Evaluating Your Associations

Never underestimate the power of influence. The influence of those around us is so powerful than often times we don't even realize we're being strongly affected because influences generally develop over an extended period of time.

Peer pressure is an especially powerful force because it is so subtle. If you're around people who blow all of their money on wasteful things, chances are excellent that you'll spend all you make on the same wasteful things. If you are around people who invest more into video games and movies than education and books, chances are excellent that you have a house full of video games and movies with few books. If you are around people who “play” church on Sunday, but live like the devil the rest of the week, chances are excellent that you only show your “faith” on Sundays. People can keep nudging us off course a little at a time until, finally, we find ourselves asking, "How did I get here?" It is these subtle influences in our lives that need to be studied carefully if we really want to take control of our lives and truly direct our own path.

Let me give you three important questions to ask yourself in order to help evaluate your association. They may help you to make better analysis of who you are allowing to have influence over your life and the directions they are taking you.

First question: "Who am I around?"

Make a mental note of the people with whom you associate with the most. It is important that you evaluate everybody in your life who is able to influence you in any way, from your closest family member to that guy on the corner that you carry on occasional conversations with to the person on your Facebook page that you never actually met, but somehow became connected with.

Second question is: "What are these associations doing to me?"

This is a major question to always ask about every association that you have.

What do they have you doing?

What have they gotten you to watch and listen to? What kind of entertainment have they directed you into accepting? What have they gotten you to read? Where have they got you going? How are they directing your thoughts? How is your speaking around them? What are you feeling when around them…guilty, frustrated, happy? You have to make a serious study of how others are influencing you, both negatively and positively.

Final question: "Is their influence positive or negative and am I alright with that?"

Whether everyone you associate with is a positive, energizing influence or there are some bad apples in the bunch, you need to take a close and objective look at each one. Everything is worth a second look, especially when it comes to those who hold a power of influence over you. Both will take you somewhere, but if they are not taking you in the direction you need to go, then that relationship needs to be reevaluated.

It's easy to just dismiss the things that influence our lives, but everything and everyone in our lives amounts to something. You have to continually investigate to find out whether your associations are leaning you more toward the positive or toward the negative ends of the spectrum of influence. Ignorance is never the best policy; ignoring negative influences will only hurt you in the long run. In the very least, they will hold you back and keep you in the current place you are in.

Jim Rohn tells a proverb about a little bird…

The owl said to the bird, "You are crying." "Yes," said the little bird, and he pulled his wing away from his eye. "Oh, I see," said the owl. "You're crying because the big bird pecked out your eye." And the little bird said, "No, I'm not crying because the big bird pecked out my eye. I'm crying because I let him."

It's easy to let our influences shape our lives, to let associations determine our direction is to let them determine our destination. The big question is: Are we working toward becoming what we wish to become or what others have planned for us?

How to handle the negative

Now let’s discuss some ways to handle associations or relationships that are holding you back.

1) Disassociate. This is not an easy decision, nor something you should take lightly, but in some cases it may be the only way to take care of an association that is holding you down.. It can be the hardest decision that you will ever make, but some people and situations are like a cancer, that you need to cut out of your life completely or it will only continue to become more of a negative influence in your life until it devours you. If you have a drug problem, for example, you need to completely disassociate from those who give you the drugs and make it easy for you to access them.

2) Limited association. Spend major time with major influences and minor time with minor influences. It is often times, easier to do just the opposite if we are not careful, but don't fall into that trap. Take a look at your priorities and your values. Time is the only thing in our lives that we can never get back, and to waste it on influences that drag us down and keep us from the things that will help us achieve our goals is a negative influence, but not necessarily one that you would totally have to dismiss from your life, just limit the amount of influence by limiting the association. Invest it wisely and the investment will pay off. If your goal is to lose weight, it is all right to eat chocolate cake every once in a while and it will not affect you, but if you eat it all the time, good luck keeping the weight off. Evaluate those who influences in your life that less association will benefit you and work on ways to limit your association with those influences.

3) Expanding your associations. This is the one I suggest you focus on the most. Find other successful people who you can spend more time with. Invite them to lunch (pick up the tab) and pick their brains. Now, this is not just about financial success; it can be someone who you want to learn from about having a better marriage, being a better parent, having better health or a stronger spiritual life. If you only eliminate influences in your life without filling the void with an influence that will help direct you in achieving your goals, then you are merely creating a void in your life that will eventually be refilled by the influence that you got rid of or another negative influence that is just as bad or worse. The drug user that quits drugs and drops his drug dealers from his sphere of influence, but doesn’t replace that influence will find it getting replaced down the road with someone who will eventually lead him back to drugs.

It is called association on purpose—getting around the right people by expanding your circle of influence. And when you do that, you will naturally limit the relationships that are holding you back. Give it a try and see for yourself.

The purpose of these blog posts is to help you strive to be more successful and to create a life worth living, so I never want to end a post without giving your some sort of “power question” to ponder over. Answering these questions will help you to take action.

Power Question for the day: What do you want more of in life? (make a list)