaimer: I am NOT suggesting that you stop being friends with people who don’t live exactly the way you want to live. And I’m also not suggesting removing friends who have unhealthy habits. I’m only suggesting you intentionally surround yourself with people who reflect the values that are most important to you. You are the only person who gets to decide what those values are and what it means for someone to have a “positive impact” on your life.
How to Conduct a Self-Check
The best way I know of to make sure the friends I choose are a positive force in my life is based on the following quote by motivational speaker and entrepreneur, Jim Rohn,
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
Jim Rohn
The self check is simple, just follow these four steps:
- Take a moment to think of your five closest friends, or the five people you spend the most time with. (Since we’re currently facing a pandemic, this list might be people who you text or call frequently)
- Consider their values, mindsets, and behaviors.
- Imagine the average of those 5 personalities.
- Ask yourself, does that average represent you? Does it represent the person you want to be?
If the answer to either of the questions in number four is “no,” then you’ve got some adjusting to do. Because if you want to achieve a better life, you have to be willing to intentionally mold your social environment.
There are tons of articles about the concept of your top five people, and almost all of them suggest: if someone is bringing down your average, you have to reduce his or her involvement in your life. Not doing so may hinder your energy, vision and ultimate success.
This does not mean your friends need to be perfect. Your friends are allowed to make mistakes and be exactly who they are. However, when you choose who you want to hold closest to you, you’ll be a lot better off if you choose people who have an overall positive effect on your life.
How to Revise Your Closest Friends List
When you start to adjust your top five, don’t worry too much about hurting anyone’s feelings. You don’t have to burn bridges or cut people completely out of your life to make this shift.
Instead, all you have to do is figure out which people brighten your life and possess the characteristics you value more than anyone else. Then make a conscious effort to invest more time in your relationship with them.
To make the process simple, try asking yourself the following questions.
- Which qualities or values are most important to you?
- Which friends best represent those values?
- What do you think are the most important qualities in a friend?
- Which people in your life best represent those qualities?
- Who offers you compassion?
- Which people are there for you when you really need them?
- Who genuinely cares about your happiness and well-being?
Once you’ve answered these questions, compile a small list of the people who popped up in your answers. If there is someone who would make your “average” closer to your ideal self but wasn’t in your original list of five people (perhaps a sixth or seventh friend in your current list of pals), then it’s time to invest more time in deepening and maintaining that relationship.
Also, your list can and likely will change over time. Sometimes our values change, our circumstances change, or other people change. Every once in a while, it’s good to re-evaluate to make sure the people who you keep close are still people who support and accept you.
Put Simply,
Your life is ultimately directed by you, but getting wherever you’re going is a team effort, and your teammates are the people closest to you. So, if you want to be successful, happy, and fulfilled, you need to pick some good teammates and keep the right kinds of people in your corner.
Did this post resonate with you? If so, I’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment or send me a message to share your thoughts. For more uplifting content, check out some other posts on my blog, follow me on instagram @morgan_barbret, or sign up for the Self Love Atlas Newsletter!
Cheers,
Morgan Rita Barbret
