Surround Yourself With That Which You Aspire To Be

Is your life filled with positive, supportive people? Or do you have toxic people in your life who bring you down with their negativity? Do you know people who undervalue your choices and goals? Sometimes these people can even turn out to be our family and friends.

While you may not be able to completely escape a person’s negativity (especially if it’s a family member), you can incorporate more positive people into your life. Sometimes our internal efforts to stay positive can buckle, especially when there is a constant negative influence in our life. This is why it’s important to surround yourself with supportive influences to help strengthen your resolve against the discouraging ones. You may be asking, “Well, where do I find these people?”

With the Internet, it’s as easy as ever! So you want to eat healthier and lose weight? There are TONS of blogs out there that pertain to health and weight loss. Many people blog about their own personal experiences and explain how they reached their goals. Find these blogs and visit them on a regular basis. Soak up the information. Once you’ve gained that information, take the next step and act on it. When you know which foods are healthy and how to prepare them, you can start surrounding yourself with those foods. Start stocking up on fruits and vegetables instead of potato chips and pop. You will never reach your goal if all you have in your cupboards is junk food!

Look around your area for people who can help you in your journey. Do you want to learn a particular skill? Visit your city’s web page and see if there is a group you could contact about a skill you want to learn. Find out if your local community college offers classes on that particular skill. I’m sure people would be more than happy to share their knowledge with you.

If you can’t find people in your area to support you, join online support groups. There are forums full of people out there who are trying to achieve the exact same thing you are trying to acheive. They’re also full of people who have been successful at the very same thing you’re trying to do. Seek them out!

And don’t forget books! Visit your local library and stock up on books on whatever subject it is you want to learn. Can’t find the book you want at your library? Ask your librarian about interlibrary loan. If a different library has the book you want, you can ask to have it delivered to your library. You can also find used books really cheaply on the internet as well. I’ve used Amazon to find used books for a much lower price than if I were to buy them new. Amazon also has many e-books you can choose from. All of the e-books I’ve looked up for myself have always been cheaper than the physical book. Sometimes they’re even free!

I love bookmarking sites. I love knowing that if I want certain information, I can come back to it at any time. Once I found out the shortcut for bookmarking (CTRL-D by the way), I was good to go! What I did next was bookmark sites and blogs that are in line with my goals. For instance, I’d like to eat more whole, organic foods, and I’d like to know how exactly to do that on a budget. So I went to Google, typed “organic food on a budget” and bookmarked the first page of sites I found. Now that they’re all bookmarked, I can learn all I want about eating organic food on a budget. Then I can take steps to act on the information and use it to change my life.

If you want to reach your goals, you must surround yourself with that which you aspire to be.

I have so much more to say about this topic. I will be compiling a list that touches more deeply on the points in this post, so be on the lookout for more!

Finding Direction

Someone once described me as a hummingbird, a creature who flits about seemingly randomly without any sort of direction. I can see why they said that!

I have a hard time with choices. I just don’t want to make the wrong one! As you can imagine, I had a tough time in college. There were so many paths I could walk down, but I was afraid of even choosing one. What if I made the wrong decision? What if I committed all of my time to one thing only to find that I hated it? The thought of doing only one thing for the rest of my life terrified me. It sounded so stagnant and boring. I struggled with questions like, “What’s my calling? What am I passionate about enough to want to do it for the rest of my life?” I couldn’t come up with a concrete answer. I wanted to do so many things! I wanted to learn how to cook, dance, act, speak another language, learn to play other instruments (besides the saxopohone!), and so much more. Like a hummingbird, I’d flit back and forth between each idea. I’d even try them out a little, but I was so scattered about it. I’d become excited about one thing, try it for a little while, lose interest and move on to the next thing that caught my attention. Then I would become frustrated. “What’s wrong with me?” I’d ask myself. “Why does everyone around me seem to know what they want to do with their lives but I don’t?” Even though I was afraid of living a stagnant life, I was stagnant. I had no direction. I lived in a grey area. Hummingbirds had more direction than me!

The problem was I hadn’t asked myself an important question: What is important to me? Instead, I was investing my time in things that sounded interesting to me on the surface. I would immerse myself in a subject for days. I’d drown myself in it desperately wanting it to be my “calling.” Then I’d completely lose interest and walk away feeling even more frustrated with my life.

So how do you find direction? You sit down in a quiet place and you find out what’s important to you. I think a good way to do this is to ask yourself how you want to help others. Instead of asking yourself, “What do I want to do with the rest of my life?” turn the focus of that question outward. Ask yourself these questions to help get to the core of what you want from your life:

What do I want impact the lives of others in a positive way?

How do I want to help others?

If I could teach somebody anything I wanted, what would it be?

What would I enjoy helping others with even if I wasn't paid to do it?

These questions will point you in the direction of what is truly important to you at this moment in your life. Armed with that information you can then move on to transforming your life into the one that you want to live.

Remember, even hummingbirds know where they want to go!