Be cognizant of who you hang around with

The people whom you have the most contact with and hang around will have either a positive or negative implication on your levels of self-esteem and confidence. We all know those people who are positive, happy and joyful to be around. How do they make you feel?

Yes, they make you feel the same! They can but zest into a boring atmosphere and can fill the room with positive, can do vibes that has a knock on effect onto everyone else. We also know of those people who could grumble for everything! They never had the opportunities, they are always putting people down, they don’t like others to be successful, they are jealous and are negative thinkers - need I go on!

These people drain your energy and bring you down to their level, miles away from the level that YOU want to be operating on. Family members can be a lot like this sometimes, also but you can always choose your friends, you can never choose your family! Many a times, people get stuck with jobs with organizations living with negative, suppressive cultures that may affect a perfectly normal individual.

So what should you do to make sure that the people who you hang around with empower and support what you stand for rather than bring you down all of the time?

1.                   You have the power to choose who you hang around with. Ideally you want happy, vibrant and positive people. Choose cultures that are acceptable, positive and productive.

2.                   If you have good friends who are negative and yet you still want to hang around them, make a point of letting them know how you feel – if they are a true friend they will respect you for this. If they are negative from time to time just acknowledge that this is what they are like and block out the negativity.

3.                   The same can be said with family. Your more mature family members have behaviours that have been conditioned for years and years and from different eras. Appreciate where they have come from and as in number 2 above, elicit and select the information that filters through to your brain.

Remember, that nothing has meaning in life except the meaning that you give it. Make sure that your peace, satisfaction and performance is not sinking for people around you or organizations you work with. (www.thegrowthevangelist.com )