If the people around you aren’t making you better… it’s time to change who’s around you.
You become the sum of the people you surround yourself with - whether it’s their energy, their expectations or their standards.
Whether you realise it or not, they’re shaping your choices, impacting on your confidence, and ultimately altering your future, whether in a positive way or not. Sometimes, the hardest, but most necessary decision is to step away from people you’ve loved deeply, but who are no longer good for you.
I’ve done this twice in my life with people I cared incredibly deeply about.
Once with my best mate and once with a very close member of my family. I call it “cutting the cord”.
Both times it broke my heart in such a fundamental way and at the same time, both times it freed me.
I find myself in a similar situation right now. Someone I care deeply for and have supported unreservedly, making all the wrong choices in life, living with very different values and ultimately being an anchor on my life – they may even be reading this and wondering if I’m talking about them. There is only so much support I can offer someone who, in the end, doesn’t want, rejects or actively lives by different values from me.
It wasn’t because they were bad people – they weren’t and aren’t. In their own way, they were and are great people. It was because they were no longer lifting me up and the harsh reality was, they were quietly dragging me down; whether through their negativity, their choices, their expectations or their misalignment with my values… or lack of them.
I realised that I can’t help anyone if I’m drowning too. You have to protect your peace, your energy and your future, even if it costs you people who you were once close.
Does this make me an asshole? In many people’s eyes it probably does. But I fundamentally believe one thing to be true:
You are the sum of the people you surround yourself with.
These days, I surround myself with people who challenge me, people who hold up the mirror, ask better questions and raise the bar in an uncompromising way. Of course, I want compassionate people around me (who doesn’t?), but I also want relationships that are mutual. Those are the ones where I add as much value as I receive. It can’t be a one-way street anymore and for too long, that’s exactly how it felt.
Sometimes that’s a friend. Sometimes it’s a coach. But always — always — it’s someone who makes me better and who I hope, in turn, I make better too.
Who’s in your front row?
Who needs a seat further back?
And who, if you’re being brutally honest, needs to leave the arena altogether?
Hard truths. But powerful ones.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this subject, so drop a comment on Instagram or LinkedIn (links at the top of this page).
