You might not fully agree with this quote, but you can probably see how the people you hang out with are affecting the person you become.
This is what I want to talk to you about today. It is about becoming aware of who do you spend the most time with. Many of us often go through our day living reactively and going along with whatever live brings us. And yet if you become aware of where you time goes and who do you spend the most of your time with, you can then make a conscious action. You can actually consciously choose who you spend most of your time with.
First of all of course you need to become clear about your goals, dreams and desires, and we talked a lot about this in the previous videos. I assume now that you are clear on what is it that you want to achieve.
The next (or another) good question to ask yourself is who do you want to become. What kind of person do you want to become?
Then check with yourself how the people around you, those with whom you spend the most time with, are affecting and influencing this. Are they being supportive in this?
For example, you might have colleagues that are successful – and are a good example for you in this regard; if they are supportive towards you at the same time, this is great!
However if there are people in your life who you get to spend a lot of time with who drain your energy or diminish you in some way – this would not be helping you in achieving what you want. This will not be supportive for you becoming more productive.
When you choose who to spend the most of your time with consider people who encourage you, who support you and who delight in everything you do! (These are by the way the words from my daily intention: “I am surrounded by people who support me, who encourage me and who delight in everything I do!”) And you would probably agree that being surrounded by such people can do a lot to what we achieve, who we become and how productive we are.
The recent example from my own life is when I was making the transition from being a scientist for the last 15 years to becoming a businesswoman. To help myself with the transition I consciously chose to hang out with people who are successful businessmen and businesswomen. I’ve been learning from them even just by listening to what they are interested in.
There is also one thing that can happen to you as a side effect of this… You could be getting much more from the encouraging people than you even expect. People who I chose to hang out with led me to experiencing an immense personal growth that I could not even foresee. I did not even know I would ever learn or achieve the things I have now achieved. So I did learn about business from them, and my personal growth was a BONUS that I got from this interaction.
There could be unexpected aspects of the interaction with other people and I invite you to be open to them. For example, I have two small children that simply adore me. Just to sit and listen to what they tell me in adoration and soak it all up makes me feel good and as a result makes me more productive. So be open to this (sometimes unexpected) type of interaction; it does not all need to be with your colleagues, or friends or family. It just needs to be supportive and in alignment with your own dreams nad goals.
This supportive interaction does not even need to be in person! This is what is so great about modern technology: you can stay in touch via skype for example. I’ve been having the interaction with my mentor via skype during the past two years; I went to see her just once during these two years. And being in touch via skype has been working for me wonderfully. So you too can explore other media to keep this support going – it all counts in achieving what you want!
This week’s Productivity for Scientists assignment:
Become aware of who you hang out with. Who are those 5 people you spend the most time with? Keeping in mind your goals, dreams and desires and the person you want to become, check with yourself how those people support and encourage you to achieve those goals and become that person. Then you can consciously start shifting your focus away from certain people who drain your energy and diminish you to those people who support and encourage you.
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