Who do you attract? Who influences you?

April 5, 2012

For most, surrounding yourself with the right people means surrounding yourself with people that will have a good, positive influence on your life.  For a select few though, it might mean the opposite.  So depending on what you are striving for in life, you should surround yourself with people striving for those same goals.  For me, I feel we should surround ourselves with people who will build us up and not bring us down; people who are honest with a good work ethic, for example, versus people who are dishonest and lazy with no motivation.  I know you all know the saying “you are what you eat”, well I think this can also be said as “you are who you’re with” because people have such a great influence on each other.

Whether you know it’s happening or not, you are picking up on things from the people around you.  It might be small things such as sayings, habits both good and bad, or even an accent.  I went to a college in Southern Indiana, down by the border of Kentucky, it was only 5.5 hours south of where I was from, but the accent was a huge difference.  It didn’t take long for me to pick up the accent; I think it was about 3 months before I had a full southern twang!  But, I swore I would never say the word “y'all”.  I don’t know what happened, and I definitely didn’t see it coming, it just came out!  Of course, I was home for some holiday at that point with my friends, they were already making fun of my new southern accent, and the “y’all” just put them over the edge!  I was so embarrassed that I wasn’t able to control what I said… it just came out like second nature.  It’s because everyone I was surrounded by, down at school, talked like that.  This example just shows how easy it is to be influenced even if you are dead set against it.

You also need to know who you are and who you want to be and keep in good company of those who will be a good influence.  In surrounding yourself with the wrong type of people, their bad influences will eventually become second nature to you, and you won’t think anything of it anymore.  Things that used to bother you - wouldn’t anymore, or things you’d never thought you’d do – you’d do.  And like I said in my accent example, you won’t see it coming, not with everyone around you doing those same things and them being okay.  That is why it is so important to surround yourself with the right people.

Are you currently surrounding yourself with the right people?

Do you have any examples of being influenced by the people you have surrounded yourself with, good or bad?