Do you surround yourself with people who are willing to settle for the status quo and even less in their lives? Or do you take off on the same runway as people who soar?
“Surround yourself with only people who are
going to lift you higher.” Oprah Winfrey
People who need people are the luckiest people in the world. That’s the sentiment expressed in the song People, one of the first songs written for the 1964 Broadway musical, Funny Girl.
You are lucky, or better yet, blessed, when you have people who will walk alongside you and encourage you as you discover your God-given life purpose and begin to fulfill it. But you’re not so lucky when people intentionally or unintentionally sabotage your efforts.
People around you can influence positively or negatively affect you mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. They can affect the direction you take.
They can energize you or dampen your enthusiasm, being fine examples of what it means to “just get along” in mediocrity.
Pursue Positive Partners
Positive partners are people who will help you discover and fulfill your God-given life purpose, and excel in the process. Positivity and happiness are contagious and influence success. To discover your God-given life purpose is a choice. To fulfill it is a series of many choices. Every choice you make is influenced by the people you allow into your life.
Your chances of successfully fulfilling your life purpose, whatever it may be, is in direct proportion to the positive nature of those people.
I think it's counterproductive in many ways to pretend to know things you don't. You surround yourself with people who are the real experts. Mario Andretti
Whether you surround yourself with positive people or negative people, their traits, their approach to life and its challenges, will rub off on you. You can count on it!
Positive People Will Inspire
Positive people and open-minded people will inspire you, psychologically pushing and pulling you to do better and be better, and accomplish more. Closed-mined people will stop trying, stopped reaching.
Surround yourself with people who are positive influencers in the domains of your life in which you want to succeed. It will also give you a chance to learn successful strategies and coping strategies.
As you begin to succeed in the domains of your life, you will be moved to thank God for his help. This will be easier to do and seem more natural if you surround yourself with positive people who are thankful people.
Finally, if you do come in contact with negative people, whether in person or on social media, don’t feel obligated to engage him or her in a lengthy conversation, argument, or stream of posts. Don’t feel guilty or feel you need to offer an explanation for not doing ending or down-sizing the relationship.
In God’s Words
“The heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge, but the mouths of fools feed on folly.” (Proverbs 15:14)
“Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man.” (Proverbs 22:24)
“As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him,” Titus 3:10
In Your Words
Name three people who have been a positive influence on you and who could be a positive influence on you in the future. Describe why.
Think about the people you know who will motivate you, improve you, and uplift your attitude and your confidence, increasing your chances of success.
