Are the people around you helping you grow or holding you back?
Just last week I had a client say to me, “It’s easy to get sucked into the negative [work] environment. You remind me each week of who I want to be regardless of what’s going on around me.”
My client is absolutely right about how easy it is to get “sucked into” attitudes of coworkers. People unintentionally start to pick up the attitudes and beliefs of the people around them because they hear their thoughts every day. It is natural to start to emulate these thoughts and feelings. This can be a positive thing if the people around you are where you want to be.
W. Clement Stone describes this phenomenon in the following quote: -
“You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success - or are they holding you back?”
But what if you look around and don’t want to be like the people you are surrounded by? It isn’t realistic (for most people) to stop interacting with their family, quit their job, and/or stop seeing people in their community to change up their environment.
However, in today’s especially connected world, it is easy to “surround” yourself with new people. Listen to a podcast from someone you admire. Start following people on social media you want to be like. Evaluate if the people you are currently following on social media are creating a vision for where you want to be or simply reinforcing who you are right now.
Who are you jealous of? Instead of thinking of this as a bad thing, think of it as a hint of something you would like to have.
Take an inventory of the people you interact with in-person and online on social media
Look for themes
Ask yourself if you want to be like these people
Get curious about who you want to be by asking yourself questions about these people
What do they like to do?
What are their habits like?
Where do they work?
What are they creating?
Create a vision of where you want to be in 5 years
Invest time, thinking, money, etc. into becoming that version of yourself
Look for people who believe you can create that vision
The client I quoted above has used this approach throughout 2021. Her environment was far from inspirational and she was frustrated with the lack of a clear vision for her group. She also found herself often falling into the trap of the “blame and complain” game which was very prevalent in the culture of her company. What she came to realize through coaching and mindset work was that she could still create a clear vision for herself and choose to be the person she was looking for.
“Now instead of being frustrated that I can’t find that person I want to become within my organization, I imagine myself being the person that others in my organization seek to emulate. ”
Surround yourself (even in small ways) with people who believe in your vision of who you are becoming.
