Who’s In Your Circle?
“If you look at the people in your circle and you don’t get inspired you don’t have a circle, you have a cage.”
At this point in your life, you know better than to seek advice from anyone who clearly doesn’t know what they’re talking about, right? You wouldn’t ask for weight loss advice from someone who’s overweight, and you wouldn’t ask for relationship advice from someone whose longest relationship was 6 months. (Please don’t be offended if you are either of those people. You’re still amazing, just not experienced in that particular subject).
It’s a pretty well-known rule that you don’t take advice (or criticism, for that matter) from anyone whose life you don’t want. What’s not as well known, or even discussed, is the fact that simply being around someone whose goals and ideals don’t align with yours can have a major influence on you.
Think about it this way…
Going back to the weight loss example, let’s say you’ve been trying to make healthier choices for a while. You’ve started working out, swapping french fries for carrot sticks, and forcing yourself to go to bed with enough time to allow a minimum of 7 hours of sleep (funny that no one ever mentions sleep when talking about health, but I digress). You find yourself on a roll Monday-Friday, doing all the great exercise and eating all the healthy foods. Go you! Then Saturday night rolls around, and Bestie wants you to hang out and eat/drink the week’s stress away.
To be clear, Bestie has zero interest in living the healthy life, and her idea of a healthy food choice is skipping the bacon on her cheese fries (don’t you roll your eyes at me, that does NOT count). When you’re by yourself, you can enjoy a drink or two and some fries, but you know your limits and will either serve yourself a small portion, or cut yourself off after a certain point. When Bestie’s around, there are no rules, and although you’ve told her that you’re doing really great on your health journey, she still manages to convince you that you only get this one life and you should just eat that second bowl of ice cream, already.
Doesn’t Bestie sound like fun? Everyone needs one in their life, right? Wrong! Don’t hate me but I have to keep it real with you. Having a friend who talks you into loosening up your routine every now and then can be a good thing, but when it’s constant, and you find yourself undoing all of your hard work by throwing all rules and routines to the wind, it’s a problem. The fact that this so-called friend of yours regularly disregards your goals is also a problem, and more of a sign of stifling than supporting.
Real friends are supportive
Losing weight is just a simple example, but this kind of “friend” can apply to any scenario that involves you trying something new and feeling like you have to put a pause on it around a certain person. Maybe you want to start a new career, go back to school, trade late nights at the bar for a glass of wine and a good book as a way to relax. Whatever your journey, it’s a sign of growth. You want to try new things, discover new parts of yourself, and that can often mean a shift in your relationships IF the people you’re in those relationships with aren’t on board.
Now this doesn’t mean that your friends have to do everything you want to do. (Hello, we’re not in middle school). What it does mean is that your friends should support and encourage you when you’re reaching for a goal, most especially when it’s something that they aren’t interested in trying themselves. Real friendship, real support comes in the form of pushing you to accomplish whatever you set out to do. Rather than talk you into having that fifth drink, a real friend would remind you that two is your limit. Instead of making a face when you say you don’t want to go out for the third Saturday in a row, a real friend would show up at your house with wine and popcorn in their pajamas so you can still enjoy each other’s company.
Your circle should make you feel inspired
As Nipsey said, if your circle doesn’t inspire you, then it’s really a cage. Being surrounded by people who don’t share your vision for life will ultimately hold you back. It’s the worst kind of toxicity because you don’t even notice it. Like I said, you’re not actually asking for advice and these people aren’t actually saying that you shouldn’t try new things, or that you won’t be successful. But by not actively supporting your goals, or worse, not going after any of their own, they’re subtly nudging you to stay just as you are. Misery loves company, and so does Comfort. They both need you to stay exactly as you are and play the role that your friends have assigned you in their lives. They say, “Who are you to up and change what the people close to you have come to expect?” The thing you have to remember is that you’re living your life for yourself, not anyone else, and the only expectations you need to meet are your own.
The people that you choose to surround yourself with should be people whose lives you want to emulate. Let’s not confuse this with envy, because you don’t want what someone else has, you just want to live your life in the way they do. Your friends should have their sh*t together, to put it bluntly. They should have healthy relationships, a healthy mind and body, and the maturity to be supportive of your endeavors, whatever they may be.
Breaking up is hard to do
Here comes the hardest part of this message, friends. It may seem ridiculous to comb through your list of friends and analyze the value that they bring to your life. It may even seem juvenile (I’m actually thinking of that scene in Mean Girls… “You can’t sit with us!”). In reality, being intentional about your circle of friends is one of the most important acts of adult-ing that you can do. If you find that there are people in your circle that are holding you back, whether it’s intentional or not, you need to consider putting some distance between you. As much as you’d like to think that you’re self-confident and self-assured enough to be immune to outside influences, that’s just not realistic. The attitudes and energies of others can and will affect you. Make your circle small and choose those whom you let in wisely.
