Your circle of influence

"For good or bad, you are influenced by the people you are around the most"

In previous blogs I have talked about "circle of influence" in the sense of you should only worry about the things you can personally influence in life, however this is more focused on the circle of friends, family and colleagues that you keep that directly or indirectly influence you.

Why is this important

We might know the saying "Negativity breeds Negativity" well the opposite "Positivity fosters Positivity" is true too, and it doesn't end there, a circle of influence that is open and honest will foster more of the same, if you want to be supported on your growth journey find others who believe the same, this helps to support you as you support them. It becomes a self supporting system over time. The second element is to surround yourself with others who have complementary skills to your own, are you good at everything? well no maybe not, practice your self awareness and find those areas you need help with.

And remember that negative influencer really takes up your most precious resource ...... your time

Influence can come in two forms, direct and indirect, some strategies on addressing either one of them is detailed below.

Direct Influence

Direct influence is usually easy to see if you’re looking for it, it can look like someone forcing or very vocal about their negative ideas or opinions. This can be combated with the following strategies;

Decide - Remember you choose how to react to something; you can choose not to give that person the influence and/or power over you.

Limit - Limit the exposure you have to that person.

Eliminate – Don’t see that person at all in the future.

Indirect Influence

Indirect influence over you is harder to notice and as such harder to manage, professionally I have seen in on multiple occasions this type of influence negatively effects good people that are surrounded by a negative culture or environment and adopting it as their own, this takes vigilance and attention and usually an outside observer to take action as it is hard to see the full picture when we are so close or imbedded into the negative culture.

The Trap

Now from the above it could be easy to remove all people that disagree or challenge us, that is a trap that holds back growth, listen to others that hold a contradictory view that challenges our opinions or ideas, there can be good in that view point.

In closing remember it's not about just surrounding yourself with people who agree with everything you say or do that will just lead you to failure, it’s about surrounding yourself with people who always challenge you on your ideas, push you to be better every day, celebrate in your success and support you in failure.

Enjoy Growth

Mitch