If you want to improve in any area of your life, the best thing you can do is surround yourself, who are already what you want to be. By just hanging around successful people, their mannerisms and habits will begin to rub off on you. We always conform to the group we are into some degree. Why not surround yourself with people who want to be great and conform to that?
You can try and succeed on your own, but it will never happen as quickly compared to doing it with other people. When you aim to succeed with other people, you give your chance to learn from their mistakes. Your friends become mentors to you.
“Surround yourself with those who only lift you higher.” Oprah Winfrey
Why You Need to Surround Yourself With People Doing Better Than You
You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. If you spend your time with people who are doing worse than you, they will drag you down. It's not about money either, and it pertains to any area you want to improve. You can hang around the wealthiest people in the world, but if they are all disorganized and you're trying to improve that skill, they will not help you.
You have to surround yourself with people who want to dominate in the same areas you want to dominate. That is why you will have different groups for different reasons. You could have a group you hang with for help being a good husband, another group for wealth, and then the last group for your organization skills.
The more you hang around these people who are excellent in these different areas, the more you will be dragged to their level. No one wants to be the worst of the worst in their circle of friends. They will naturally start to pull you up.
7 Ways to Surround Yourself With People Who Want to Be Great
1. Cut Off The Bad Relationships
The best place to start when you want to upgrade the people you spend your time with is to stop spending time with negative people in yourself. If you know, there are people who you hang around that have been holding you back, cut them off.
Its never easy to cut a person loose, but your success depends on it. If you try and enter a new circle of friends with negative people at your side, the will reject the entire group.
2. Know What You Want
Before you can choose the best people to be around, you have to know what direction you're heading. When you know where you're going, you can figure out what skills you need to get there. Let's say you want to start a website like this one and build the traffic to it. That means you need to get around more people who already know how to build awesome websites.
If you don't know what you want, you will have no way of knowing if you're hanging around the right people. You don't need to hang around generally successful people. Though their mindset is worth learning from, overall, they will not be as much help as someone with specific skills.
3. Pay a Coach
The reason you want to pay a coach is to make sure that you are being held accountable. You can hang around people who are playing life at a higher level, but they may not care to babysit you.
When you have a coach, though, it will be their job to make sure that you are improving. They will also have connections to other people playing this game of life at a high level.
4. Ask for Mentors
Mentors are people in the field who you will meet with regularly to be challenged and learn from. A coach may not be in the industry anymore, but they still may know how to teach you in a way that helps you improve.
On the other hand, a mentor has been doing it for at least 10 years longer than you. They have a lot of wisdom just from experience. A mentor will take time to give back, but they will often be busy with their own stuff.
A mentor will not be a friend as much as they will be someone that you look up to for advice. The worst thing you can do is waste a mentors time.
5. Join a Community Group
Joining a local community group is the best way to start finding a new friend group. They provide opportunities to network with people who care about the same things as you.
Become as active in these community groups and don't go to them with the intention of using people. The whole point of joining these groups is to give and help to support the community. The more you grow and support the community, the more people will want to help you.
6. Develop Tight Bonds
After working with community groups, coaches, and mentors, you will start to develop some tight bonds. You want to make sure that these relationships thrive. It's not easy to create close bonds with people who you also can look up to.
Relationships are like flowers. If you take care of them, they are beautiful, and they thrive. If you don't take care of them, they wither and die.
7. Surround Yourself With Great Books
The last thing you can do is surround yourself with books by amazing authors. The best part about this is that you can learn from people who are dead. Think of these books as being extensions of your friends. You can go to them with questions and concerns and learn from what people you can't meet would do.
In a perfect world, you could be mentored by the best, but that is not always realistic. Successful people only have so much time on their hands. When they write books, though, they often leave the keys to success behind in them.
5 Types of People You Must Surround Yourself With
As you are building and expanding your inner-circle, you need to understand that you need a few different types of people. You can't have all positive people, for example, or else you will have too much confidence. You need a mix of these personalities.
1. The Over-Ambitious Friend
You need a friend that is just ambitious beyond reason. They will keep you hungry for more of everything. Not only is this person learning at an insane rate, but they are always starting and trying new things. They fearlessly live life.
2. The Positive Nut
The positive nut is who you go to when you're feeling down. They are going to make you feel better. Nothing ever gets these people down, and they can see the positive in every situation.
3. The Problem Solver
This person is only alive when they can solve problems. It does not matter if you need a person, a gadget, or a new approach; the problem solver is happy to get it done. They see your problems as their opportunities, and they are happy to attack it.
4. The Devils Advocate
The Devils Advocate is the one that people avoid the most because no one wants to have to explain themselves or get their dreams crushed. This person can be so valuable, though, because they point out truths. They think of the worst-case and help you to find holes in your thinking and logic.
5. On a New Level
The last thing you want is someone living life at so much higher of a level that it's hard for you even to imagine having a life like them. They will stretch your mind the most.
Quotes to Inspire You to Surround Yourself With People Who Want to Be Great
“Surround yourself with those who only lift you higher.” Oprah Winfrey
“You’re a product of your environment, surround yourself with the best.” Anonymous
“Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground.” Wilfred Peterson
“Surround yourself with people who have dreams, desire, and ambition; they’ll help you push for, and realize your own.” Anonymous
“If you surround yourself with positive people who build you up, the sky is the limit.” Joel Brown
“People inspire you, or they drain you – pick them wisely.” Hans F. Hansen
"I think if I've learned anything about friendship, it's to hang in, stay connected, fight for them, and let them fight for you. Don't walk away, don't be distracted, don't be too busy or tired, don't take them for granted. Friends are part of the glue that holds life and faith together. Powerful stuff." Jon Katz
"Friends are the family you choose." Jess C. Scott
"Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend." Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down." Oprah
"The language of friendship is not words but meanings." Henry David Thoreau
"Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together." Woodrow Wilson